From 2026 income, Taiwan raises the exemption for each minor child from NT$101,000 to NT$151,500. For a married couple with two children aged 7 to 17, living on salary and claiming only the exemptions and the standard deduction, that larger child exemption changes the tax on 2026 income by NT$0 at every income we tested from NT$300,000 to NT$10 million, provided the 2026 basic living expense is at least NT$194,250 a person. The 2025 figure is NT$213,000, announced by Taiwan's Ministry of Finance on 27 November 2025. The children are still claimed as dependants; the basic-living-expense floor absorbs only the increase. The price-indexed amounts for 2026 income (tax year 115, filed in May 2027) were raised after consumer prices rose 4.13%; those for 2025 income (tax year 114, filed by 1 June 2026) did not move.
For any one return, the National Taxation Bureau's assessment is what counts.
A filing-season label displaces the income year in Chinese-language tables
Each tax year is filed in the next calendar year, so a page headed 2026 綜合所得稅 may mean either. Of four ranking pages we opened on 2 October 2026, one in Chinese printed the 2025-income table under an unexplained 2026 heading, and an English calculator used "2026" for 2026 income. A third, updated in April 2026, gave NT$210,000 for 2025 income and NT$213,000 for 2026; the ministry's are NT$210,000 for 2024 and NT$213,000 for 2025. None mentioned the child amendment.
| NT$ | 2025 income (tax year 114) | 2026 income (tax year 115) |
|---|---|---|
| Exemption per person | 97,000 | 101,000 |
| Exemption, supported minor child | 97,000 | 151,500 |
| Standard deduction, single / married | 131,000 / 262,000 | 136,000 / 272,000 |
| Salary deduction, per earner | 218,000 | 227,000 |
| Top of the 5% / 12% / 20% / 30% bands | 590,000 / 1,330,000 / 2,660,000 / 4,980,000 | 610,000 / 1,380,000 / 2,770,000 / 5,190,000 |
| Basic living expense per person | 213,000 | Due by end-December 2026 |
| Filing window | 1 May to 1 June 2026 | 1 to 31 May 2027 |
The rate above the 30% band is 40%. The 2026 window ran to 1 June because 31 May fell on a Sunday, according to the ministry's filing notice.
The inflation trigger held back the amounts for 2025 income
Article 5 of the Income Tax Act adjusts the exemption and brackets only once consumer prices have risen 3% since the last adjustment year, and Article 5-1 does the same for the main deductions. The ministry measured 2.29% for 2025 income and 4.13% for 2026 income. Multiplying the 2025 amounts by 1.0413 and rounding as Article 5 says reproduces every published 2026 figure, a consistency check of ours, since the law indexes from a base-year index.
On our engine, a single salary earner first owes tax at NT$464,000 for 2026 income against NT$446,000 for 2025, and a single filer's largest percentage cut, 17.3%, comes just above it.
The basic-living-expense floor absorbs the larger child exemption
The Taxpayer Rights Protection Act bars tax on basic living costs, set by reference to 60% of Taiwan's median disposable income per person. Article 3 of its Enforcement Rules multiplies that amount by everyone on the return and deducts whatever it exceeds the exemptions and deductions by, leaving the salary deduction out of the comparison.
For the two-child couple in 2026, four people at NT$213,000 make NT$852,000. Their exemptions and standard deduction total NT$777,000 with the larger child exemption and NT$676,000 without it, so the floor adds NT$75,000 or NT$176,000, and the deduction is NT$852,000 either way. That holds while the 2026 figure is at least NT$194,250, which is also the line for a single parent with one child. The line moves with family size. A couple with three children needs only NT$185,700, while a couple with one child needs NT$208,500, just 2.1% below the 2025 figure.
Their bill still falls a little, as the salary deduction and brackets sit outside that comparison. On NT$2 million the tax goes from NT$70,300 for 2025 income to NT$67,820 for 2026 with the floor held at NT$213,000, or NT$64,460 at NT$220,000. Taiwan's statistics office reported in August 2026 a 3.2% rise in 2025 median disposable income per person; applied to the NT$355,617 median behind the 2025 figure, 60% is about NT$220,000, our arithmetic from published statistics, not a ministry figure. A minor is anyone under 18, the age of majority in Article 12 of the Civil Code.
Preschool and rent deductions offset the floor for some families
The larger exemption reaches the bill once a family's own deductions pass the floor. A one-earner couple with two children aged 6 and under takes the preschool deduction of NT$150,000 for the first child and NT$225,000 for the second. On our figures the family saves NT$5,050 at NT$1.5 million, and the saving grows with income, to NT$12,120 at NT$2 million and NT$20,200 at NT$3 million. That deduction has had no income test since 2023. A renting couple with children aged 7 to 17, deducting the NT$180,000 maximum, saves the same at the first two incomes with the floor at NT$213,000. Without the larger exemption they clear that floor by only NT$4,000, so at NT$220,000 the second saving falls to NT$9,240.
The ministry's November 2025 release put the tax-free line for a renting family of four with two children aged 6 and under at NT$1,685,000. Re-run with the child amendment and each partner earning at least NT$227,000, it is NT$1,786,000 on our arithmetic.
A household-wide exemption in our calculator wiped out the spouse's
Until 2 October 2026 our Taiwan income tax calculator gave a married couple one personal exemption and one salary deduction between them, with no basic-living-expense floor or 2026 mode. It was exact for a single filer and too high for every other household shape we tested: a one-earner couple without children on NT$1.5 million of 2025 income was shown NT$69,460 against NT$57,820. Its FAQ also dated the actual-expense option for salaries from tax year 112 rather than 108 (2019 income). Since the fix on 2 October 2026, each spouse gets an exemption and each earner a salary deduction, and the floor is applied. The 2026 tables are in, with NT$213,000 filled in as a labelled placeholder that can be overwritten. It matched our engine at all 15,536 points compared, on the combined method only.
Separate salary computation undercuts pooled income for equal earners
Under Article 15 a married couple files one return and usually pools its income. It may instead tax one spouse's salary on its own, against only that spouse's exemption and salary deduction, or work out every category of income separately. For two equal salaries and no dependants on 2025 income, our engine found the separate-salary method lower by 37.8% at NT$3 million combined and 30.3% at NT$10 million, widest at 38.2% near NT$3.29 million. At NT$1 million it ran the other way, NT$9,250 against NT$5,400. With an 80/20 split at NT$1.5 million, the separate method came out NT$1,800 higher. We did not model the floor under that method, so these figures cover couples without dependants only.
Domicile overrides the 183-day count for tax residence
Under Article 7, tax residency is defined in two ways. Someone domiciled in Taiwan and ordinarily living there is a resident regardless of days spent in Taiwan. Lacking a domicile, a person becomes a resident after spending a total of 183 days in Taiwan during a tax year. A non-resident is taxed by withholding instead. Salary is withheld at 18%, or at 6% where monthly pay is no more than 1.5 times the basic wage; the Kaohsiung National Taxation Bureau put that line at NT$44,250 for 2026 payments. Dividends are withheld at 21%.
