Cost of Living in Taipei

Don't want to argue with some hopeless people here seemingly doesn't possess a single Taipei house and seemingly living on rent. A sympathy to you but you need a skill for a better pay or else complaining will not realize your dream and instead waste your whole time.
The price and rent of Taipei/New Taipei is already the lowest (at the bottom level, just waiting the right time to ascend to a big surprise) among its colleagues, the four asian tigers, Seoul, Singapore, Hong Kong.
So it is just a matter of time that both price and rent shall be catching up to its colleagues within 2 or 3 years the most.
It is absurd to see even the price and rent of lower-waged Beijing property is higher than Taipei/New Taipei. No wonder even Beijing starts looking down on Taipei/New Taipei with contempt now, thanks to this imprudent government suppression (actually self-infliction upon itself) upon its potential Taipei/New Taipei property market unlike Beijing where the property price has been raised at least
one or two times during the last 3 years and then now the outcome this unsophisticated government reaps is challenge after challenge on top of poor Taipei contempt from Beijing.

Don't listen to the bulkshut real estate speculators posting here tHere is absolutely no lack of apartments in Taiwan and there is not going to be millions immigrants anytime soon.
The housing is too expensive already for many people.

I work 60 hours a week in Moscow, where the salary is the highest in Russia
But my monthly wage is just $600 ( $18K TWD )
My cousin work as Russian/ Mandarin translator in Kaohsiung, she makes 90k TWD there.
How can I move to Taiwan ?

Taipei salary so low, this why I found job in Singapore

Anonymous- The Vacany rate in Taipei is 20%. Its not an opinion its a fact. These tend to be higher end buildings and Luxury apartments. The type of apartments you're talking about are studios or 1-2 bedroom for workers and office people...those do get rented quickly.

Regardless of all these crazy bonuses you're talking about...they are a thing of Taiwan's Past not present. Taiwan used to give crazy bonuses in Stocks etc for Tech companies like Hong Hai, TSMC, Renbao, HTC etc. 20-30 years ago that was common. Now a days and in 2008-2012 you were lucky to get 1 month, some very few people got 3-4 I have a few friends in middle and upper management in these companies so I know and also friends in HR.
The very fact is the Finance Ministry last week just announce that the Average Wage in Taiwan Including ALL BONUSES + Benefits and Salary is only 49,894 NTD. Taipei's is roughly 51,000 NTD Gross when including bonuses etc. They said the median Salary is closer to 34,000 NTD for Taipei.. aruge all you want against the last Facts and Statistics.

Lucia Simpson- Whose starving to death in US and Canada? Are you friggin kidding me lol thats idiotic
Taiwans real estate isn't going to Skyrocket unless you're a Realtor and live in your own dillusional world outside of statistical reality. I know many Realtors or people's whose investments and livelihoods want it to Skyrocket but unless Wages increase its not going to happen.

Beijing's 2nd and 3rd Ring Road are more expensive than Taipei. China has now the manufacturing to back it up. Let me ask you this...whose going to be buying these houses if youre making 30-60K NTD a month? Even if you make 100k NTD a month thats PEANUTS!!! You shouldn't be buying a house worth 15 million NTD to financials dont add up unless your financial future is based solely off a single GAMBLE that property prices will rise and you Wont be under water on your mortage LOL.

I've met lots of high income Taiwanese in Taipei.
You guys should just work harder and stop being like cry baby.
If you don't have a particular skill or certificate, you're income is the same shit even you're in US, Canada or other countries.
At least Taiwan government did great job not letting their people starve to death.
We have so many young homeless people in Canada here, Taiwan seeks a lot better than my country.

#Jeff Hong Kongs real estate price increase has everything to do with no land and huge influx of mainlanders the Ultra wealthy and the poor.
Singapore is due to much higher wages than Taiwan. Taiwans wages are by far the lowest of the 4 Tigers and declining even more. Unless Taiwan does something including the businesses soon Malaysia will catch up in coming years.

