Taiwan Food Import Inspection 2026
If the CCC tariff code of your goods lists import regulation F01, F02, 508 or 511, you must first complete food business registration (there is no way around it) and then apply for inspection at the Taiwan FDA office at the port of entry. After a document review — plus sampling and laboratory testing where necessary — a pass notice is issued and the goods clear Customs. Goods for personal use and not for sale are exempt from applying for inspection where the value is one thousand US dollars or less and the weight six kilograms or less, counted per single item line on the customs declaration (this does not apply to tablet and capsule foods, which follow a separate 12/36-bottle rule).
Last updated: 2026-05-27 · HowBridge Logistics editorial team · Compiled from Customs announcements and current regulations
1. Four import rule codes: F01, F02, 508, 511
| Code | Scope | Authority |
|---|---|---|
| F01 | Food and related products, including general food, beverages, and processed agricultural products. | TFDA |
| F02 | Goods under this code that are food, food utensils, food containers or packaging, food-grade detergents or other food-related items, or that contain any of the foregoing, must apply for import inspection under the Regulations Governing Inspection of Imported Food and Related Products. | Taiwan Food and Drug Administration, Ministry of Health and Welfare |
| 508 | Food additives. A single-ingredient food additive (flavourings excepted) requires a food additive permit from the Ministry of Health and Welfare and is handled under F01; flavourings and compound food additives are handled under F01 only and need no permit. Goods not intended for use as food or food additives are exempt from the above where the dedicated code DH999999999508 is entered on the import declaration. | Ministry of Health and Welfare |
| 511 | Tablet and capsule food products. A permit document must be obtained from the Ministry of Health and Welfare, and that permit may be held and used only by the importer that applied for it and may not be authorised for use by any other business. Samples and gifts require an Import Consent Document. | Ministry of Health and Welfare |
Note: 508 food additives and 511 capsule/tablet foods also need product registration approval in addition to shipment inspection.
2. Required first: food business registration
Food import businesses must complete TFDA food business registration before applying for import inspection. The legal basis is Article 8, paragraph 3 of the Act Governing Food Safety and Sanitation: “Food businesses of the categories and scale announced by the central competent authority shall apply for registration with the central competent authority or with the competent authority of the special municipality or county (city), and may commence business only after doing so.” The food import trade is one of the categories announced as requiring registration.
| Platform | Food business registration system |
| Website | fadenbook.fda.gov.tw |
| Login | Company certificate or platform account |
| Fee | Free |
| After completion | Use the registration number in inspection applications |
Tip: keep common imported food categories updated in advance.
3. Five border inspection steps
- Confirm F01/F02/508/511Check the 11-digit CCC code and import rule field.
- Complete food business registrationRegister on the food business platform and obtain the registration number.
- Apply to the port officeApply at the TFDA office for the arrival port with draft declaration, specification, and label files.
- Document review and samplingTFDA reviews documents and may test pesticide residues, heavy metals, microbes, or additives.
- Receive approval and clear customsAfter passing, TFDA issues the food import inspection approval notice for customs release.
4. TFDA port offices
| Office | Ports |
|---|---|
| Keelung Office | Keelung Port, Su-ao Port |
| Taipei Office | Taipei Port |
| Taoyuan Office | Taoyuan International Airport |
| Taichung Office | Taichung Port |
| Kaohsiung Office | Kaohsiung Port, Anping Port, Magong Port |
Check the TFDA border inspection section for office contacts and service hours.
