Legal & Compliance Support for Foreign Companies in Taiwan

What ROLL ON. legal & compliance support includes

ROLL ON. is the operating lead for foreign-invested company setup and ongoing compliance in Taiwan. We coordinate FIA filing, MOEA registration, tax registration, banking, work permits (Employment Gold Card, Entrepreneur Visa, standard work permits), corporate governance, and ongoing accounting and tax filings. We are not a law firm — formal legal opinions and filings are signed by partner counsel — but we are the single accountable lead so the client does not have to manage five external firms in parallel. For most foreign founders this is the difference between a 6–10 week setup and a stalled six-month process.

What's included

• Entity recommendation — Branch, Subsidiary, or Representative Office (per revenue plan, hiring scale, IP strategy)
• FIA (Foreign Investment Approval) filing coordination through partner counsel
• MOEA company registration
• Tax registration with the National Taxation Bureau
• Corporate bank account opening — document pre-alignment, bank introduction, KYC support
• Work permit and visa filings — Employment Gold Card, Entrepreneur Visa, standard work permit
• Corporate governance documentation — shareholder agreement, articles of incorporation, board resolutions
• Restricted-industry licensing path scoping (medical, food, finance, telecoms where applicable)
• Ongoing monthly bookkeeping and tax filings through accounting partners
• Annual compliance — profit-seeking enterprise income tax filing, business tax, withholding obligations
• HR compliance — labor contracts, statutory contributions (~15% employer load), termination handling
• Contract review coordination — commercial agreements routed to partner counsel

Who this is for

• Foreign companies setting up a Taiwan entity for the first time
• Foreign founders relocating to Taiwan needing an integrated visa and entity package
• Companies whose home-market counsel does not have Taiwan capability and needs an in-country operating lead
• Existing Taiwan entities needing a single ongoing compliance window across bookkeeping, tax, governance, and HR

Who this is NOT for

• Companies needing only a one-off filing — engage a Taiwanese law firm directly
• Pure shell structures with no operating intent — we do not set these up
• Companies expecting ROLL ON. to act as legal counsel of record — we are not licensed attorneys in Taiwan
• Restricted-industry filings where the founder has no operating plan post-license

Engagement models

ROLL ON. uses three pricing structures, two of which apply here.

1. Fixed-scope setup project — entity formation, FIA, registration, banking, and initial work permit package. Priced as a fixed-scope deliverable with milestone billing. This is the standard new-entity package.
2. Monthly retainer — ongoing compliance: bookkeeping, monthly tax filing, annual filings, governance support, HR compliance. Typically 12-month minimum. Coordinated with accounting partners.
3. Success fee — not applicable to standard legal & compliance work. (Used on fundraising and distribution engagements; mentioned here for completeness.)

Specific figures shared after a 30-minute discovery call.

Process

1. 30-minute discovery call — entity type required, founder profile, target operating start date
2. Document collection and pre-alignment (week 1–2) — passports, parent-company docs, capital plan, board structure
3. FIA filing (weeks 2–6) — submission, response handling, approval
4. MOEA registration and tax registration (weeks 4–8) — runs partly in parallel with FIA
5. Banking (weeks 6–12) — corporate account opening, KYC, signatory setup
6. Work permit and visa filings (weeks 4–12 in parallel) — Employment Gold Card or Entrepreneur Visa as applicable
7. Operating handoff (week 12 onward) — bookkeeping and compliance retainer begins

Timeline expectations

• FIA approval: 4–8 weeks from filing
• MOEA registration: 1–3 weeks after FIA
• Corporate bank account open: 2–6 weeks after FIA (KYC dependent)
• End-to-end FIA → bank account: 6–10 weeks typical
• Employment Gold Card: 1–3 months
• Entrepreneur Visa: 2–4 months
• Restricted-industry license add-on: +3–6 months on top of standard setup

Timelines assume document readiness and an active client decision-maker. Missing parent-company documents are the single most common cause of slippage.

How we work differently

• One operating lead, not five vendors — counsel, accountant, banker, and immigration agent all coordinate through ROLL ON. The client has one weekly call, not four.
• Deep immersion — we read the founder's actual operating plan and recommend an entity, capital level, and visa route that fits the next 24 months, not the cheapest filing today.
• Competing on value, not price — we will not win against the cheapest local accountant on entity-formation cost. We win when the company is still cleanly compliant 36 months later.
• Integrated with the rest of the business — entity setup choices affect fundraising, distribution contracts, IP holding, and tax treatment. Our business and marketing teams operate as one, so the legal package is informed by the actual GTM plan.

Related services and reading

• Market Entry — the operating program legal sits inside
• Fundraising — FIA filings and shareholder agreements connect tightly
• Foreign Company Setup in Taiwan — step-by-step on FIA, capital, banking, work permits
• Taiwan Market Entry Guide for Foreign Companies — pillar guide
• From China — Type 1/2/3 PRC-capital handling
• From Japan — bilateral tax context for the largest foreign segment

Talk to us

Email Vivian Lee at Vivian.lee@roll-grp.com to book a 30-minute discovery call. Scope, partner counsel assignment, and a fee proposal follow the call.