Taiwan Arrival Card (TWAC) 2026: Online Filing Guide + the Onward Ticket Rule Airlines Enforce

Last updated: 4 July 2026  ·  Reading time: 13 min  ·  Author: James Mitchell, CEO & Founder of MyJet24

The Taiwan Arrival Card (TWAC) is the free online form that replaced Taiwan's paper arrival card on 1 October 2025. All foreign visitors without a resident certificate submit it at twac.immigration.gov.tw within 3 days before arrival, entering passport, flight and accommodation details — no QR code is issued, and there is no fee. TWAC does not replace Taiwan's separate entry condition for visa-exempt travelers: a confirmed onward or return ticket, which airlines check before boarding.

Taiwan quietly ran one of the last paper-form borders in East Asia until October 2025 — the little white arrival card handed out mid-flight, filled in with a borrowed pen against a tray table. That card is gone. Since 1 October 2025, every foreign visitor completes the Taiwan Arrival Card (TWAC) online before landing, joining Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore in the region-wide shift to digital arrival declarations. More than 8 million visitors entered Taiwan in 2024, and the National Immigration Agency expects the 10-million mark to fall ahead of Taipei's tourism push — which means millions of travelers this year will meet a form they have never heard of, three days before a flight they have already booked.

This guide covers the entire journey in one place: what TWAC is and who files it, the exact fields and the 3-day window, how Taiwan's card compares with its neighbors, and the entry condition that TWAC does not replace — Taiwan's onward-ticket rule, which is enforced at the check-in desk more consistently than almost anywhere else in Asia. If you are flying to Taipei on a one-way ticket, section five is the one that keeps you off the standby bench.

What Is the Taiwan Arrival Card (TWAC)?

The Taiwan Arrival Card is the online successor to Taiwan's paper immigration arrival card, operated by the National Immigration Agency (NIA) at the official portal twac.immigration.gov.tw. It collects the same data the paper card did — identity, travel document, flight, purpose of visit and address in Taiwan — as a web form that takes about three minutes on a phone or laptop.

Five properties define the system, and each one removes a familiar travel anxiety:

• It is completely free. There is no government fee and no paid "processing" tier. Any site charging money for a TWAC is a middleman at best and a scam at worst — type the official address yourself.
• No QR code, no printout. Unlike Malaysia's MDAC or a boarding pass, TWAC issues nothing you must present. Your submission is linked to your passport number; the immigration officer sees it when your passport is scanned. A confirmation email arrives for your own records.
• It is a declaration, not an authorization. TWAC is not an eVisa, not an ETA and not an approval step — nothing is "granted." It replaces a form, and entry decisions still happen at the counter.
• One submission per entry. The card is valid for a single arrival. Leave Taiwan and return a week later, and you file again — the 3-day window applies each time.
• Corrections are painless. Flight changed, hotel changed? Submit a fresh card with the correct details before you land; the newest record attached to your passport is the one that counts.

Who Must File — and Who Is Exempt

The dividing line is residence status, not nationality. You must file TWAC if you are a foreign national entering Taiwan as a visitor — visa-free, with a visitor visa, or with an eVisa. That covers tourists, business visitors, people visiting family and short-course students alike.

You are exempt from TWAC if any of the following applies:

• You hold a Taiwan Alien Resident Certificate (ARC) or Alien Permanent Resident Certificate (APRC) — residents were never part of the arrival-card system.
• You are a Taiwanese national entering on a Taiwan passport.
• You are transiting airside at Taoyuan without passing immigration. No entry, no card. The moment you clear passport control — even for one night near the airport — TWAC applies.

Children are not exempt: every passport that gets stamped needs its own card. The portal supports filing for family members in one session, so one parent can submit the whole household in a single sitting — each traveler still gets an individual record.

How to File TWAC Online: Step by Step

The filing flow, start to finish:

1. Open twac.immigration.gov.tw within 3 days before arrival. The window includes your arrival day — for a Friday landing, the portal accepts your card from Wednesday. Filing earlier is not possible; the form simply will not accept dates outside the window.
2. Enter your travel document details. Passport number, nationality, date of birth, sex — exactly as printed on the passport you will travel on. A typo here is the one mistake that matters, because the electronic match at the counter runs on this number.
3. Enter your trip details. Arrival flight number (the final leg into Taiwan — BR 87, not your connecting feeder), arrival date, purpose of visit, and occupation.
4. Enter your address in Taiwan. Your first hotel is enough; nobody expects a 14-day itinerary. Staying with friends? Their address plus the host's name does the job.
5. Submit and keep the confirmation email. No QR code is issued and none is needed — but the email is your proof of filing if a check-in agent asks, and some airlines flying to Taipei have started asking.

