Taiwan Tax Refund and What to Buy: the 5% VAT Refund, Airport Kiosks and Souvenirs (2026)

Taiwan's shelf prices already include 5% VAT (營業稅), and as a foreign visitor you can claim most of it back on things you carry out of the country. The catch is that Taiwan runs a refund system, not a duty-free-price system: you pay the full price in the shop, collect a form, and get the money at the airport, or for smaller amounts in the shop itself. Skip one step and there is simply no refund.

This guide covers the rules exactly as the government's e-VAT refund site publishes them in September 2026, walks through the shop and airport steps, then gets to the enjoyable part: what to buy, which chains are worth a detour, and how airport duty-free differs from a city refund.

The rules in one place

You qualify if you entered Taiwan on a non-ROC passport (or an ROC passport without a national ID number, a travel document, an entry/exit permit or a temporary entry permit) and stay under 183 days. Nationality does not matter beyond that. Entry itself is a separate question: the visa-free list published by the Bureau of Consular Affairs (BOCA) gives 90 days to most European countries, the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Japan and Korea, and 30 days to Singapore and Malaysia; check the BOCA list for your own passport.

• Spend NT$2,000 or more (tax included) in one day at one store displaying the Taiwan Tax Refund (TRS) sticker, and ask for the refund form the same day with your passport in hand.
• Take the goods out of Taiwan within 90 days of purchase, unused and unopened. Hotel bills, restaurant meals and duty-free goods never qualify, and neither do items that cannot be carried on a plane or ship.
• The refund is the 5% VAT contained in the price minus a 20% handling fee. The official formula is invoice total divided by 1.05, times 0.05, then minus 20%: on a NT$10,000 receipt that is NT$476 of tax and about NT$380 in your pocket.
• Apply before you check in your luggage and before you pass immigration. If customs has not approved the claim by the time you leave, it cannot be processed afterwards.

Step by step: in the shop, then at the airport

In the shop

Look for the sticker that says Taiwan Tax Refund or 外籍旅客購物退稅 near the till. When your same-day total at that store reaches NT$2,000, show your passport (the physical document, not a photo) and say tui shui, 退稅. The cashier prints a Tax Refund Claim Form (退稅明細申請表) and a uniform invoice (統一發票) or e-invoice carrying the last four digits of your passport number. Keep the form, the invoice and the goods together; you need all three if customs asks. If you buy more later that day at the same store, ask them to add it to the same form rather than starting a second one under NT$2,000.

At the airport

Go to the tax refund area in the departure hall of Terminal 1 or Terminal 2 at Taoyuan Airport (桃園機場) before you check in; follow the Tax Refund 退稅 signs, and check the kiosk map on the e-VAT site for the exact spot, because the airport's own page was not readable when we checked. Counters and E-VAT kiosks also exist at Songshan (松山機場), Taichung (臺中機場) and Kaohsiung (高雄機場) airports and at the seaports. Scan your passport at the kiosk or hand it to the counter with your forms. The system then decides whether your goods need a physical inspection. If it prints a checklist, take the checklist, the claim forms, your passport, the invoices and the goods themselves to the customs desk beside the refund counter. Once approved, you choose cash, card or cheque. Cash is paid in New Taiwan dollars at the designated bank or cash counter; card refunds go to Visa, Mastercard, JCB or UnionPay cards and take extra fees; cheques are for people who never want to queue.

Timing: the e-VAT site tells you to reach the airport 3 hours early when you have a refund to claim, and Sunday evenings at Terminal 2 are the moment that advice matters. The free service line is 0800-880-288 (from abroad +886-2-8978-7436) if anything on a form looks wrong before you fly.

Read the full description

三步流程加兩個捷徑。店內：找 TRS 標章店，同日同店滿 NT$2,000 含稅，出示護照原件，拿退稅明細申請表與統一發票，商品未使用、90 天內帶出境。機場：託運行李前辦，官網建議提早 3 小時到，在 E-VAT KIOSK 或退稅服務櫃檯掃描護照，系統判定是否查驗，要查驗就帶查驗單、申請表、護照、發票、商品到海關櫃檯。拿錢：現金新台幣在指定銀行或現金櫃檯領，信用卡 VISA、Mastercard、JCB、銀聯另收手續費，或支票；手續費為退稅額的 20%，例如 NT$10,000 稅額 NT$476、實拿約 NT$380。捷徑 A 現場小額退稅：同日同店 NT$48,000 以下店內拿現金，每次來臺上限 NT$120,000、每年 NT$240,000，商品仍須 90 天內出境。捷徑 B 特約市區退稅：出境前 20 天內辦，信用卡預刷 7% 擔保，拿現金，20 天內出境否則退回。底下註記：海關未核准就沒有退稅；免稅店商品、住宿、餐飲不能退；服務專線 0800-880-288；適用非中華民國護照或入出境許可證入境且停留未滿 183 天者。Three steps and two shortcuts: TRS store and the NT$2,000 same-day rule, airport kiosk or counter before check-in with a possible customs inspection, then cash, card or cheque minus a 20% fee; on-site refunds up to NT$48,000 and downtown counters within 20 days of departure with a 7% card guarantee.