Taiwan Real estate currently is WAY over valued. Serious real estate investors know Rental markets are directly tied to the wages of the city/country.
Taiwans wages are so low compared to Singapore, Korea and Hong Kong. Lets not begin comparing to the West or Japan. Taiwan pays peanuts slave wages to its work force sadly. There is already a 20% vacancy rate of houses in Taipei all empty. The current Millenial generation will not be buying more houses as there is a huge population decline so there will be a huge abundance of available property and not enough people living in them. Its not a problem 20 years from now, it will be very obvious in 10 years before anyones Mortgage who buys now runs out. Taipei is a very bad investment to see a return on money in 2018-2030. Taipei was a VERY GOOD investment in 1990s-2004.

Taipei Investment for Real Estate
1990s-2004- Excellent
2004-2008 - Ok
2009-2012- Bad
2013-2018- Extremely Poor Investment- Kiss you money goodbye.
2019-2028. Huge Bubble Crash potential.

members among the four asian tigers. The rent would also catch up along with the property price catching up its asian tigers members such as Hong Kong, Singapore.
So Taipei/New Taipei is a tremendous opportunity available now to invest in property which would sooner or later return with tremendous profit just like what happened in Hong Kong and Singapore in recent few years. Grab while opportunity available or it would be too late

Anonymous is right Basically for my house I just bought in L.A. I rent it out for 89,000 NTD a month + renter pays all utilities or about 3000 USD a month for a house that cost about 18million NTD to buy or 600k USD. In Taipei the houses "supposedly" worth 18million can only rent for 29,000 NTD. Taiwan has one of the worst return on investment for housing real estate in the first world according to many investment stats I follow. On top of that you own no land just concrete. The housing price in Taipei Daan and Dazhi in 2013-2016 exceeded Londons Westminster (Where Parliament, Buckingham Palace, Westminster Cathedral are). Now its cooling off to be slightly lower. TPE real estate is entirely an artificial bubble that will pop

According to all the DATA there is no way in hell Taipei NET Salary (after Tax) is 58,700 NTD a month.
News reports today say only 10% of the people in Taiwan earn over NT$61,000 per month.

Here https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3424171 1 it is saying the average salary is around 51k (Before Tax), and here it says https://international.thenewslens.com/article/91779 the median salary is somewhere around 35k, hence it seems to support that only 10% make over 61.

#Anonymous
This is cost of living data, not crying wall.
Stop crying shit and be a man.

The rest of the Asian Tigers are leaving Taiwan Pay in the dust. The Greed of the corporations other than TSMC which pays well is destroying the economy and this generation

Hey, I've received a scholarship to study in Tiawain but they are offering 12k monthly is that okay for the standard of living there although, I'll be based on campus. What are some of the challenges I may face or is that amount manageable since I will only be a student there?

There are actually quite a few dive shops in Taiwan both north and south. @jessica h. That’s good to know! Sounds like they maybe wouldn’t mind having an fluent English speaker (let’s hope). I’ve done a little bit of research and it sounds like they would need to fill out some paperwork on there end. Again, if anyone has any other information about moving to Taiwan that would be appreciated.

Where are you going to teach diving in Taiwan? Not exactly an ideal place for that....perhaps SE Asia is better.

Hello, I’m thinking about moving to Taiwan for a dive instructor job. Would anyone have a guesstamite of the average pay? Any other information about procedures of moving to Taiwan (of course I’ll use google or something too). Any information would be much appreciated.

The tax of stock trading in Taiwan is 0.3 percent which is pretty expensive. There were no tax during president Chen, but burdensome tax was added to the stock exchange during ignorant president Ma which resulted his party, Kuomintang KMT being rejected by Taiwanese through the vote. Hope president Tsai from the democratic party learn from the KMT doom and instantly rectify and remove the mistake of KMT regarding the unnecessary stock trading tax.
Hope president Tsai also remove service fee collected from the trading center for all making of losing stock trading, even paying higher fee for making of winning stock trading is not an issue.
Please remember that government should serve people so government should not add burden to the people in the first place.

