Are EZ WAY's Three Clarifications True? A Point-by-Point Fact-Check of the Press Conference
All three clarifications are half right. On "not mandatory": the regulations really do provide three ways to file a mandate, but what the law compels is completing the customs declaration mandate itself, and for five years official outreach taught the public only to install EZ WAY. The alternative routes were not fully explained until the controversy broke. On "protecting personal data": the rules already allow a real-name authenticated mobile number to stand in for the national ID number, so the direction is right, but in practice some operators still demand the ID number, high-value shipments are excluded, and the records of 7.59 million people now sit with a single private company that has no contract with the government. On "we do not charge the public": literally true, since the fee is billed to customs brokers at roughly NT$0.8 to NT$3.5 per entry. But the Director-General said it himself: brokers passing that cost into their service fees is "a commercial decision of the operators." One way or another, it still comes out of your pocket.
Last verified: 2026-08-04 (against the current provisions in the Laws and Regulations Database of the Republic of China, the Customs Administration clarifications of 2026-08-03, and bylined media reports from that day)
| Official clarification | Fact-check verdict |
|---|---|
| "The regulations do not require the public to use EZ WAY" | Legally sound, but the outreach glossed over the rest Article 17 of the air express regulations does provide three ways to file a mandate, and that much is true. But what is compulsory is the mandate itself, and for years official outreach mentioned little beyond EZ WAY. The other two routes were only fully explained to the public on August 3. |
| "Online mandates were promoted to protect personal data" | Real legal basis, real effect, enforcement falls short Article 18, Paragraph 3 allows a mobile number to replace the national ID number. In practice some operators still demand the number, the exemption does not apply above a customs value of NT$50,000, and the data is now concentrated in one private company with no contract. |
| "We do not charge the public" | Literally true; consumers foot the bill in the end Customs brokers are billed on a volume tier of NT$0.8 to NT$3.5 per entry (per the Director-General), who also called brokers reflecting that cost in their service fees a commercial decision. That is an official admission that the cost is passed on. |
What actually happened at the press conference: a timeline
This did not start online. It started in the Legislative Yuan. On July 29, 2026, Legislator Lin Dai-hua put it to the Finance Committee that a statutory real-name clearance procedure was being run for profit by a private company with no contract in place: up to NT$3.5 per confirmation, plus a NT$2,500 monthly fee and NT$0.8 per entry for SFTP data integration, on a tiered schedule under which large cross-border e-commerce platforms pay the lowest rate while small and mid-sized local brokers pay the highest. Public anger built from August 1, when influencer Chen Yi asked whether "a private company should be allowed to collect the public's personal data this way." At noon on August 3 the Customs Administration convened an emergency press conference on the "three major misunderstandings about EZ WAY," chaired in person by Director-General Peng Ying-wei.
The baseline figures disclosed there: EZ WAY has about 7.59 million registered users and handles over 4 million simplified import express declarations a month, roughly 70% of the total. The operator, Trade-Van Information Services (listed as 6183), is a state-invested private company in which the Ministry of Finance is the largest shareholder at 36.11%. Yet the Customs Administration and Trade-Van have "no agreement or contract of any kind, and Customs did not commission Trade-Van to build EZ WAY." Those are the Director-General's own words. He also promised a special review report within 3 months assessing whether the system should be brought in as government public infrastructure, and said a regulatory alert feature would be added to the app.
The press conference settled nothing. Cheap, an influencer with over a million followers, rebutted it point by point the same day: telling people "you can always file on paper" is like saying "nobody forces you to take the elevator in Taipei 101, you can use the stairs." He called the whole event an exercise in pouring oil on the fire. Emotions aside, below we test each of the three clarifications against the text of the regulations and the government's own documents.
Clarification 1: "EZ WAY is not mandatory" - the law holds up, the outreach does not
Start with what the government gets right. Article 17, Paragraph 1 of the Regulations Governing Customs Clearance Procedures for Air Express Consignments really does provide three ways to file a mandate: a written case-by-case or long-term mandate; an online mandate through the Customs-Port-Trade (CPT) Single Window using a Citizen Digital Certificate, which since October 2025 also works as a mobile certificate with no card reader; or an online case-by-case mandate through a real-name authentication platform, of which EZ WAY is only one implementation. Article 18 of the Regulations Governing Customs Clearance Procedures for Sea Express Consignments is structured the same way. As a matter of law, "not mandatory" holds up, and about 30% of declarations do still run on paper mandates today, including companies that are not eligible for real-name authentication and have no other route.
