Taiwan Six-Time Rule: Losing the Duty Exemption

Most people assume the NT$2,000 exemption is unlimited, and find out otherwise when the seventh parcel arrives with a tax bill. The details of this rule decide how you should sequence orders, which consignments count against you, and what options remain once the allowance is spent.

Last updated:2026-08

What the rule prevents

A taxpayer who clears goods under the low-value exemption more than six times in a half-year is classified as importing frequently and loses the exemption.

The exemption exists to keep clearance proportionate for occasional low-value consignments, not to open a duty-free channel for commercial activity. Without a frequency limit, splitting a shipment into a hundred parcels of NT$1,900 would clear the whole thing duty-free. This rule closes that.

The authority is the proviso to Customs Act (關稅法) Article 49 paragraph 2, together with the criteria issued by the Ministry of Finance.

Three counting rules

Rule	Content
Half-year	January to June, and July to December
Reference point	The import date shown on the declaration
Reset	1 January and 1 July

Two periods a year, six each — a maximum of twelve duty-free consignments annually.

"The import date shown on the declaration" matters in practice: the count follows the date the goods were imported, not the date you ordered and not the date the parcel reached you. Which half-year a shipment lands in depends on the declaration date.

Which consignments count

Only consignments released under the exemption are counted:

Situation	Counts?
Customs value NT$1,500, released duty-free	Yes
Customs value NT$3,000, taxed	No
One bottle of wine (never exempt)	No
Consolidated to NT$2,400, taxed	No

This produces a useful inference: a consignment that will be taxed anyway does not consume your allowance. When one shipment is certain to exceed the threshold, adding other small items to it is the cheaper option — that consignment costs no count, and consolidation saves freight.

The reverse also holds. Splitting orders into several NT$1,900 parcels to stay under the line burns one count each, and after six there are none left.

Checking your count

Open the EZ WAY (易利委) app and go to the real-name delegation section to see the number of clearances used. The app is the Customs Administration's real-name authentication tool, which courier parcels already require, so most people already have it installed.

See Shopping overseas and importing to Taiwan for how authentication fits into clearance.

Three adjustments once it runs out

There is no route to restore the allowance, only ways to adjust:

Consolidate small orders. If everything will be taxed anyway, shipping separately only adds freight. Consolidating combines the customs value, but with no exemption left that changes nothing for the worse.

Defer non-urgent orders. An order at the end of December moved to January starts a fresh six. The reference point is the declaration date, so leave enough transit time.

Reconsider the cost structure. An import frequency above six per half-year is usually approaching commercial scale. At that point the number worth managing is total landed cost, not the handful of exempt consignments.

Declaring under someone else's name is not a solution. The count attaches to the taxpayer, so borrowing a name spends theirs — and if treated as circumvention, the issue becomes a false declaration rather than a recalculation.

Whose count is it

The allowance attaches to the taxpayer, who is the consignee named on the declaration. Which means:

• Receiving under a family member's name spends their count
• Different consignees at the same address are counted separately
• Company and personal imports are different taxpayers

Commercial importers face a different problem

For a company importing regularly, the six-time allowance is exhausted almost immediately and is not worth planning around. The rules that matter instead are the ones governing accuracy rather than relief.

Concern	Why it matters more
Correct customs value	Understatement is recovered with penalties at audit
Correct tariff classification	Rates vary tenfold; errors repeat across every shipment
Preferential origin	A valid certificate of origin can remove duty entirely
Prior approvals	Inspection and type approval cannot be obtained after arrival

The compounding effect is what makes classification errors expensive for businesses. An individual misclassifying one parcel faces one adjustment. A company misclassifying a product line repeats the same error on every shipment until an audit surfaces it, and the recovery covers the whole period.

See The complete HS Code guide for classification and How customs value is calculated for valuation.

What the rule does not do

Two limits worth being clear about, because both are commonly assumed:

It does not cap how much you may import. There is no restriction on the number or value of taxed consignments. The rule only governs access to the relief.

It does not create a penalty. Being classified as a frequent importer means later consignments are assessed normally — the ordinary treatment for imported goods. It is the loss of a simplification, not a sanction, and nothing further follows from it.

Counts follow declarations, not parcels

One detail that changes how you should think about consolidation: the count attaches to the customs declaration, not to the number of boxes or the number of orders inside them.

A consolidator that ships four boxes under one declaration consumes one count. The same four boxes declared separately consume four. Which arrangement applies is a function of how the service files, not of how the goods are packed, and it is worth asking before choosing a provider if you import regularly.

The same logic explains why splitting an order across several sellers changes nothing on its own. What matters is how many declarations result, and that is decided at the point of shipment rather than the point of purchase.

Further reading

For the threshold itself — the amount, the excluded product classes, and the threshold-versus-allowance distinction — see The NT$2,000 de minimis threshold. For the full tax structure see the Taiwan import tax guide. To run figures, use the Taiwan import duty calculator.

Primary sources: Customs Act Article 49 (關稅法第 49 條) and the Ministry of Finance notice 海外網購雖容易 頻繁進口要留意.

Frequently asked questions

What is the frequent importer test in Taiwan?

A taxpayer who clears goods under the Customs Act Article 49 paragraph 2 exemption more than six times in a half-year is classified as importing frequently. Half-years run January to June and July to December, and the reference point is the import date shown on the declaration.

When does the count reset?

On 1 January and 1 July. A sixth consignment imported on 30 June and a consignment imported on 1 July fall in different half-years, and the latter starts a fresh count. Counts do not carry across half-years.

Do taxed consignments count against the allowance?

No. The count only tracks consignments released under the exemption. A consignment above NT$2,000 that was taxed, and goods such as tobacco and alcohol that never qualified, do not consume a count.

How do I check how many I have used?

Open the EZ WAY app and go to the real-name delegation section, where the number of import clearances used is displayed. This is the most direct method and requires no separate application to Customs.

What can I do once the allowance is used up?

Later imports are taxed normally and there is no appeal route. The practical adjustments are consolidating small orders into one consignment, since taxed consignments do not consume counts and consolidation saves freight, or deferring non-urgent orders to the next half-year.