I think is many rich people in Taipei make the number higher. Most people dont make 70k.

Btw, in the comment section of every city there are people claming that the salary is too high. I saw quite a few for Paris. Their proof? Personal anecdotes. "EVERYONE I KNOW MAKES 1.2K - 1.5K IN PARIS!!!!!!!".

You are basically one of them.

There are a lot of people in Taiwan get high paid jobs, they just pretend to be poor.
I’ve seen more fancy cars around Taipei city than Canada.
My Taiwanese husband make 75k as high school teacher.
Same issue in my city VANCOUVER, many people just make $2,000 CAD a month ( about 44k TWD ).
Basically the living quality of $2,000 CAD salary in Vancouver is worst than 17K TWD in Taipei.

Personally I make about 220k a month working for an American company but like I said most the people commenting aren't going to be your locals making 30-50k. Been living here nearly 8 years and also see a wide range of salaries and read extensive reports about this.

Lol @ the meaningless arguments below.

First of all, the figures are mostly correct. According to official figures the salary in Taipei is something like 60-70k per month, and the national average is like 50k.

And for those who keep arguing that it should be lower, you do realise that numbeo's figures come from contributors? Contribute away then, it's not like anyone's keeping you from doing so. The webpage clearly states these data are based on 1824 entries from 247 different contributers over the past 18 months, if you disagree with them so much, just submit your own entries.

Anonymous Actually a lot of the pay listed below is lower if you account for the hours they work in Taiwan.
Min Wage is 21k.
Nurses work a lot of OT to make 50k as do office workers.
For a Flight attendant to make 100k its rare and must be putting crazy hours or not located in Taipei. Some choose Macau or HK and get paid more.
Their actually salary based off 40hr week would be worse than what Anonymous writes lol..sadly

No visa waiver has been granted to Taiwan Since president Tsai Ing-wen has been in the office in 2016.

Asean nations don't see sincerity in the new southbound policy initiated by Tsai Ing-wen because unlike other respectable nations which act diplomatically and proficiently to achieve the reciprocal permanent visa waivers, Tsai Ing-wen instead offered a 1 year visa waiver to asean nations and even demanded the receiver nations to offer the reciprocal visa in return brazenly which asean nations took her request as an insult instead and abhorrently ignored her request in response. With this 1 year visa waiver by Tsai Ing-wen, asean nations would understand how bad her deplomatic tactic, kind of no brainer it is, unlike never seen before among all of her predecessors who have secured permanent visa waivers for Taiwan from among the greatest nations of this world so Taiwanese can visit pretty much places in europe and america visa free which I believe Tsai Ing-wen also enjoys herself of her predecessors' effort before, without thinking to continue her predecessors's effort at all, it is absolutely regrettable.

South Korea is a level player of Taiwan in term of economics. South Korea was always behind Taiwan until 2008, thanks to the effort of Tsai Ing-wen's boss as well as her predecessor Chen Shui-bian who took the president office from 2000-2008 who left Taiwan with no energy to push forward in greater economics fight with the then sole competitor South Korea because he created division, corruption and wasting among Taiwan society which has been dragging Taiwan since then until now so Taiwan is far left behind South Korea in term of economics. Taiwan seems to have no way to overtake South Korea anymore since the division, corruption and wasting have been continuing under the present president term.

South Korea is a people nation, meaning the South Korea government have been fighting for the right and privilege of its people, especially in area of visa waive access. So people of the South Korea have the privilege of visa waiver access almost covering to the whole asean nation as well as all of the visa waiver privileges which Taiwan people enjoy in europe and america.
South Korea have reciprocal 3-months visa waivers with these nations, Thailand, Ukraine, Venezuela, Argentina, Brazil, etc but Taiwan have no visa waiver with any of these mentioned nations at all which the people of South Korea currently enjoys, how sad it is for the people of Taiwan because the Taiwan government is sleeping instead of fighting for its people for the visa waiver privilege unlike the people-oriented South Korea government.