Small refunds in the shop and downtown counters

If your same-day, same-store total is NT$48,000 or less and the shop is authorised for on-site refunds, they hand you the cash straight away and print an approval slip (現場小額退稅核定單). You still have to carry the goods out within 90 days, and there are ceilings of NT$120,000 per trip and NT$240,000 per calendar year for this route. Designated downtown counters (特約市區退稅) handle bigger totals in the 20 days before you fly: they take a 7% guarantee on your credit card, pay cash, and expect you to leave within 20 days, otherwise you pay the refund back. For a one- or two-week trip it is simpler to do everything at the airport in one go.

What to buy, and where the refund actually applies

Pineapple cakes and tea

Pineapple cake (鳳梨酥) is the default gift: 佳德 (Chia Te) and 微熱山丘 (SunnyHills) in Taipei, 李製餅家 in Keelung and 日出 (Dawn Cake) in Taichung are the names locals carry home; sun cakes (太陽餅) and nougat (牛軋糖) sit on the same shelf. Tea is the other classic: high-mountain oolong (高山烏龍), Oriental Beauty (東方美人) and Muzha Tieguanyin (木柵鐵觀音). Dihua Street (迪化街) in Taipei has old tea merchants and dried-goods shops side by side, and department-store basements carry 天仁茗茶 (Ten Ren) and 王德傳 for gift tins. Bakeries and tea shops in tourist districts often display the TRS sticker, and a single tea order over NT$2,000 is exactly the kind of purchase to refund.

Drugstores, convenience stores and museum shops

Taiwan's drugstore chains, 康是美 (Cosmed), 屈臣氏 (Watsons) and 寶雅 (POYA), differ from Japan's in two ways: they stock Japanese and Korean brands next to Taiwanese ones, and they lean toward sheet masks (我的美麗日記 My Beauty Diary, 森田藥粧 Dr. Morita) and herbal balms such as 綠油精 rather than a pharmacy counter. Branches in tourist areas usually display the TRS sticker, so a NT$2,000 basket refunds like anything else. 7-ELEVEN and FamilyMart (全家) sell Taiwan-only items: pineapple cakes in convenience packaging, tea eggs, 黑松沙士 (Hey Song sarsaparilla), 統一 instant noodles and seasonal collaboration goods; treat these as cheap, fun gifts rather than refund material. The National Palace Museum (故宮博物院) shop turns the jadeite cabbage and the meat-shaped stone into tape, socks and umbrellas and is the best-designed souvenir shop in Taipei.

Department stores and outlets, names only

• Taipei: Taipei 101 Mall (台北101購物中心), 新光三越 Shin Kong Mitsukoshi (Xinyi and Nanxi), SOGO (Zhongxiao and Fuxing), 微風 Breeze (Xinyi, Nanshan and Taipei Main Station), 誠品 Eslite (Songyan and Xinyi), 京站 Q Square.
• Outlets: 華泰名品城 Gloria Outlets next to Taoyuan HSR station and airport MRT station A18, 三井 Mitsui Outlet Park (Linkou, Taichung Port and Tainan), 麗寶 Lihpao Outlet Mall (Taichung), 義大世界 E-Da Outlet Mall (Kaohsiung).
• Taichung and Kaohsiung: 新光三越 Taichung Zhonggang store, 廣三SOGO, 漢神 Hanshin and 夢時代 Dream Mall in Kaohsiung.

Department stores usually issue the refund form at a customer-service or tax-refund desk (退稅櫃檯) rather than at every till, so gather the day's receipts from that building and go there before you leave; the form has to be issued on the day of purchase.

Airport duty-free versus a city tax refund

Duty-free shops (免稅店), run at Taoyuan by 昇恆昌 Ever Rich and 采盟 Tasa Meng, sit after immigration. You pay no VAT and no import duty at the till and there is no paperwork, but the range is liquor, tobacco, cosmetics, perfume and luxury goods, and the prices are not automatically lower than a city department store on sale. A city refund works on almost anything with a TRS sticker but nets you roughly 3.8% of the price after the 20% fee, and only if you do the paperwork. Rule of thumb: buy spirits, perfume and cigarettes duty-free after security; buy tea, pineapple cakes, electronics, clothes and drugstore items in the city and refund them. Duty-free goods can never be tax-refunded, and liquids bought in the city fall under the cabin liquid rules, so get them approved before you check the bag they go in.

Taipei: hotels, transport and things to do

Kaohsiung: the southern base with its own airport refund counter

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