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Part-time work for foreign students in Taiwan: the permit and the 20-hour week
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Part-time work for foreign students in Taiwan: the permit and the 20-hour week

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An alien resident certificate (ARC) is not a work permit (Article 43).

Students apply for that permit themselves (Article 53 of the employment regulations).

Unless the Act provides otherwise, Article 43 of the Employment Service Act says that a foreigner may not work in Taiwan without a permit the employer applied for. The Act was amended on January 20, 2025.

Foreigners married to nationals with household registration in Taiwan and permitted to reside need no work permit. See Article 48, paragraph 1, item 2.

The weekly cap

Twenty hours a week. That is the maximum for foreign students at public or registered private colleges and universities, except during winter and summer vacation. Article 50 states the cap. Item 2 covers overseas Chinese students and other ethnic Chinese students at public or registered private senior high schools and above. The same weekly maximum applies to both groups. Employers hiring either group are not limited to the job categories in Article 46, paragraph 1.

A neighbor's offer

An American exchange student, enrolled in a Taipei department for two semesters, is offered paid English tutoring two evenings a week by a neighbor with a middle-school child (an invented example). An hourly rate is named. The first evening is next Tuesday.

Unpaid help, volunteering, and internships raise the same question. The provisions cited here do not say that payment alone determines whether an activity counts as work. Before that Tuesday evening, ask the school's international office or the Workforce Development Agency.

Student status

Foreign-student status under the study regulations is what Article 50 of the employment regulations demands for item 1 of Article 50 of the Act. Article 2 covers foreign nationality only, no past Republic of China nationality, no past study in Taiwan as an overseas Chinese student, and no placement that year by the University Entrance Committee for Overseas Chinese Students. Current or former Republic of China nationality adds further conditions, including continuous residence overseas. Employment regulations: amended December 30, 2025. Study regulations: amended September 19, 2025.

Item 2 of Article 50 of the Act covers overseas Chinese students and other ethnic Chinese students. Article 52 points to overseas Chinese returning to study, Hong Kong and Macao residents studying in Taiwan, and technical training classes of the overseas Chinese affairs authority. A U.S. national in a degree program or a language center usually starts with item 1.

School certification

Article 51, paragraph 1, requires enrollment and school certification. The student must either be formally enrolled in an academic department, program, or graduate institute, or have studied a language course for at least six months. The school must also certify one fact: finances cannot sustain study and living, with concrete proof, or a teaching or research unit at the student's own school needs the student's help.

The Agency handbook includes exchange students studying in Taiwan for two semesters among those eligible to apply for a work permit. A shorter exchange does not meet that condition. This student still needs the school's certified fact.

Paragraph 2 of the same article lists two qualifications that are free of paragraph 1. One is language expertise plus case-by-case Ministry of Education approval, and then, after enrollment, part-time foreign-language teaching at a college, university, or junior-college language center, or at a language center of a foreign educational institution in Taiwan, or help with language teaching at any school level. The other is a student enrolled in graduate school who, with the school's consent, does research related to the courses being taken.

Outside winter and summer vacation, Article 50 of the Act and Article 54, paragraph 2, still cap the week at twenty hours. Those two provisions set no second number for vacation weeks. Article 51, paragraph 2, sets no different cap.

Fee and term

Under Article 2, paragraph 1, item 4, category 4 covers foreigners working under either item of Article 50 of the Act.

Under Article 53, applicants file a form, the original fee receipt, and other documents the central authority prescribes. The Agency's document page, updated November 14, 2024, requires the school's review and consent. Once receipt data are entered, the original may be omitted unless the authority asks for it.

NT$100 is the review fee for one case. Article 4 sets that fee on a foreigner's work-permit application. Article 2, paragraph 1, item 6, states the same sum for an employment-permit application under Article 50, paragraph 1, of the Act. The handbook, printed in April 2025 (L-114-V01), states the same NT$100 for an application and for a reissue.

The fee standards changed on December 31, 2025. Article 6 puts those amended provisions into effect on January 1, 2026. This fee applies as of October 13, 2026.

Online filing follows Article 7. Where the central authority has announced network filing, items from an employer's category-1 hire through a category-4 work-permit application must go that way, unless a justified reason is accepted. The employer who files that way keeps paper originals for at least five years.

Agency questions and answers point to the portal menu for overseas Chinese and foreign students' part-time applications, where the student opens an account. Suspension, withdrawal, graduation, or the end of a staged language or technical-training course ends the permit. Graduation plus admission to a bachelor's, master's, or doctoral program, and completed enrollment, is the exception. Updated September 1, 2025. Checked July 15, 2026.

Permits last one year at most under Article 54, paragraph 1. Article 55 requires the central authority to refuse false materials, and applications that miss the rules and are not corrected in the time allowed.

Category 4 here does not cover professional hires, the Employment Gold Card, or hiring without a local entity. Days that count toward income tax are in midyear arrival and departure.

No permit

Fines for working with no permit run from NT$30,000 to NT$150,000. Article 68, paragraph 1, sets that range for a violation of Article 43.

Article 68, paragraph 3, orders a foreigner who violated Article 43 to leave at once and bars further work in Taiwan.

Expiry, or revocation under Article 73, brings immediate departure and a bar on further work under Article 74, paragraph 1, unless the Act provides otherwise. Paragraph 3, item 1, withholds only the immediate-departure rule in paragraph 1. It covers foreign students, overseas Chinese students, and ethnic Chinese students employed under the Act, once the permit period has ended or any of items 1 through 5 of Article 73 applies.

During a visit or residence, activity must match the permitted reason. Article 29, paragraph 1, of the Immigration Act requires that. Petitions and lawful assemblies by someone lawfully residing are excepted. No one may cause a foreigner to do what the main text forbids.

