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Taiwan Rep / Notes

Your Taiwan supplier asks you to pay an offshore account. Do Taiwan's currency rules require that?

Not the rules for export payments. Taiwan's declaration rules let an exporter receive payment for goods into its own account and convert it under a routine declaration. And an ordinary company holding an account at an offshore banking unit is, by law, an entity outside Taiwan, not the company you checked in the registry. Here's what the rules say and what to ask.

Updated October 13, 2026. Law texts read from Taiwan's national law database that day; the annual allowance checked against the central bank's current guidance.

The short version

  • Under the central bank's reporting rules, a Taiwan company paid for exported goods declares the receipt through its bank. Export proceeds don't count toward its annual conversion allowance, and the rules cited here don't require the money to go to anyone else.
  • An offshore banking unit (OBU, 國際金融業務分行) takes foreign-currency deposits from individuals, companies and government agencies outside Taiwan, plus eligible financial institutions. For an ordinary company, an OBU account means an offshore entity.
  • An offshore payee can be part of a legitimate arrangement. It still has to be verified: who it is, whether it is your seller or a collection agent, and whether paying it settles what you owe.
  • Don't expect a Taiwan uniform invoice (統一發票) for exported goods. Exporters may omit it, and exports are zero-rated for business tax.

Consider a hypothetical order. The pro forma comes from a Kaohsiung bolt maker, and the bank details name a company registered in Samoa, with an account at a Taiwan bank's offshore banking unit. If you ask why, the reply may be that Taiwan's currency controls make it easier. Taiwan does regulate foreign exchange, but export proceeds are treated lightly. This note covers what the rules require when a Taiwan company is paid for exports, what an OBU account tells you, why a Taiwan invoice may never arrive, and what to ask before paying a different company than the one you checked.

What Taiwan's exchange rules ask of an exporter

The rules are in the Central Bank's Regulations Governing the Declaration of Foreign Exchange Receipts and Disbursements or Transactions (外匯收支或交易申報辦法), last amended December 26, 2022. Articles 2, 4 and 14 set out the main rules for a typical export sale, with extra requirements in Articles 5 to 7:

Large single conversions add checks. When a company converts US$1 million or more in one transaction, the bank has to verify the declaration against the contract or other supporting documents first (Article 5(1)). That is a documentation step at the bank. It doesn't call for a different payee.

In other words, a Taiwan company exporting bolts can receive US dollars into its own account at a bank in Taiwan and convert them under these declaration rules. Nothing in them requires collection through a third party.

What an OBU account tells you

If the bank confirms the account is booked at an OBU, a different law governs it. Under the Offshore Banking Act (國際金融業務條例), an OBU may take foreign-currency deposits from individuals, legal entities and government agencies outside Taiwan, and from financial institutions in or outside Taiwan (Article 4(1)(1)). For the business listed in Article 4, Article 5 lifts the restrictions of the foreign-exchange, banking and central bank laws unless the Act says otherwise. OBUs are units of banks in Taiwan, not branches abroad.

So for an ordinary company, an OBU account means the holder is a legal entity registered outside Taiwan. What the account type doesn't tell you is who owns that entity or how it relates to your supplier. A hypothetical makes the gap visible. You check "Example Bolt Co., Ltd." in the registry: active, a registered plant, the right business number. The invoice and the OBU account are in the name of "Example Holdings Ltd.", registered in Samoa. Everything you checked was about the first company. Your money goes to the second.

A different payee doesn't establish fraud by itself. A group can use an offshore trading company for commercial, banking or tax reasons, and nothing in the account type tells you which. A different payee also doesn't necessarily change who your seller is: the offshore company may be the seller, or it may be collecting on the Taiwan company's behalf. That is the question to settle in writing, because it decides whether a payment to that account discharges what you owe.

Why there may be no Taiwan invoice

A related point confuses some buyers. Taiwan businesses issue government-format uniform invoices for domestic sales, but the Regulations on the Use of Uniform Invoices let a business omit them for exported goods (Article 4, subparagraph 33), and the Value-added and Non-value-added Business Tax Act sets a zero rate for exported goods (Article 7, subparagraph 1). For an ordinary export sale, what you should ask for is a commercial invoice naming the seller, the buyer and the goods; confirm with your customs broker what else your import needs.

Whose name is on it matters. If the offshore company is your seller and the Taiwan company exports the goods, that may be a triangular trade. Confirm the roles from the contract and the export documents rather than from the invoice alone. As our certificate of origin note explains, if the exporter field on a Taiwan certificate names a third party other than the applicant or the buyer on the export declaration, the applicant has to file documents on the transaction with that party, or get special permission. And whoever invoices you, the evidence behind a Section 232 melt-and-pour declaration still traces back to the steel mill's certificate and the fastener maker's lot records.

What to ask before you pay

If the payee is the Taiwan company, compare the account name with its registered Chinese name, business number and registered English exporter name; our registry note shows where to find them and why the English name on a website may differ. If the payee is anyone else, ask for these before the first payment:

Back to that pro forma. The declaration rules for export payments don't require your money to go to Samoa. If your supplier asks for it, ask which rule it is relying on, and get the arrangement documented. The company you checked, the company you contract with and the company you pay can differ, as long as you know exactly how they're related and that your payment counts.

Want the company behind the account checked?

We check the Taiwan maker in the registries, visit the plant, and ask in person how the offshore company fits in. You get an English report with what the records and the people told us.

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This is a plain-English summary for buyers, not legal, tax or banking advice. The central bank may adjust the annual settlement allowances in Articles 4 and 6 under Article 7 of the declaration regulations.

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