No account, no login, no document uploads, no photo requirements — TWAC is deliberately lighter than an eVisa application. If your plans change after submitting, file again with the corrected flight or address; duplicate submissions are expected behavior, and the latest one wins. Forgot entirely? Kiosks and the same web form on airport Wi-Fi work after landing, at the cost of standing in the slowest-moving line at Taoyuan.

TWAC vs TDAC, MDAC and SGAC: Asia's Arrival Cards Compared

Taiwan was the fourth major Asian destination to digitize its arrival card in two years. If your trip chains several of these countries — a Taipei–Bangkok–Singapore loop is a classic — you will file a different form for each border, each with its own window and quirks:

Deep-dives for the other three are here if your route needs them: Thailand's TDAC filing guide, Malaysia's MDAC guide and Singapore's SGAC guide — or the regional overview of every Asian digital arrival card in 2026.

The pattern across all four: the card is the easy part. None of them replaces the underlying entry conditions — visa-exemption limits, sufficient funds, and the requirement that trips up more travelers at TPE than any form ever has: the onward ticket.

Taiwan's Onward Ticket Rule: The Condition TWAC Does Not Replace

Taiwan's visa-exemption program is unusually explicit about onward travel. The Bureau of Consular Affairs (BOCA) lists the conditions for visa-free entry, and the wording has been stable for years: eligible travelers must hold "a confirmed return air/sea ticket or an air/sea ticket and a visa for the next destination." This is not an obscure regulation surfaced by lawyers — it is printed on the same page that tells you whether you get 90 days.

Three consequences follow from that wording:

• A one-way ticket into Taiwan does not satisfy visa-free entry on its own. You need a booked exit — return home or onward to a third country — dated inside your permitted stay.
• "Onward to a third country" has a second clause people miss: if your next destination requires a visa you do not hold, the onward ticket alone may not be accepted. An exit to a visa-free-for-you destination is the clean play.
• The rule attaches to visa-exempt entry — travelers entering on a visitor visa are assessed on the visa's own conditions, and ARC holders are outside the system entirely.

How often does Taiwan itself check at the border? Like Morocco and most destinations we cover, NIA officers at Taoyuan spot-check rather than screen everyone — a young traveler with a one-way ticket, a near-90-day intended stay and no clear itinerary is the classic profile that gets asked. But the border is not where the rule bites, because for Taiwan the checking has been outsourced almost entirely to a stricter gatekeeper: the airline that boards you.

Airline Enforcement: EVA, China Airlines, Starlux, Scoot, AirAsia

Airlines flying into Taiwan carry the legal and financial liability if they board a passenger Taiwan refuses — the return flight and any fine are theirs to absorb. Their systems flag visa-exempt passengers on one-way bookings automatically, and the desk agent resolves the flag the only way they can: "May I see your ticket out of Taiwan?"

The pattern matches what we documented for denied boarding over onward travel generally: the check happens at the origin airport, hours before Taiwan could ever ask, and the agent needs to resolve it in under a minute. A verifiable reservation with a live PNR resolves it. A screenshot of a search result does not.

Visa-Free Durations by Nationality (90 / 30 / 14 Days)

Taiwan's visa-exemption program covers roughly 60 nationalities in three tiers. Your tier sets the latest date your onward ticket may show:

Nationalities outside the program (including most of South and Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Africa and mainland China) apply for a visitor visa or, where eligible, Taiwan's Travel Authorization Certificate (TAC) — a separate online authorization for nationals of India, Vietnam, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar who hold a valid visa or residence permit from a designated third country. TAC applicants file TWAC as well; the two systems are independent.

How to Get a Free Onward Ticket in 30 Seconds

Buying a fully flexible exit flight you may never use ties up hundreds of dollars; booking a cheap fixed one locks your plans before you have seen a single night market. The standard solution — the same one covered in our digital-nomad onward-ticket guide — is a verifiable flight reservation:

1. Open the MyJet24 onward ticket generator.
2. Set a departure from Taiwan — Taipei Taoyuan (TPE), Taipei Songshan (TSA) or Kaohsiung (KHH) — to any destination that fits your story, dated inside your visa-free window.
3. Enter your name exactly as printed in your passport, and generate.

Thirty seconds later you hold a flight-reservation PDF with a real PNR that airline staff can query in their own system — the difference between a document that survives an EVA Air counter check and a mock-up that does not. It is free, requires no credit card, and pairs with TWAC's confirmation email as the two-document set that answers every question between the check-in desk and the immigration counter. How long such a reservation stays verifiable is covered in our guide to dummy ticket validity and PNR expiry.

