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Welcome! This guide (**startertotaipei.tech)** is a starter kit for non-Mandarin-speaking tech professionals who are moving to Taipei—or thinking about it.
Created by and for tech founders and operators, this crowd-sourced guide offers an English-friendly starting point to explore Taipei’s tech ecosystem.
How can I contribute?
This guide is far from complete, so please do! Just email me at [email protected]. I’ll do my best to include them.
—— Wen Shaw
Last Updated: May 2025
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Taipei is one of the most convenient, safe, vibrant, and foreigner-friendly cities in Asia. I absolutely love it.
For living, the city has excellent infrastructure and a hardworking population that keeps everything running smoothly. Public transportation is always on time. Prices for goods and services are transparent and fixed. It’s so safe that even as a woman, you can walk alone in an alley at 3 a.m. without worry. Compared to most U.S. cities, the cost of living is much lower.
What stands out most is how warm and helpful Taiwanese people are. Service is consistently great—whether you’re at a restaurant, bar, shop, or government office. It makes everyday life easier and far more pleasant.
For work, Taipei offers strong talent across disciplines like design, engineering, finance, and operations. People generally have a solid work ethic and tend to be polite and kind. The growing number of foreign professionals from Latin America, Southeast Asia, and Western countries helps fill roles requiring foreign language skills.
Starting a company is relatively easy, but the banking system is very siloed. That makes accounting and bookkeeping very manual. Fundraising and corporate governance also differ significantly from U.S. norms.
https://www.sparklabstaiwan.com/
https://www.aamataipei.com.tw/ (this is less international, but worth watching)