5. Fees and inspection timing
| Document review (desk review) | Processing period 1 day (review and approval) |
| On-site inspection | Processing period 2 days (on-site inspection work) |
| Sampling and laboratory testing | Processing period 9 days = 7 days sampling and testing + 2 days approval and closing |
| Re-testing (once only) | Processing period 7 days = 1 day review + 4 days testing + 2 days approval and closing |
| Correction of Chinese-language labelling | Processing period 14 days = 12 days review + 2 days approval and closing |
| Review fee rate | Assessed on the customs value: 0.5 per mille for wheat, barley, maize and soybean products; 1.5 per mille for all other food, food additives, food utensils, containers and packaging, and food-grade detergents (rounded down to the whole dollar). |
| Minimum review fee and half-rate band | Where the review fee is less than NT$300, it is charged at NT$300 per application; the portion exceeding NT$100,000 is charged at half rate. ⚠️ An amendment promulgated on 27 January 2026 (ROC year 115) raises this with effect from 1 January 2027 (ROC year 116) to NT$330 per application where the fee falls below NT$330, and adds a charge of NT$1,000 per application for requesting correction of Chinese labelling or reprocessing of the product. |
| On-site inspection fee | Where the same declarant's products are stored at one location and can be inspected in a single visit, NT$500 per inspector-visit; where the inspection authority maintains a stationed office inside the port warehouse or container yard and carries out the work there, NT$300 per inspector-visit; where sampling or checking must be done at a site released in advance under bond, NT$1,000 per inspector-visit. If the trip cannot be completed in one day and an overnight stay is required, additional costs are calculated under the domestic travel expense reimbursement rules. ⚠️ From 1 January 2027 (ROC year 116) these become NT$550, NT$330 and NT$1,100 respectively. |
Timeframes follow the TFDA “Table of Processing Deadlines for Public Applications” (announced 17 August 2026, ROC year 115, FDA Qi-Zi No. 1151604804); the unit is calendar days, not working days, and time spent supplying missing documents is not counted. Fees follow the schedule to Article 4 of the Standards for Fees Charged for Inspection of Imported Food and Related Products (the version currently in force was promulgated on 10 May 2021, ROC year 110). Those Standards were amended on 27 January 2026 (ROC year 115), but under Article 5 the schedule to Article 4 takes effect on 1 January 2027 (ROC year 116), an increase of roughly 10%; until then the current rates apply.
6. Exemptions: personal use and samples
Personal-use exemption threshold: not for sale, and valued at one thousand US dollars or less with a weight of six kilograms or less (counted by the value and quantity of a single item line on the customs declaration), clearance code DH000000000002.
⚠️ Three situations are excluded: ① tablet and capsule foods are governed by a separate rule — at most 12 bottles (boxes, cans, packs or bags) of each kind and no more than 36 in total, in the original packaging only; ② food additives and flavourings are entirely outside this exemption announcement; ③ food containers and utensils have their own threshold — a single item line valued at one thousand US dollars or less with no more than 4 pieces of the same specification, or valued above one thousand US dollars with a quantity of 1 piece (code DH000000000005).
The exemption also does not apply to meat, tissue, organs or derivatives of cattle raised for food in countries where bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) has occurred, or to goods containing any of the foregoing.
Legal basis: Ministry of Health and Welfare announcement Wei-Shou-Shi-Zi No. 1081300310 of 16 April 2019 (ROC year 108) (Article 30, paragraph 3 of the Act Governing Food Safety and Sanitation). What counts as a “single item line”? Under point 5 of the same announcement, a single item line means goods identical in product name, ingredients, brand, manufacturing plant and place of origin, and it covers the total quantity of all batch numbers, manufacturing dates (expiry dates) or packaging specifications under that same product name — buying the same product in several flavours or with several different expiry dates will still be added together.
Commercial samples / exhibition goods / R&D use: you may apply to the TFDA for an inspection waiver (application for exemption from import inspection); the processing period is 7 days (calendar days: 5 days review + 2 days approval). The documents required differ by purpose: commercial samples need a business registration or change-of-registration form together with the product's intended use, quantity and final disposal method; exhibition goods additionally need an exhibition plan; research and testing use needs a research and testing plan.
Not exempt: goods over the personal-use threshold or for commercial sale still need import inspection.
7. Special rules for 508 food additives and 511 capsule/tablet foods
These categories need product registration approval in addition to each shipment border inspection.
| Item | 508 food additives | 511 capsule/tablet foods |
|---|---|---|
| Registration | Food additive permit number required | Capsule/tablet food permit number required |
| Review fee for a new registration application | NT$6,000 per application | NT$4,000 per application |
| Shipment inspection | Still required | Still required |
| Application platform | TFDA online platform | TFDA online platform |
Note: fees and review time are subject to the latest TFDA notice.
8. Border inspection in practice: the official statistics
Every figure below is taken from the annual reports of the Taiwan Food and Drug Administration, Ministry of Health and Welfare, and from the Regulations Governing Inspection of Imported Food and Related Products as currently in force. They answer one practical question: how likely is imported food actually to be held up, and what holds it up. ROC year 113 corresponds to the 2024 calendar year.