Seven TWAC and Boarding Mistakes to Avoid

1. Filing more than 3 days early. The portal rejects out-of-window dates — calendar the task instead of attempting it at booking time.
2. Paying a third-party site for a "Taiwan arrival card." TWAC is free at twac.immigration.gov.tw. Paid lookalikes add nothing except a card-skimming risk.
3. Entering the feeder flight instead of the final leg. Frankfurt–Bangkok–Taipei means the Bangkok–Taipei flight number goes on the card.
4. Passport typos. The electronic match runs on your passport number — one transposed digit and the officer sees no card at all. Refile if you spot an error.
5. Treating TWAC as the whole job. The card satisfies the form requirement; the onward-ticket condition lives separately, and it is checked earlier, at check-in.
6. Showing a flight search screenshot as onward proof. Agents distinguish reservations from screenshots by asking their system. Use a document with a queryable PNR.
7. Dating the exit after your visa-free limit. An onward ticket on day 95 of a 90-day stay is evidence against you, not for you. Keep the exit inside the window; our dummy-ticket mistakes guide lists the date traps in detail.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is the Taiwan Arrival Card mandatory in 2026?

Yes — since 1 October 2025 the online TWAC has replaced Taiwan's paper arrival card for all foreign visitors without a resident certificate. There is no paper fallback handed out on the plane; late filers complete the same form at airport kiosks or on their phones after landing.

Is TWAC free?

Completely. The official portal twac.immigration.gov.tw charges nothing. Any site charging a fee for a Taiwan arrival card is an unnecessary middleman or a scam.

When should I fill out the TWAC?

Within 3 days before your arrival, counting the arrival day itself. Earlier submissions are rejected by the portal. Most travelers file it alongside online check-in for their flight.

Do I get a QR code after submitting the Taiwan Arrival Card?

No. Unlike Thailand's TDAC, TWAC issues no QR code — your submission is linked electronically to your passport number and appears when the officer scans your passport. Keep the confirmation email as personal proof of filing.

Do children need their own TWAC?

Yes — every foreign visitor needs an individual card regardless of age. The portal lets one adult file for accompanying family members in the same session.

Do I need a TWAC for airside transit at Taoyuan?

No — if you stay airside and do not pass immigration, no card is needed. If you clear passport control for an overnight layover or a city visit, TWAC applies like any other entry.

Does Taiwan require proof of onward travel?

Yes. Taiwan's visa-exemption conditions require a confirmed return or onward air/sea ticket — and if the onward destination requires a visa, evidence you hold it. Airlines verify this at check-in for Taipei and Kaohsiung flights; immigration officers spot-check on arrival.

Will EVA Air or Scoot really deny boarding without an onward ticket?

They can and do — the carrier pays for your return if Taiwan refuses you, so visa-exempt passengers on one-way bookings are flagged automatically. Low-cost carriers on Southeast Asian routes refuse fastest; full-service carriers may give you time to produce a booking at the desk.

Does a dummy ticket work for Taiwan?

A verifiable flight reservation with a real PNR — what MyJet24 generates — satisfies the onward-ticket condition at check-in and immigration. A forged PDF with an invented reference does not survive an agent querying the PNR, and risks boarding denial for fraud rather than paperwork.

What date should my onward ticket out of Taiwan show?

Any date inside your visa-exempt window — 90, 30 or 14 days depending on nationality — that matches your travel story. Two to eight weeks after arrival reads as normal tourism; day 89 of 90 invites questions.

Can I extend a visa-free stay in Taiwan?

For most nationalities, no — the standard pattern is exiting and re-entering, which resets the clock but attracts scrutiny when repeated. The exception: UK and Canadian passport holders can apply in-country to extend their 90 days up to a total of 180. Everyone else needing longer should look at visitor visas or Taiwan's Gold Card program before arrival.

Is TWAC the same as Taiwan's Travel Authorization Certificate (TAC)?

No. TAC is a conditional online entry authorization for certain Southeast and South Asian nationalities holding documents from designated third countries; TWAC is the arrival declaration every visitor files. TAC holders complete both.

What happens if I don't file the TWAC before landing?

You will be directed to kiosks or the web form at the arrival hall and file on the spot — there is no fine in normal cases, just a slower entry while everyone who filed walks past you. Airlines increasingly ask for the confirmation email at check-in, so filing beforehand also smooths boarding.

Does Taiwan check hotel bookings and funds too?

Officers may ask where you are staying — the address you entered in TWAC should match your answer — and can ask about means of support. A first-night hotel confirmation and a bank card cover both questions for ordinary tourists.