For an Article 29, paragraph 1, breach, Article 36, paragraph 2, item 4, lets the National Immigration Agency deport the person or order departure within ten days, and deport the person who remains after that deadline. The Act was amended on June 28, 2023.

Once a breach is verified, Article 23 requires the school or the relevant authority to act. Article 24 requires notice of suspension, withdrawal, or a change or loss of student status to the Bureau of Consular Affairs and the local National Immigration Agency service center, copied to the Ministry of Education.

The employer

Employers may not hire a foreigner who has no permit, whose permit has lapsed, or who was hired under someone else's application. That is item 1 of Article 57. Illegally harboring a foreigner for the purpose of work is forbidden by Article 44.

Employer fines run from NT$150,000 to NT$750,000. Article 63, paragraph 1, sets that range. A repeat within five years draws imprisonment of not more than three years, short-term imprisonment, a criminal fine of not more than NT$1,200,000, or both.

WhoProvisionAmount
Foreigner working with no permitArticle 43 and Article 68, paragraph 1NT$30,000 to NT$150,000
No permit, a lapsed permit, another's permit, or illegal harboringArticle 57 item 1, Article 44, and Article 63 paragraph 1NT$150,000 to NT$750,000

After the degree

During a lawful National Immigration Agency extension, a fresh graduate with a Taiwan associate degree or higher may work without a new permit. Article 12 of the foreign-professionals act says so. Fresh graduate means that graduating cohort (應屆畢業生). The act was amended on September 24, 2025. A language course alone is not that degree.

Someone who came to study may apply after graduation, before residence ends. Article 11 of the residence regulations gives the certificate one year from the day after the old period ends, and one further extension before that year ends if needed, for two years at most. Also listed: a spouse already permitted to reside, children under eighteen, and children eighteen or older who cannot live independently because of physical or mental disability. Amended December 30, 2025. Item 10(2) of the National Immigration Agency instructions, updated January 19, 2026, states the same periods.

Student-work rules in the United States, Korea, and Japan are outside this column. Write to Hovering International Law Firm at wei@hoveringlaw.com.tw.

On the Agency page for fresh graduates, updated January 30, 2026, the kind of job in that period is not limited, and the maximum is two years. If another law requires a professional qualification or practice registration, the graduate must still obtain it. The page's example is a physician. Neither Article 12 nor that page sets a weekly number for the extension.

Official sources

Checked on October 13, 2026.

Frequently Asked Questions

I have been at a university Chinese center for less than six months. Can I start a cafe shift?
Under [Article 51](https://law.moj.gov.tw/LawClass/LawSingle.aspx?pcode=N0090027&flno=51) of the employment regulations, paragraph 1, item 1, you must either be formally enrolled in an academic department, program, or graduate institute, or have studied a language course for at least six months. If you are studying only a language course, less than six months does not meet that condition. Even at six months, item 2 also requires a school-certified fact. Paragraph 2 provides separate qualification exceptions. Working without a permit violates [Article 43](https://law.moj.gov.tw/LawClass/LawSingle.aspx?pcode=N0090001&flno=43) of the Employment Service Act and can result in the fine under [Article 68](https://law.moj.gov.tw/LawClass/LawSingle.aspx?pcode=N0090001&flno=68), paragraph 1.
If my student work permit expires, must I leave Taiwan at once?
For a foreign student, overseas Chinese student, or other ethnic Chinese student employed under the Act, [Article 74](https://law.moj.gov.tw/LawClass/LawSingle.aspx?pcode=N0090001&flno=74), paragraph 3, item 1, excludes only the immediate-departure rule in paragraph 1 when the permit expires or any ground in [Article 73](https://law.moj.gov.tw/LawClass/LawSingle.aspx?pcode=N0090001&flno=73), items 1 through 5, applies. The bar on further work in Article 74, paragraph 1, remains. Separately, [Article 68](https://law.moj.gov.tw/LawClass/LawSingle.aspx?pcode=N0090001&flno=68), paragraph 3, requires immediate departure and bars further work in Taiwan for a foreigner who violates [Article 43](https://law.moj.gov.tw/LawClass/LawSingle.aspx?pcode=N0090001&flno=43).
After a Taiwan degree, may I work during the residence extension without a new permit?
Foreigners who earn a Taiwan associate degree or higher and lawfully obtain a National Immigration Agency residence extension as fresh graduates (應屆畢業生) may work during that extension without a work permit under [Article 12](https://law.moj.gov.tw/LawClass/LawSingle.aspx?pcode=A0030295&flno=12) of the Act for the Recruitment and Employment of Foreign Professionals. [Article 11](https://law.moj.gov.tw/LawClass/LawSingle.aspx?pcode=D0080129&flno=11) of the residence regulations allows one year from the day after the previous residence period ends. If needed, one further extension may be requested before that year ends, for a maximum of two years in total. Item 10(2) of the [National Immigration Agency instructions](https://www.immigration.gov.tw/5382/5385/7244/7250/7317/%E5%B1%85%E7%95%99/29996/), updated January 19, 2026, gives the same periods. The student-work cap is 20 hours a week outside winter and summer vacation under [Article 50](https://law.moj.gov.tw/LawClass/LawSingle.aspx?pcode=N0090001&flno=50) and [Article 54](https://law.moj.gov.tw/LawClass/LawSingle.aspx?pcode=N0090027&flno=54), paragraph 2. Neither [Article 12](https://law.moj.gov.tw/LawClass/LawSingle.aspx?pcode=A0030295&flno=12) nor the Agency's [fresh-graduate page](https://ezworktaiwan.wda.gov.tw/cp.aspx?n=511766BD9E956242) sets weekly hours for the graduate residence extension.

This article provides general information and is not legal advice on any individual matter.

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