Now the half that was left out. First, what the law does compel is completing the mandate: Paragraph 2 of the same article provides that where a mandate has not been completed and the case is on record, Customs may decline to accept the declaration, and that paragraph took full effect on March 1, 2026. The Customs Administration itself promoted this as "full implementation" in its press release of February 24, 2026. What is forced on you is not a particular app; it is the outcome that nothing clears without a mandate. Second, the regulation says Customs "may" decline, which is a discretionary provision, yet public-facing outreach uniformly says you "will be unable to clear the goods." Flexibility for the trade, absolutes for the public.
Third, and this is where the anger actually comes from: for five years, outreach aimed at the public taught you little beyond downloading EZ WAY. The two other lawful routes, the paper mandate and the Single Window, were not fully explained to a general audience until the Director-General did so at the press conference on August 3, 2026, after the controversy had already broken. Only two companies hold the qualification to operate a customs clearance network, and the second one assessed it and declined, so in the market the choice of three is in practice a choice of one. The Customs Administration's own supplementary statement concedes that cross-border e-commerce platforms in practice "generally assume the customer has already registered for the EZ Way app and require the mandate to be confirmed before shipping." The options are written into the law; only one road was ever paved.
The distinction in one line
What is compulsory is the mandate; what is not compulsory is the tool. Those two layers have to be argued separately. Officials only talk about the second, critics only about the first, which is why each side is convinced the other is lying.
Clarification 2: "EZ WAY exists to protect your personal data" - real legal basis, real effect, short delivery
In fairness, this point rests on something real. In the paper era people handed photocopies of their ID cards to brokers, and the consequences of those copies being kept and reused are documented: in 2020 Customs uncovered nearly 300 declarations filed under stolen identities and referred them for prosecution; in 2021 a single broker in Taoyuan filed nearly 300 declarations in other people's names within three months, and among the evidence police seized were more than 250 original mandate forms with the date left blank. Online mandates genuinely cut that chain of risk. More important still, Article 18, Paragraph 3 of the air regulations says it in black and white: where the consignee on a simplified import declaration files a real-name authenticated mobile number, the national ID number "may be omitted." At the level of the regulations, a phone number is enough, and that is the real privacy benefit of real-name authentication.
But delivery falls short in three places. First, permitted is not the same as practised: verified media reporting in 2023 found that after completing real-name authentication, consolidators still demanded the ID number again, with no number meaning no shipment. The Customs Administration wrote to the relevant trade associations at the time asking them "not to request national ID numbers from the public." Three years on, it is still happening. Second, the phone-number exemption only covers simplified declarations; high-value goods with a customs value above NT$50,000 must still declare the national ID number. Third, the ID number never left the process, it merely moved house. Registering for EZ WAY itself requires your national ID number, and anyone whose telecom verification fails must upload photographs of both sides of their ID card. The identity records of 7.59 million people went from being scattered across brokers' paper files to being concentrated in one private company's database.
The governance gap is what makes that concentration sting. Legislator Wu Tsung-hsien put it bluntly: how can you say in one breath that "EZ WAY has no contractual relationship with the government" and in the next that "I guarantee EZ WAY's data is safe"? Fairness cuts the other way too. As of the date of this check, there is no record of any confirmed data breach or hacking incident at EZ WAY or Trade-Van. The problem is not that data has leaked; it is that there is still no answer to who would be liable, and under what contract, if it ever did.
The high-value exception nobody mentions
Goods with a customs value above NT$50,000 cannot use a simplified declaration, so the phone-number exemption does not apply. The national ID number, resident certificate number or passport number must still be declared.