People of Taiwan is NOT hoping and expecting the government of Tsai Ing-wen to create a miracle of better economics upon the current worsen economics left behind by Chen Shui-bian because of people of Taiwan don't have trust in her sincerity unless she break her tie clean with the rich gang of the accomplices of the corrupt leader Chen Shui-bian and proves as an uncorruptedable leader of Taiwan government.
But at least for the people of Taiwan, Taiwan people have only one expectation and it is also their greatest expectation from the government of Tsai Ing-wen which is to secure and recover the privilege of visa waivers as much as the visa waiver privileges the people of South Korea enjoys nowadays. Or else could Tsai Ing-wen please explain what you can achieve in your president term or drag down Taiwan any further to a corner when your president term is up, worse than the situation of Taiwan during your predecessor Chen Shui-bian was in the office. if you couldn't fulfill even one wish of the people of Taiwan, what the meaning of your existence as a president to the people of Taiwan would be. One achievement of this expectation, the people of Taiwan would remember you forever, but not whatever you're doing now would get Taiwan to nowhere which you shall certainly realize after many years of retirement from your president office.

Creation of visa waiver must be worked out between nations in sincere manner in permanent basis indeed so to secure permanent visa waiver Tsai Ing-wen must send her capable delegations to nations where she would like to establish reciprocal permanent visa waivers with, not kind of using her spokesman from her office broadcasting her message which was insincere and would never be accepted by other nations which Taiwan would like to establish reciprocal permanent visa waivers with.
So Taiwan must be sincere in both cooperation and actions to achieve securing the permanent visa waiver with many nations the soonest possible which the South Korea government have already long secured for its people.

Anonymous is mostly right, 20 years resident of Taipei here.

Min wage is 22k /mth now.
Flight attendants make around 60 or 70k average.

Nurses prob 50k if they can hack the bad hours.

Most of the other figures about right as averages. Hsinchu city has the highest salaried earners in Taiwan due to electronic engineers in huge electronics companies .

The earnings in Taipei are skewed higher partly because of highly paid governnent workers

@Anonymous
Minimum wage is 21,009 so the premise of your figures are wrong.

The figures here in no way factor in how much millionaires and billionaires make. Which billionaire would come up here and contribute the statistics with their monthly income? Don't be silly.

For 225k monthly you can get an excellent house. I wouldn't worry you can get a brand new apartment in the middle of the city... All the locals and foreigners..Everyone uses 591.com.tw to look for houses to rent.

Is 45k NTD enough for Taipei or perhaps a 2nd tier city in Taiwan?

#madhawan misra
I think it's the same problem around the world.
Even you have full time job in EU or Canada, still can't afford living there.

#manu narang
No, 30K is not enough to survive in Taipei.
Cost of living in Taipei is crazy high.

All high income workers are all in Taipei city, of course

I work in Hsinchu science park, they give me 150K a month.
Very nice !

An "average salary" is deceptive and means nothing. You should use the median salary. My girlfriend who is a college educated nurse only makes about 36k ntd each month.

The average rent price of 1 bedroom in city center is outdated, that was about 12-15 years ago, now you can only rent a studio for 15-20 k. The average salary of 65 k is also unreal, yes, some people make over 100k, but most uni graduates only have 25-30 k, those with uni degree and 5-10 years of experience can get around 50-60k.

Average salary 65K NT?! That's bullshit seriously. You only get that kind of pay in Taipei at least 10 years of work experience (provided you are really fortunate to keep hopping from one company to another every 3-5 years and promote at least once every 2-3 years). However,buying a house is virtually impossible in Taipei for new generation people.

#Nicholas
I'd love to help you, do you have any contact like email or insta?

International community should be aware of the undemocratic actions of the new Taiwan government which is turning itself into more and more like an Undemocratic Tyranny.

