Employment Gold Card — Taiwan's All-in-One Talent Visa

Taiwan's National Development Council (NDC) launched the Employment Gold Card in February 2018 under the Act for the Recruitment and Employment of Foreign Professional Talent. The card bundles a long-term resident visa, an open work permit, an Alien Resident Certificate and a multiple re-entry permit into a single document valid for one to three years, targeting professionals in science and technology, the digital economy, finance, education and culture.

The scheme aims to attract skilled foreign professionals to Taiwan by removing the administrative friction of separately applying for a visa, work permit, residency document and re-entry permit.

The NDC's dedicated Gold Card Office issues and tracks cards across priority sectors, and added a digital-sector sub-track in 2023 aimed largely at software developers. The NDC also runs periodic community surveys of cardholders.

Approvals grew from 188 cards in 2018 to 14,669 approved (8,044 valid) by September 2025, with sectors split roughly Economy 38%, Education 19%, Science & Technology 18%, and Americans the largest nationality group. A 2023 NDC survey found only 24.4% of holders work for a Taiwanese company or university, while 30.8% work remotely for foreign employers. The NDC has since revised its 2030 target for foreign professionals down from 400,000 to 120,000 by 2028.

The programme is a well-documented, rapidly scaling talent-attraction instrument, but no renewal or retention-rate statistic is published, and independent commentary (Taipei Times, AmCham Taiwan) points to a gap between attracting talent and embedding it in the domestic labour market, plus a mismatch with Taiwan's manufacturing-concentrated labour shortages.