Border inspection trends over the past four years
| Year | Consignments filed | Total failures | Failure rate | On-site failures | Laboratory failures | Laboratory failure rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ROC 110 (2021) | 715,929 | 11,866 | 1.66% | 11,022 | 846 | 1.47% |
| ROC 111 (2022) | 724,180 | 11,137 | 1.54% | 10,479 | 664 | 1.01% |
| ROC 112 (2023) | 735,752 | 10,254 | 1.39% | 9,542 | 710 | 1.15% |
| ROC 113 (2024) | 761,342 | 10,982 | 1.44% | 10,128 | 871 | 1.27% |
Source: TFDA annual reports for ROC years 110 to 113. Besides on-site and laboratory failures, “total failures” also includes document-review failures (87 consignments in ROC 110, 142 in ROC 111, 153 in ROC 112 and 159 in ROC 113). Laboratory failure rate = consignments failing testing ÷ consignments sampled for testing.
Breakdown of laboratory failures by test category, FY2024 (ROC year 113)
| Test category | Consignments tested | Failures | Failure rate for this category | Share of all laboratory failures |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pesticide residues | 14,799 | 516 | 3.5% | 59.7% |
| Food additives | 18,543 | 165 | 0.9% | 19.1% |
| Food utensils, containers and packaging | 5,646 | 84 | 1.5% | 9.7% |
| Food composition | 8,967 | 75 | 0.8% | 8.7% |
| Natural toxins in food | 2,636 | 10 | 0.4% | 1.2% |
| Veterinary drug residues | 8,617 | 7 | 0.1% | 0.8% |
| Food microbiology | 444 | 2 | 0.5% | 0.2% |
| Other sanitation items | 758 | 5 | 0.7% | 0.6% |
| Total | 60,410 | 864 | 1.4% | 100.0% |
Source: Table 11 of the TFDA annual report for FY2024 (ROC year 113) (radiation testing is excluded, so the total of 864 consignments is slightly below the overall laboratory failure figure of 871). Pesticide residues alone account for nearly six-tenths of the total.
Laboratory testing results by major producing country, FY2024 (ROC year 113)
| Producing country | Consignments tested | Pass rate | Failures | Failure rate for that country | Share of all failures |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mainland China | 7,953 | 97.3% | 214 | 2.7% | 24.6% |
| Japan | 30,578 | 99.5% | 143 | 0.5% | 16.4% |
| Vietnam | 4,262 | 98.0% | 87 | 2.0% | 10.0% |
| United States | 4,546 | 98.5% | 70 | 1.5% | 8.0% |
| Indonesia | 2,584 | 97.6% | 62 | 2.4% | 7.1% |
| South Korea | 1,980 | 97.3% | 54 | 2.7% | 6.2% |
| India | 729 | 94.2% | 42 | 5.8% | 4.8% |
| Thailand | 2,390 | 98.5% | 37 | 1.5% | 4.2% |
| Total | 68,535 | 98.7% | 871 | 1.3% | 100.0% |
Source: Table 10 of the TFDA annual report for FY2024 (ROC year 113) (the top eight sources ranked by share of failures). Failure rate = that country's failures ÷ that country's consignments tested. Mainland China had only just over a quarter as many consignments tested as Japan, yet produced half again as many failures, and has now topped the list of producing countries for four consecutive years: 189 consignments (22.3%) in ROC 110, 170 (25.6%) in ROC 111, 159 (22.4%) in ROC 112 and 214 (24.6%) in ROC 113. The ROC 113 annual report also shows mainland China accounting for about 16% of all consignments filed but 24.6% of laboratory failures.
