Taiwan Company Register: How to Search GCIS Findbiz and Verify Taiwanese Companies (2026)

1. What is the Taiwanese company register?

In Taiwan a company exists because it is registered. The Company Act says no company may be incorporated unless it has registered with the central competent authority, which the Act names as the Ministry of Economic Affairs. The Act lets the Ministry delegate that work to other government authorities, and every record names its own registration authority. TSMC, for example, is registered with the Hsinchu Science Park Bureau of the National Science and Technology Council, not with the Ministry in Taipei.

All of it is published through one search, findbiz: the 經濟部商工登記公示資料查詢, the Ministry of Economic Affairs' public search of commerce and industry registrations. It is run by the MOEA's Administration of Commerce and linked from its Commerce Industrial Services Portal (全國商工行政服務入口網) on the gcis.nat.gov.tw domain, which also hosts the open data platform. It covers five kinds of record: companies under the Company Act, their branch offices, businesses (商業: sole proprietorships and partnerships registered with the city and county governments under the Business Registration Act), factories, and limited partnerships under the 2015 Limited Partnership Act.

What is public is set by law. Article 393 of the Company Act lists the particulars anyone may view on the Ministry's website: the company name and any foreign name in its articles, the business scope, the location of the company and its branches, the shareholders who run or represent the company, the directors and supervisors with their shareholdings, the managers, the authorised or paid-in capital, and whether there are special shares. The articles of incorporation themselves are only shown if the company agrees.

In short: findbiz tells you a company exists, who sits on its board, and how many shares they hold. The Ministry of Finance tells you its latest business status. MOPS tells you how it performs, but only if it is a public company.

2. How to search findbiz step by step

Searching is free and needs no account. findbiz runs in traditional Chinese and in English. The English version translates the field labels, statuses, registration authorities, and business item descriptions, but company names and the names of people stay in Chinese characters. The registered address is shown in Chinese, with a "Registered address in English" link that adds an English version. The register's own usage notes say input should generally be in Chinese, except for digits and the registered English names of foreign companies.

1. Open findbiz and pick what you are searching on

   One search box takes a company name, a Unified Business Number, or a factory registration number. Underneath it you choose what the box searches: name or number, address, company representative, director, supervisor or manager, the foreign-language name in the articles, a cross-domain search such as products, or a former name or number (former data from 2011 onwards). A newer option takes up to ten Unified Business Numbers at once, separated by commas.

   

2. Set the record type and status before you search

   Under 資料種類 (category) tick the record types you want: company, branch office, business, factory, or limited partnership. Under 登記現況 (registration status) choose approved only (僅顯示核准設立), other statuses (其他), or all (全部顯示). Check both before you search, because a record outside the ticked types or status will not show up. The advanced filters narrow the search by city or county and by business item.

3. Search in Chinese, or by the English name in the articles

   TSMC's English name typed into the default name search finds nothing: "Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing" returns "Sorry, we can not find results that match the input." Switch the search type to the foreign company name in the articles and the same words return one record, TSMC. That only works for companies that wrote an English name into their articles. The Unified Business Number works in any language mode.

4. Open the company record

   The company profile shows the Unified Business Number, registration status, equity status, the Chinese name, any English name from the articles, and for importers and exporters the English name held by the International Trade Administration, authorised and paid-in capital, par value and shares issued, the representative, the registered address, the registration authority, the dates of incorporation and last approved change, and the business item codes. None of it is behind a paywall.

   

5. Work through the tabs

   Directors and Supervisors (董監事資料) lists the board members with their shareholdings and the term of the most recently registered board, and names the legal entity a director represents: one TSMC director sits for 行政院國家發展基金管理會, which holds 1,653,709,980 shares. Managerial Personnel lists the managers with their appointment dates. Further tabs cover branch offices, factories, history from 2011, and a cross-domain tab with the stock code and trademarks, which the register labels as reference data only and not for certification.

3. What data is public and what it costs

Taiwan publishes its register data free and charges small fixed fees for official paper. The fees are set nationally in the company registration fee rules (公司登記規費收費準則), under Article 438 of the Company Act.

Two things stand out. Taiwan publishes directors' shareholdings and managers free, because Article 393 puts them on the Ministry's website. And the register publishes no financial statements. Article 20 of the Company Act has a company present its financial statements to its shareholders, audited by a CPA once its capital or size passes a level the Ministry sets, and lets the authority inspect them or order them filed. Under the Ministry's rules on filing and inspecting year-end statements (公司決算書表申報暨查核辦法), the company keeps them at its own office and files them only when the authority orders it. On the financial side, the register shows capital and nothing more. Listed, OTC, emerging-market, and other public companies publish their financial reports and monthly revenue on the Market Observation Post System (公開資訊觀測站, MOPS).

What findbiz does not show: revenue, employee counts, phone numbers, or email addresses. Contact details and financial statements only appear if a company volunteers them in the Self Publish tab (自行揭露事項), which the register says it has no authority to review. For TSMC, every item in that tab reads "Not Available".

4. Taiwanese legal forms, briefly

Article 2 of the Company Act allows four classes of company, and a company's name must show which class it is. The legal form is therefore readable from the name itself: TSMC's 台灣積體電路製造股份有限公司 ends in 股份有限公司. Next to the companies, findbiz holds the businesses registered under the Business Registration Act and the limited partnerships registered under their own Act.

