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How to hire remote employees in
Laws about hiring are complicated, and the same is true in Taiwan. But there are ways to sidestep the headaches—if your company hasn’t already established a physical presence in Taiwan, you have two real options when it comes to hiring. We’ll detail both below.
If you want to successfully hire in
Taiwan
, you have two options:
Laws about hiring contractors are significantly more simple in
Taiwan
. Onboarding talent takes days, not weeks or months. Both you, the company, and your talent have more flexibility. And in many cases, since you’re remote, the talent you’re hiring is better classified as a contractor, anyway. Of course, it’s not possible in every case, but it’s what we built Thera for.
This is the long route. You can either establish a physical presence with an entity and register as an employer, or you can use an Employer-of-Record (EOR) solution. Odds are, you’ll find using an EOR to be the easier route. Still, using an EOR in
Taiwan
is expensive—it can often be $500 per month per employee—and sometimes prone to lengthy onboarding times.
Hiring contractors is normally the easier, faster, more flexible choice—but don’t just take it from us. Below are the specific benefits and drawbacks to hiring contractors in
Taiwan
.
Hiring employees takes months, at the minimum. When you hire with Thera's locally-generated contracts, it’s a matter of days or weeks. This means you can hire the best talent, fast, without losing them to a hellish procession of paperwork.
It costs just $0 to sign up for Thera, then $25 per month to hire your contractors with Thera. If you hired employees manually (or did contracting on your own), you’d likely be on the hook for thousands of dollars each month. Setting up an entity alone can cost tens of thousands of dollars.
Hiring contractors in
Taiwan
means you’re generally not on the hook for things like health insurance and paid time off. This makes hiring flexible for you, and it gives your talent more options.
Hiring employees is a bigger commitment, and can open you up to increased liabilities and regulations. When you hire contractors overseas, your biggest risk is misclassification—but laws surrounding contractor classification are often significantly more straightforward.
The contractor life isn’t for everyone—some people want the security that being an employee often appears to provide. Though it’s rare, this does happen, and it’s one disadvantage of manage an all-contractor team.
Most countries’ contractor-employer relationship laws stipulate that the employer can’t set fixed working hours, among other things. These laws give contractors more freedom over how and when they do their work than an employee would have. In reality, however, most contractors are willing & able to work on the company’s schedule—it’s a matter of setting expectations beforehand.
If you’re hiring contractors in
Taiwan
, you can pay them with Thera in a single click. You won’t need to worry about complicated wire transfers, fees, or currency conversions. We’ll take care of it all. Just make a click and your contractor will get paid in their currency of choice. This is a valuable bonus for talent in countries where the local currency is particularly weak—most people appreciate the ability to receive their payment in stronger currencies.
If you’ve read up until this point, you’ll know that it’s easier, cheaper, and more flexible to hire contractors in Taiwan than employees. Still, there are valid reasons why you might want to hire employees instead. The content below is for you—we’ll cover employer taxes and obligations in Taiwan.
Annual leave is dependent on the years an employee has worked for the employee.
Unused vacation days carry over to the following year. If those vacation days aren’t used within two years, they will be converted into salary. Payment is based on the employee’s first-year wage.
If unused annual leave is not carried over to the next year, or if the employee’s contract is terminated by the end of the first year, regular daily wages are paid for unused days off. Employees’ daily salary is the amount they received for working regular hours a day before their employment contract was terminated or their service ended. In cases when employees are paid monthly, their daily salary is also based on their regular working hours and wages paid to them one month prior to the end of their employment or the termination of their contract. Yet for them, this amount should be divided by 30. The amount substituted for the annual leave is paid on the employees’ regular payday or within 30 days of the end of their working year. If employees are fired, employers should give them their annual leave payment without delay.
12 public holidays.
Employees are entitled to two types of sick leave in Taiwan. They can have 30 days of ordinary sick leave a year, provided they are not hospitalized, or they can also take one year of sick leave within a two-year period when they are hospitalized. What is noteworthy is that the combined number of sick days taken within two years cannot exceed one year.
If employees are sick up to 30 days within one year, they receive half-pay. When employees’ sickness is covered by labor insurance, but its compensation is less than half of the employee’s salary, the employer pays the difference. When the employee is left injured or disabled due to an accident at work, the employer pays him or her full salary. If after two years, the employee does not recover from the occupational injury or disability and is diagnosed as unable to fulfill former tasks, the employer pays him or her one amount of 40 months’ average wage, provided the employee does not qualify for disability. When employees use up all their sick days, they can ask for additional unpaid days off. The maximum of unpaid sick leave the employee can take is 1 year. There is also a possibility to recover sick pay from the state.
Expecting mothers are entitled to 8 weeks leave paid at 100% rate unless the employee has worked at the company for less than 6 months, in which case the rate is lowered to 50%.
New fathers are entitled to 5 days of fully paid paternity leave.
Employees can take parental leave if they have worked for the same employer for at least 6 months. The employee’s child should be younger than 3 years of age and his or her spouse should be employed. Paternal leave is unpaid.
Taiwanese employment law is regulated by the Labor and Standards Act (LSA). Both employer and employee are required to provide valid reasoning for termination as well as a notice period.
Employers are expected to give notice to their employees based on the length of their employment:
For employees who began employment pre-2005 under the Labour Standards Act, severance pay will be equal to one month of average wages for each year of service, provided the employee was employed by the same employer continuously. Those employees who have worked for less than a year receive severance pay in proportion to the months of service.
For employees who began employment post-2005 under the Labour Pension Act, severance pay is also calculated based on one month’s average wages for each year of service. However, the amount that the company pays for each year of service is equal to 50 percent of the employee’s average monthly salary.
Taiwan does not have a minimum or maximum trial period. 3 months is customary.
Employees in Taiwan work 8 hours a day with a week being 40 hours, not including overtime. It is also mandatory in Taiwan to have two days off every 7 days. One of these days off is compulsory, the other flexible. The difference between these two resting days is that the employee cannot agree to work on the mandatory day off while working on a flexible day is negotiable. Overtime is paid to employees working on flexible days.
Working hours cannot exceed 12 in one day, and maximum overtime is 46 hours monthly.
Overtime is paid at 134% for the 8th-10th hours (daily) and 167% for the 10th-12th hours (daily).
Overtime on “flex-day” is paid at 134% for the first two hours, 167% for 2nd-8th hours, and 267% for 8th-12th hours.
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