The sampling ladder: how likely your shipment is to be picked
| Inspection method | Sampling rate | When it applies | Legal basis |
|---|---|---|---|
| Batch-by-batch inspection | 100% (every consignment checked and tested) | Listed under the annual inspection plan; or the previous consignment of the same origin and same tariff classification under “enhanced sampling” failed testing; or two consecutive consignments failed under surveillance inspection | Articles 8 and 9 |
| Enhanced sampling inspection | 20%～50% | Listed under the annual inspection plan (that is, on the enhanced-inspection item list); or the previous consignment of the same origin and same tariff classification under “general sampling” failed testing | Articles 8 and 10 |
| General sampling inspection | 2%～10% | Ordinary products not subject to batch-by-batch, enhanced sampling, verification or surveillance inspection | Articles 8 and 11 |
| Batch-by-batch on-site checking | Every consignment checked (laboratory testing not necessarily required) | A further application for a product of the same origin and same tariff classification after an on-site check found a breach of Article 15, paragraph 1, subparagraphs 8 to 10, or Article 18, of the Food Safety Act | Article 12 |
| Preferential treatment for compliant traders | The lowest rate within general sampling | 10 consignments tested within 1 year all passing, plus an approved quality control plan; or 20 consignments all passing within 1 year; or 30 consignments all passing within 2 years | Article 14 |
| Document review only | — | Qualifies under Article 14, paragraph 1, subparagraph 1, and every inspection result has passed in the 2 years since the lowest sampling rate was applied | Article 15 |
Legal basis: Regulations Governing Inspection of Imported Food and Related Products, as amended on 21 August 2025 (ROC year 114), currently in force.
Reasons for border failures of food imported from mainland China (cases published by the TFDA, January 2023 to August 2026)
| Reason for failure | Cases published | Share of mainland China cases |
|---|---|---|
| Pesticide residue levels not in compliance | 266 | 45.7% |
| Migration test not in compliance (food utensils, containers and packaging) | 183 | 31.4% |
| Other sanitation items not in compliance | 23 | 4.0% |
| Heavy metal levels not in compliance | 21 | 3.6% |
| Preservative levels not in compliance | 20 | 3.4% |
| Contains non-permitted colourings | 19 | 3.3% |
| Sweetener levels not in compliance | 19 | 3.3% |
| Bleaching agent levels not in compliance | 11 | 1.9% |
| Veterinary drug residue levels not in compliance | 10 | 1.7% |
| Mainland China total (including other reasons) | 582 | 100% |
Source: the TFDA's periodically published “Information on Border Inspection Failures”. HowBridge compiled the 2,559 cases published between 3 January 2023 and 18 August 2026, of which mainland China accounted for 582 cases (22.7%, the highest of any source), followed by Japan with 394, Vietnam 278, Indonesia 220 and the United States 177; these were then classified by the reason for failure given in each published notice. ⚠️ These are published cases, a different measure from the failed consignments reported in the annual reports; the two must not be added together or substituted for one another.
International comparison: each jurisdiction's own reporting basis (⚠️ these figures cannot be compared head to head)
| Jurisdiction | Year | Total declarations / lines | Inspection method and rate | Failures / refusals of entry |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Taiwan (TFDA) | ROC year 113 (2024) | 761,342 consignments filed | Document review 100%; on-site inspection + sampling for testing 9.00% | 871 consignments failed testing; 10,982 non-compliant overall = 1.44% of filings |
| Japan (Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare) | FY2024 (Reiwa 6) | 2,466,004 import notifications | Laboratory testing on 206,227 = 8.4% | 731 violations = 0.03% of notifications |
| South Korea (Ministry of Food and Drug Safety) | 2025 | 874,928 import declarations | Precision (laboratory) inspection on 143,845 = 16.4%; document inspection 67.8%; on-site inspection 15.8% | 1,420 failures = 0.16% of declarations |
| United States (FDA) | Fiscal year 2024 | 15,876,725 human food lines | Field examination 0.33%; sampled for analysis 0.077% | 8,741 lines refused entry = 0.055% |
| European Union (RASFF) | 2025 | No denominator published | — | 5,344 notifications, of which 1,428 were border rejections |
⚠️ This table is not a league table. Each jurisdiction counts a different denominator (Taiwan counts “consignments filed”, Japan and South Korea count “declarations”, the United States counts “lines”, and the EU publishes no denominator), and the numerators differ too (in Japan and South Korea “inspection” means laboratory testing; in the United States “examined” means a field examination while “sampled” means sent for laboratory analysis; the EU's border rejections cover only serious-risk cases that must be notified). The table is shown only to illustrate differences in system design: Taiwan runs a document review on every single consignment and then uses a risk model to decide what to sample, whereas the United States pairs an extremely low physical examination rate with the Foreign Supplier Verification Programs (FSVP). Also worth noting: among the top ten grounds for refusal of entry in the United States in fiscal year 2024, nutrition labelling (16.5%) and the absence of English labelling (10.4%) together account for more than a quarter — the same pattern as Taiwan's “on-site failures are mainly non-compliant Chinese labelling” — labelling is the first hurdle everywhere. Sources: Japan's Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, “Statistics on Imported Food Monitoring, FY Reiwa 6”; South Korea's MFDS, Annual Report on Inspection of Imported Food (수입식품 등 검사연보) 2025; the US FDA Import Summary and Import Refusals datasets (rates calculated by HowBridge from those datasets); and the EU RASFF / ACN 2025 annual report.