Two practical notes. A limited company has no paid-in capital line: the findbiz history tab explains that its registered capital already is the total paid-up capital of all shareholders. And a foreign company must translate its name into Chinese and state its class and nationality when it registers a branch, so the branch is registered under a Chinese name. The register's usage notes allow a registered foreign company's English name as search input; if that finds nothing, search for the Chinese branch name.

5. How to verify a Taiwanese company: a practical checklist

1. Confirm the Unified Business Number and status

   Search the number on findbiz and check that the Chinese name, the registered address, and the representative match what you were given. The registration status should read 核准設立 (approved). For a quick first pass, our free company lookup finds the registration and revenue data in one search.

2. Check the business status at the Ministry of Finance

   The findbiz record itself sends you to the Ministry of Finance's eTax portal for the latest business status. Its remarks say that whether a company is currently in business is not something the MOEA answers: the tax registration at the Ministry of Finance is where to check it. The lookup takes the full eight-digit number and an image CAPTCHA.

3. Verify the board and the representative

   Open Directors and Supervisors and check that the person signing for the company is listed, and that the term shown covers the date of your contract. The register notes that the term is not a statutory registration item and can change after a re-election, so confirm it with the company or the registration authority if it matters. A director who sits for a government body or another legal entity shows that body's name, which tells you whose representative the director is.

4. Check the managers

   Managerial Personnel lists each manager with an appointment date. If the person you deal with presents themselves as a manager of the company, they should appear here.

5. Read the history

   The history tab lists each approved change since 2011 with the capital and address at the time. A string of capital or address changes just before your deal is worth asking about, and the former-name search finds a company you knew under its old name.

6. Look for a stock code, then go to MOPS

   If the cross-domain tab shows a stock code under its public company data (公開發行之本國股份有限公司資料), the company is a public company and its financial reports and monthly revenue are on MOPS. The market column says where it trades: TSMC's tab shows code 2330 and 上市 (listed). If there is no code, ask the company for its financial statements directly: the register will not have them.

7. Order a certificate when you need paper

   For a bank, a tender, or an authority abroad, apply for a certificate of registered particulars, which Article 392 of the Company Act lets the competent authority issue: NT$200 in Chinese or NT$600 in English under the fee rules.

6. Limitations of the official register

To be clear: for a handful of lookups, findbiz is fast, free, and more generous than most registers. The limits show up when you need scale, English, or data the register was never meant to hold:

• Chinese first, even in English. The English interface translates labels, but company names and people stay in Chinese characters, and an English address takes a separate click. An English name appears only where a company wrote one into its articles or, for importers and exporters, holds one at the International Trade Administration, and the Ministry of Finance has confirmed that its tax dataset has no English or romanised name field at all.
• No accounts for private companies. The register shows authorised and paid-in capital and nothing about revenue, profit, or employees. Financial statements are public for the companies that report on MOPS, and otherwise only where a company volunteers them.
• No contact data. Phone and email appear only if the company volunteers them in the self-disclosure tab, which the register does not review.
• Shareholders stay hidden. Only the shareholdings of directors and supervisors are public. Article 22-1 of the Company Act has companies report shareholders holding more than 10 percent to a platform the Ministry sets up or designates, but findbiz does not show that list.
• Dates in the ROC calendar. The Chinese record and the open data API give dates in ROC years, so every date needs converting before it sorts against anything else.
• Two code systems. Registration uses the Ministry's own business item codes (營業項目代碼, such as CC01080), while the Ministry of Finance's tax data carries separate industry codes (行業代號), so one company can have two classifications.
• History only from 2011. The history tab and the former-name search cover public history data from 2011 onwards.
• Status lives in two places. The registration status is at the MOEA, but whether a company is still in business is a separate lookup on the Ministry of Finance's eTax portal, one number at a time behind an image CAPTCHA.
• The open data API takes paperwork. The developer guide asks integrators to send a usage notification form with their external IP address for whitelisting, applies connection and daily call limits, and is written in Chinese only.

If you check one Taiwanese supplier a quarter, none of this matters. If you onboard hundreds, it is the whole problem.

7. Access Taiwanese register data programmatically

CompanyData maintains a normalized database of all 1,875,391 Taiwanese entities, sourced from the MOEA company and business registration data and refreshed as new registrations and changes appear. Unified Business Numbers are already validated, and records are enriched with revenue, employees, and contact data that the official register does not publish.

Our Company Data API lets you look up any Taiwanese entity by Unified Business Number, name, or address and get structured JSON back in real time, with 150 free lookups to start and no notification form to send first. It is used by developers, banks, and insurers across 190+ countries, so Taiwanese checks work exactly like checks anywhere else.

GET /v1/companies?country=TW&registration_id=22099131

{
  "name": "台灣積體電路製造股份有限公司",
  "legal_form": "股份有限公司",
  "registration_id": "22099131",
  "city": "新竹市",
  "status": "核准設立",
  "representative": "魏哲家"
}

Every field above is what the free findbiz record shows, in the register's own Chinese: the name, the class it ends in, the Unified Business Number, the city from the registered address, the status, and the representative. Revenue, employees, and contact details come back on the same record where we hold them, and are absent here for the reason this guide keeps running into: the Taiwanese register does not publish them.

8. Taiwan vs other company registers

Taiwan publishes more about people and capital than most registers, and far less about performance. For context: