Money and duty free for Taiwan

Currency and Money

Currency information

New Taiwan Dollar (TWD; symbol NT$) = 100 cents. Notes are in denominations of NT$TWD2,000, 1,000, 500, 200 and 100. Coins are in denominations of NT$50, 20, 10, 5 and 1.

Credit cards

American Express, MasterCard, Visa and Diners Club are accepted in most hotels, restaurants and shops.

ATM

ATMs are found in all major towns, cities and airports and – with a few exceptions that only handle domestic accounts – are mostly compatible with international debit and credit cards. A lot of 7Eleven stores have cashpoints inside, which tend to be a safe bet for withdrawing with an international card.

Travellers cheques

Cashed in most hotels, restaurants and shops. To avoid additional exchange rate charges, travellers are advised to take traveller's cheques in US Dollars.

Banking hours

Mon-Fri 0900-1530.

Currency restrictions

The import and export of local currency is limited to NT$60,000. The import and export of foreign currency amounts over NT$10,000 must be declared on arrival. All exchange receipts must be retained.

Currency exchange

All travellers are required to make a currency declaration in writing together with the baggage declaration. Unused currency can be reconverted on departure, on production of exchange receipts. Various bureaux de change are on hand to convert international currency into New Taiwan Dollars, although the rate of exchange offered by ATMs is generally more attractive. If you do need to change notes, you’ll generally have no problem if you’re holding US dollars, British pounds, Hong Kong dollars or Japanese yen. As a rule, Taiwan is pricier day-to-day than the likes of Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam, but compares favourably to Japan and Hong Kong.

Taiwan duty free

Overview

The following items may be imported by persons without incurring customs duty:

• 200 cigarettes or 25 cigars or 454g of tobacco (persons over 20 years of age).

• 1L of alcoholic beverages (persons over 18 years of age).

• Other personal goods owned and used by passenger up to the value of NT$10,000 per piece.

• Other goods for personal use up to the total value of NT$20,000.

Banned Imports

Prohibited tobacco products include among others e-cigarettes, e-liquid, or heated-tobacco products, snuff, snus, chewing tobacco, hookah tobacco and shisha tobacco. Other banned imports are fruit, live animals (other than pets with permits), plants and their products, narcotics, arms and ammunition, endangered species (unless you have a permit), and articles infringing upon the rights of patents, trademarks and copyrights.