What most often holds a shipment up is not pesticide residues but the Chinese label. In FY2024 (ROC year 113), 10,128 consignments failed on-site checking — 11.6 times the 871 that failed laboratory testing. The annual report states plainly that on-site failures are “mainly non-compliant Chinese labelling”, including no Chinese label, no expiry date shown, type smaller than 2 mm, ingredient statements that do not match the original-language label, additives not declared as required, product names that do not reflect what the product actually is, nutrition labelling or nutrition claims that breach the rules, and products already past their expiry date. In other words, most cases are lost not in the laboratory but on the packaging.
Get caught once and your sampling rate jumps a tier. Under Articles 9 to 11 of the Inspection Regulations, for the same declarant and products of the same origin and same tariff classification, a testing failure under general sampling (2–10%) moves the product up to enhanced sampling (20–50%); a further failure under enhanced sampling moves it up to batch-by-batch inspection (100%). To move back down, the importer must, after the failed consignment, bring in five consecutive consignments that all pass testing, in a quantity three times that of the failed consignment (Article 10, paragraph 1, subparagraph 2 and Article 11, paragraph 1, subparagraph 2); for batch-by-batch on-site checking after an on-site failure, the requirement is three consecutive consignments at twice the quantity (Article 12, paragraph 2).
The ROC year 115 enhanced-inspection list: mainland China has the most items. Drawing on the products that failed border testing in ROC year 114, the TFDA announced 23 items for enhanced inspection in ROC year 115, with the control period running from 1 January 2026 to 31 December 2026. Mainland China accounts for 7 of them, more than any other producing country: radish, Sichuan pepper, chilli and sweet pepper fruits, other frozen vegetables, and dried unground Capsicum fruits (all for pesticide residues), plus yellow croaker (fresh chilled and frozen) (veterinary drug residues). Japan follows with 6 items and Vietnam with 4. Items on the list are subject to enhanced sampling inspection (20%–50%), so the risk of being sampled and returned is markedly higher than for ordinary goods.
Spices are the hardest-hit category: the Sudan dye programme. According to the TFDA annual report for ROC year 114 (2025), 3,239 consignments were tested for Sudan dyes at the border in ROC year 113, with 21 detections published in total: 7 from China, 6 from India, 5 from Vietnam, 2 from Egypt and 1 from South Africa. The products most often at fault were chilli powder, black pepper powder and turmeric. The TFDA has placed chilli, turmeric, pepper and similar products under surveillance inspection for a defined period, and any detection of non-compliance feeds back into tighter border controls.
Sampling is not purely random: Taiwan's border inspection now uses machine learning. The TFDA has built the Border Prediction Intelligent system (BPI), which combines big data with artificial intelligence and machine learning — adding new factors, tuning model hyperparameters and strengthening features — to predict high-risk declarations. According to the annual report for ROC year 114 (2025), BPI has refined its best-performing prediction model across 12 product categories, and declarations picked using AI return a non-compliance hit rate 1.15 times that of declarations selected without AI (the figure for the previous year was 1.19 times). In other words, within the same “sampling” pool, declarations the model flags as high risk are noticeably more likely to be picked and found wanting.