Clarification 3: "We do not charge the public" - literally true, but the bill takes a detour and still reaches you
The fees themselves are not in dispute; the government has confirmed them. At the press conference the Director-General explained that Trade-Van prices by usage tier and charges customs brokers roughly NT$0.8 to NT$3.5 per entry. Legislator Lin Dai-hua's questioning went further: SFTP data integration at source carries an additional NT$2,500 monthly fee plus a NT$0.8 per-entry service charge, and the tier design creates a two-track market, with high-volume cross-border e-commerce platforms paying only NT$0.8 per entry while small and mid-sized local brokers carry the top rate of NT$3.5. Lo Wen-hsiang, chairman of the Taipei Air Cargo Forwarders Association, supplied the history in an interview: the per-declaration fee once ran as high as NT$18 and only came down to NT$3.5 after the association negotiated, and without the discount a NT$2.5 traceability fee could be added on top.
So who ends up paying? No guesswork required, because two direct quotes settle it. Chairman Lo Wen-hsiang: "At present the EZ WAY fee is paid by the customs broker first and then collected from the consignee." Director-General Peng Ying-wei, at the press conference: "Brokers reflecting the cost in their service fees is a commercial decision of the operators." That is the government conceding that the cost is passed on while arguing it is not the government's business. Over 4 million entries a month at NT$0.8 to NT$3.5 each adds up to tens of millions of New Taiwan dollars a year in system fees, all of it buried in the declaration fees and shipping charges you actually see. "We do not charge the public" and "the public ultimately pays" are both true; the press conference only said the first one.
The deeper problem is the supervisory vacuum. Completing a customs declaration mandate is a legally required step, yet the system that carries it has no government contract, its rates need no government approval (the competent authority has determined that this does not fall within customs clearance network business), and the company's financial statements do not break out the revenue. A fee-charging system that 7.59 million people were channelled into by regulation, with rates set by a private company "in commercial negotiation with the trade," is the core of what legislators and the public are actually objecting to.
Why you never see this charge
Consolidation and express rate cards never list an "EZ WAY fee" as a separate line; it is folded into the declaration fee and the shipping charge. The Ministry of Finance's own 2021 explanation states plainly that when operators advance duties and taxes, "some operators charge the importer a handling fee." Not seeing it does not mean you are not paying it.
Where does your national ID number actually go?
Set the three clarifications aside; this is what most people really want to know. Under the current regulations and official documents, your ID number passes four checkpoints in a cross-border online purchase:
Checkpoint 1: registering for EZ WAY - it goes to Trade-Van
Registration requires your nationality, mobile number, name and national ID number; if telecom verification fails, you must also upload clear photographs of both sides of your ID card. This is where the records of 7.59 million people start to pool, held by a listed private company with no service contract with the government.
Checkpoint 2: the simplified declaration - legally, the broker does not need it
Article 18, Paragraph 3 of the Regulations Governing Customs Clearance Procedures for Air Express Consignments: where a real-name authenticated mobile number is declared, the national ID number may be omitted. In other words, for ordinary online purchases with a customs value of NT$50,000 or less, brokers and consolidators have no legal need for your ID number.
Checkpoint 3: in practice - some operators ask anyway
Verified media reporting from 2023: after completing real-name authentication, consumers were still asked to hand over their ID card again, with no number meaning no shipment. The Customs Administration had already written to the express and customs broker associations asking them not to request national ID numbers from the public. If an operator asks, you can cite this and refuse.
Checkpoint 4: identity theft - the enemy the system was built to stop is real
In 2020 Customs uncovered nearly 300 declarations filed under stolen identities; in 2021 a single broker filed nearly 300 in three months; one member of the public was impersonated by several brokers at a rate of 1 to 3 declarations a day, at least 600 times in total. Since June 20, 2025 EZ WAY has blocked all registrations and mandates from overseas IP addresses, on the official grounds that overseas misuse of Taiwanese identities had become "increasingly frequent."
Fact-check note: as of 2026-08-04 there is no record of any confirmed data breach or hacking incident at EZ WAY or Trade-Van. The impersonation cases above are crimes in which personal data was misused at the operator end, which is a different matter from the system being hacked. The former is documented; the latter is not.