The new Taiwan government recently announced to seize or recover money by Force from the saving of people who fail to pay the fee of the national health insurance.
Most of the fee of the national health insurance is directly deducted through the salary. And those who did not pay the fee of the national health insurance are the unemployed Taiwanese. So it seems the new Taiwan government is targeting to punish and destroy the unemployed Taiwanese not paying the fee of the national health insurance instead of providing benefit and subsidy like UK, etc.

The international community have to stand up to protect the unemployed Taiwanese from being exploited by force undemocratically without human right by the Tyranny of the new Taiwan government and demand the new Taiwan government to govern her people democratically along with human right or the new Taiwan government should be shut off from the international community for punishment, not allowing to participate such as world health organization, etc
Please remember your action today benefits you an unexpected protection tomorrow, thanks to the effort of international community for human right and democracy.

Hey guys am swedish and i want to study engineering in Taipei and I want some opinions of those that live/have lived in Taipei would be very helpful! Also i would like to know how the whall youth culture is , as how they have fun and if they speak english in general. Thanks

The new Taiwan government is going to to force the unemployed Taiwanese to pay for the 年金 insurance within a year probably starting from 5th May 2017.

The unemployed Taiwanese are the most pitiful creature among the developed counties because they do not receive benefits or subsidies from their government unlike the other developed countries. Even worse, the jobless Taiwanese also currently have to pay the heath insurance which costs them at least 700 Taiwan dollar a month.

The 年金 insurance is only targeted to the jobless Taiwanese and it would cost them at least 850 Taiwan dollar a month. The most terrible part, the unemployed Taiwanese would be heavily fined with the amount ranging from thousands to ten of thousand for the late payment of the 年金 insurance fee. The new Taiwan government also mentioned the relatives such as spouse, etc were also responsible for the payment of the 年金 insurance fee of their jobless Taiwanese.

Probably from 5th May 2017 , the unemployed Taiwanese have to pay both fees of the 年金 heath insurance and the 年金 insurance which would cost them at least 1,500 Taiwan dollar a month (700 + 850 =1550).

TV broadcast a sorrowful news repeatedly today through all news channels which mentioned a Taiwanese family of 5, husband, wife (born 1990 very young), 3 sons (., 6, 8 years old respectively) committed suicide by burning charcoal and their landlord found their dead bodies in their room today. The landlord said they owed them 4 months of rent with the total amount of 36,000 Taiwan dollar. There were also a bill of warning of late payment of electricity fee in front of the door. It was said the electricity was long cut off before they committed suicide, meaning they had lived in their flat without electricity for many weeks or probably months before they committed suicide.

So given the current sorrowful situation of the unemployed Taiwanese, further forcing them to pay for the 年金 insurance out of their empty pocket of the unemployed Taiwanese is indeed very heartless. Hope the new Taiwan government would be merciful not only to the unemployed Taiwanese but also to the government itself because revolution always arises out of this kind of hopeless situation throughout the history. Instead the new Taiwan government must cancel the program of subsidizing 20,000 Taiwan dollar for the new salary of 31,500 Taiwan dollar and reduce the living cost to alleviate the burden of its mass people. Affordability which also means cheap is the secret that makes people content and happy. The right decision you, the new Taiwan government, make would leave you a good mark in future history or else it would be endless curses.

The new taiwan government took over the office on 20th May, the day before yesterday. Yesterday one day after taking over taking over the office, announced to raise the bottom salary from 22k Taiwan dollar to 31.5k Taiwan dollar and said the government would subsidize 20k Taiwan dollar over the new salary, 31.5k.

No nation on earth is rich enough to subsidize 20,000 Taiwan dollar per person per month. So this new policy from the new government shall not only cripple the credibility of the taiwan government as the government indeed has no sufficient fund to support this destruction policy so consequently need to print endless money which consequently would not be accepted by the international market to the extent of currency collapsion, but also burden the affordabiliy of employment for the employers in the future probably when the government collapsed due to the over-funding of this very stupid policy.

Hope the new government would be prudent and cancel this death policy immediately.
And instead use a small amount of fund to subside where the people need either employed or unemployed, and restore the living cost to an affordable level and this would help much more people in need than subsidizing 20k taiwan dollar per month individually.

Average earning for fresh uni graduate is around 28000 NT/month. Cost per meal (1 pax) on average is around 100 NT if you eat outside (cheaper of course if you cook on your own). Hence, meal alone, it will set you back around 7000~10000 NT/month, another 1000~1500 NT for transport. According to the official report from ministry of manpower of Taiwan, more than 700 Taiwanese choose to migrate to other countries like US, Japan, Korea, Singapore just to name a few.

Taiwan accommodation is extremely expensive, even more expensive than the more developed Japan.

At Osaka, Japan, you can get a single room at the price of TWD 278, USD 8.3 (Reference ; hotel name : Hotel Diamond, Osaka)

At Taipei, Taiwan, the price of a single room at the same level of condition as the above Osaka hotel shall cost almost more than 2 times, probably TWD 900+, USD 26.9

Being too expensive is the reason why tourist stay away from Taipei.

Hope Taipei has the price range that is comparable to Osaka the soonest possible, and then prosper immediately with the flush of many million tourists due to the affordable accommodation price.

Hope Ma president keeps his last promise which is not to use currency as a weapon to drive up export and restore the value of Taiwan currency to the benchmark point which is 27 NT dollar per a US dollar the soonest possible.

With trust, there is a bright future.

I love Taipei so much, Taiwan is a very advanced country in Asia.
Perfect transportation system, clean public space...
People are nice.

The numbers are generally a bit on the low side for expenses such as rent, and a bit on the high side for incomes after tax.

Average meal would set you back 150 NTD in a restaurant chain these days. 200-300 ntd business lunch. I pay 26k ntd all in for renting a 3bdroom apartment in the suburbs. In Taipei city itself I'd be paying 35-50k/mth, so the numbers aren't too far out for that.

Beers price varies very much according to if you are drinking in a bar or restaurant or outside the local convenience store!

Young grads incomes are about 22k-30k for a first few jobs. A lot of people in Taipei, even managers, would make 50-60k NTD/mth and think that is a fairly good income. They might get a couple of months bonus if lucky per year. Of course you get some people earning a relatively large salary but they are really really rare. I mean people earning over 100k/mth as a salary, it's really not common. That's only approx 3000 USD/mth!

The average income for Taipei is hugely skewed because of large numbers of very wealthy people owning businesses and property but then a lot of younger people on peanuts. Also Taipei city is full of older people, most young people live in New Taipei City outside the core city.

What you need to look at is the MEDIAN and split between Taipei City and New Taipei City.
You'd also want to look at earnings at each age.

#IamTW

I didn't see any homeless in Taipei.
Not as much as Tokyo.
And most of my Taiwanese friend got more than 35K...
I think it depends which university you graduated or what kind of skill do you have.
If you have particular skills, I don't think you will get lower salary in Taipei.

The "Average Monthly Disposable Salary (After Tax)" is way off from the reality. A fresh uni graduate here get paid for 25K ~ 30K NT (30K NT if you are really lucky. The unemployment rate here is actually many times higher from the official figure shown by our govt, do not simply believe whatever is written here. Simply stroll around the city in Taipei and you will see quite a number of beggars/homeless) and in fact, lots of information shown above are inaccurate and incorrect. Please update your info or else more people will be mislead by the wrong info provided.

I'm looking at your numbers for Taiwan in July 2015 and there is NO WAY you are able to find a 1-bedroom apartment in the city centre for the prices you state - the reality is about DOUBLE THAT. So please don't understate everything. The cost of meals in Taipei is also in the neighborhood of $150-200 NTD and not as little as you think either. Your numbers look like they are several years old - you should do a revision - would be glad to help you with that.

@Manu

250000 in Xinyi District, Taipei... just the average.
There are lots people spend more than 250000 per months, believe me.