Buying kitchenware counts as “food” regulation too. Of the 582 published cases involving mainland China, the 183 migration-test failures (31.4%) were all food utensils and containers — in practice chopping boards, chopsticks, spatulas, plates, paper cups, soup cups, baking paper, paper boxes and PP knives. Such goods are extremely common on Taobao and 1688, and unlike fresh produce they really do come up: fresh agricultural, fishery and livestock products may not be cleared through the express consignment zone in the first place, whereas kitchenware travels perfectly well by consolidated shipping, so it genuinely gets caught. A real example: a batch of paper food containers tested for migration with 4% acetic acid (95°C for 30 minutes) gave an evaporation residue of 40 ppm, above the 30 ppm limit in the Sanitation Standards for Food Utensils, Containers and Packaging, and was returned or destroyed.
A whole factory suspended: “suspension of inspection applications” under Article 34 of the Food Safety Act. The ROC year 113 annual report shows the TFDA using this power against mainland Chinese manufacturers several times that year: from 21 March of ROC year 113 it suspended import inspection applications from 21 Chinese manufacturers and exporters in whose goods Sudan dyes had been detected; from 22 April of ROC year 113 it suspended applications from 23 Chinese manufacturers for tariff line 3924.10.00.90.6, “other plastic tableware and kitchenware (PP)” (FDA Shi-Zi No. 1131300901); and it further suspended applications from 7 Chinese manufacturers for 4419.90.00.90.9, “other wooden tableware and kitchenware”. While suspended, a manufacturer's products are not even eligible to apply for inspection, which in practice means they cannot enter Taiwan.
Parcel imports have doubled in ten years, yet postal parcels are shrinking. According to “Trends in the main lines of business over the past 10 years” in the Customs Annual Report for ROC year 113 (2024) published by the Customs Administration, Ministry of Finance, the number of import declarations rose from 23,206,802 in ROC year 104 (2015) to 66,106,928 in ROC year 113 (2024) (taking ROC year 104 as the base period, a fixed-base index of 212); a note to the annual report states that the declaration count includes the mini three links, express declarations and express simplified declaration forms. Over the same period the number of imported postal parcels fell from 1,915,122 items to 1,821,078 items (a fixed-base index of 85). The growth has come mainly through the express and simplified declaration route; postal parcels have not grown along with it.
Note: ROC year 113 (2024) is the most recent complete year of statistics published by the TFDA. Figures marked “HowBridge calculation” are derived from published annual report data; the formula is given in the notes to each table.
9. Special rules for sending food by consolidated shipping, courier and post
Sending food back to Taiwan by consolidated shipping from mainland China, or by international courier or postal parcel, runs into the Customs Administration's express and postal clearance rules as well as the TFDA's inspection requirements. All provisions cited below are the versions currently in force.
| Item | Air / sea express | International postal parcels |
|---|---|---|
| Maximum gross weight per item (bag) | 70 kg or less | 30 kg or less |
| Fresh agricultural, fishery and livestock products | May not be cleared through the air or sea express consignment zone | — |
| Duty-free threshold | Where the customs value of the same imported consignment is NT$2,000 or less: exempt from customs duty and from the business tax and commodity tax collected by Customs | Customs value within NT$2,000: exempt from customs duty, commodity tax and business tax |
| How amounts above the threshold are taxed | — | Import duties and taxes are levied on the full value, not only on the portion above the threshold |
| Frequent importation | Where the same taxpayer has had duty-free releases more than 6 times within a half-year period, the exemption no longer applies | Where the same recipient exceeds 6 times within a half-year period, the exemption no longer applies |
| Items subject to inspection or quarantine | Must be handled under the applicable inspection and quarantine rules | Items subject to inspection or quarantine, or to other import or export requirements, must be handled under those requirements |
| Can a shipment be split? | Goods sent by the same consignor to the same consignee on the same flight or voyage may not be declared separately; where they are, Customs aggregates the customs value for assessment | Where two or more parcels from the same sender reach the same recipient on the same arrival date, the customs value is aggregated |
| Tobacco and alcohol | — | For personal use and not exceeding 5 litres of alcohol, 5 cartons of cigarettes (1,000 sticks), 125 cigars or 5 pounds of pipe tobacco: no tobacco and alcohol import business licence is required |
| Real-name authentication | Importers must complete real-name authentication in the “EZ WAY” app, linking their mobile number to their ID number; since 16 May 2020 (ROC year 109) Customs has verified this through the clearance system, and where the customs broker has not given a written undertaking that it has obtained the power of attorney and the declared importer has not been authenticated, the declaration will not be accepted until the defect is remedied | — |
| Threshold requiring a customs declaration | — | Where the FOB value exceeds the equivalent of US$5,000, the recipient must file a declaration with Customs within 15 days of the day after the postal institution issues the notice to complete customs clearance formalities |
Almost no food can use a simplified declaration. Article 12, paragraph 1, subparagraph 2 of the Regulations Governing Customs Clearance of Air Express Consignments provides that express consignments “subject to import or export requirements” must be cleared with a general import or export declaration (the proviso covers “special circumstances announced by Customs”); Article 12 of the Regulations Governing Customs Clearance of Sea Express Consignments is identical. Most food CCC codes carry F01, F02 or 508, which counts as being subject to import requirements, so even where the customs value is below NT$2,000, clearance normally still has to go through a general import declaration (G1) rather than an X2 or X3 simplified declaration. This is precisely why consolidated food shipments are more troublesome than consolidated general goods.