Less shouting, more fixing - three things this site wants done
HowBridge is a parcel consolidation operator and a daily user of this system. We do not need a press conference, and we do not need an influencer to translate it for us. We would simply like the rules moved in three directions:
Let the phone number genuinely replace the ID number
The legal basis already exists (Article 18, Paragraph 3 of the air regulations, "may be omitted"), and the Customs Administration issued its letter back in 2023. What is missing is upgrading "please do not ask" into an obligation with audits and consequences, so that an ordinary online purchase can be identified end to end by a real-name authenticated mobile number. South Korea has used a personal customs clearance code in place of the national ID number since 2011, fully implemented in 2015, and it left a lesson too: codes get stolen just the same (120 cases uncovered in 2022, involving KRW 38.8 billion), which is why from 2026 Korea refreshes the code annually and penalises misuse heavily. Taiwan should copy the whole design, not half of it.
Rates for a statutory procedure must be transparent
Completing a customs declaration mandate is a legal requirement, yet the system carrying it has no contract, needs no rate approval and discloses no revenue. The rate card should be published, the charging should be brought under supervision (either by contract or by rate approval), and the 3-month review report the Director-General promised should seriously assess bringing the system in as government public infrastructure, rather than letting "market mechanisms" shut down every question about oversight.
Explain all three routes, and the conditions attached
Official materials should set out all three mandate routes and what each actually costs, describe honestly that declining a declaration is discretionary, and state the conditions for advance mandate confirmation. The public is not unwilling to accept the system; it is unwilling to accept a "free choice" with only one road built.
A reminder for consumers in the meantime
Until the rules change, real-name authentication and advance mandate confirmation remain in force. When a push notification arrives, check the sender, the item description and the value before tapping "declaration matches"; if you did not buy it, tap "does not match" and file an impersonated-declaration affidavit. Criticising the system and complying with it are not in conflict.
How HowBridge handles this
Criticism is criticism; we still run the procedure smoothly for you. HowBridge is directly integrated with EZ WAY real-name authentication, fills in the correct consignee details automatically at declaration time, and sends the push notification before your goods leave our Shenzhen warehouse, so you have plenty of time to confirm. No "the parcel is already here, now go tap something." Our partner customs broker holds AEO (Authorized Economic Operator) certification and can issue uniform invoices and import declarations. We will keep watching how the rules change; your parcels will not be left in the middle.
Legal basis and sources (every figure on this page comes from here)
- Regulations Governing Customs Clearance Procedures for Air Express Consignments (Articles 17, 18 and 29) - Laws and Regulations Database of the Republic of China
- Regulations Governing Customs Clearance Procedures for Sea Express Consignments (Articles 18 and 32) - Laws and Regulations Database of the Republic of China
- Customs Administration clarification, 2026-08-03: response to reports that "EZ Way is run by a private company"
- Customs Administration supplementary statement, 2026-08-03: Customs on public concerns about using the EZ Way app
- Customs Administration press release, 2026-02-24: advance mandate confirmation fully implemented from March 1, 2026
- CNA, 2026-08-03: Ministry of Finance clarifies EZ WAY's 3 major misunderstandings (Director-General verbatim)
- UDN, 2026-08-03: the three clarifications (NT$0.8-3.5 per entry; cost pass-through called a commercial decision)
- ETtoday, 2026-08-03: association chairman Lo Wen-hsiang on how the rates evolved (NT$18 down to NT$3.5, plus the traceability fee)
- China Times, 2026-08-04: Lin Dai-hua's questioning and the market structure (SFTP monthly fee, tiered pricing)
- China Times, 2026-08-03: Legislator Wu Tsung-hsien's four demands (guaranteeing data security without a contract)
- Nextapple News, 2023-01-17: ID cards still demanded after real-name authentication (Customs Administration: do not request them)
- Korea Customs Service (korea.kr), 2022-10-14: enforcement policy on misuse of the personal customs clearance code
- ETtoday, 2026-08-03: Cheap responds to the press conference point by point
Frequently asked questions
Further reading
- What is EZ WAY? A complete guide to registration and real-name authentication
- EZ WAY advance mandate confirmation: what full implementation on 2026/3/1 means
- EZ WAY registration steps and where people get stuck
- What to do when you forget your EZ WAY password
- What happens if you report a mismatch in EZ WAY
We watch the rules so you do not have to; we run the paperwork for you
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