Food never gets the “no review, no inspection” channel. Under point 4 of the Operational Directions for Customs Cooperation in Import and Export Trade Management, goods whose CCC codes are subject to import and export trade management are — apart from cases where the competent authority has already linked to Customs through the Customs-Port-Trade Single Window and written off the documents, so that the goods may be released first — all automatically assigned by the computer at clearance to document review clearance (C2) or physical examination clearance (C3). In other words, as long as the code carries F01, F02 or 508, the system will not give you the C1 channel with neither review nor inspection. Point 8 of the same directions further provides that where released goods are found not to meet import requirements, Customs shall notify the importer to supply the import permit documents within a set period; if they are not supplied in time, or the competent authority expressly refuses to allow them to be supplied after the event, the case is handled under Article 96 of the Customs Act.
Importing under a personal-use claim and then reselling carries heavy penalties. The exemption from applying for inspection under Article 30, paragraph 3 of the Food Safety Act is conditional on the goods being not for sale. Under Article 47, subparagraph 14 of the Act, failing to file the import product information required by Article 30, paragraph 1, or filing false information, carries a fine of NT$30,000 to NT$3 million; in serious cases the authority may also order closure, suspension of business for a set period, or revocation of the food business registration, and a business whose registration is revoked may not apply to register again for 1 year.
After a failure: there is one re-test, but the outcomes differ sharply. Under Article 23 of the Inspection Regulations, the declarant may apply for a re-test within 15 days of receiving the notice of non-compliance, once only, carried out by the original testing laboratory on the remaining portion of the original sample. Article 24 provides three possible outcomes: ① return or destruction; ② where the goods breach Article 17 or Article 18, paragraph 1 of the Food Safety Act, or violate Article 21, the importer may apply to disinfect, reprocess or apply appropriate safety measures within a set period; ③ where the labelling breaches Article 22, 24, 26, 27 or 28, paragraph 1, the importer may apply to correct it within a set period. In short, a labelling problem can still be salvaged, whereas a laboratory failure usually leaves only return or destruction. Article 26 further provides that where products of the same origin and same tariff classification record 2 failed test results within 6 months of a notice of non-compliance being issued, the inspection authority may require a written statement of corrective or preventive measures within a set period.
The actual numbers: laboratory failures leave almost no exceptions. HowBridge compiled the 450 detailed border inspection failure records published by the TFDA between 25 November 2025 and 11 August 2026: the disposal was “returned or destroyed in accordance with the regulations” in every single one (6 of them “destroyed in accordance with the regulations”), with not one handled any other way. The cost of return or destruction is borne by the cargo owner.
Legal basis: Articles 6, 11, 12, 14 and 15 of the Regulations Governing Customs Clearance of Air Express Consignments and Articles 3, 11, 12, 15 and 16 of the Regulations Governing Customs Clearance of Sea Express Consignments (both as amended on 23 February 2026, ROC year 115); Articles 3, 7, 8, 11, 12, 13 and 14 of the Regulations Governing Customs Clearance of Postal Consignments (as amended on 1 April 2020, ROC year 109); Article 49, paragraph 2 of the Customs Act; Ministry of Finance announcement Tai-Cai-Guan-Zi No. 1061018778 of 7 September 2017 (ROC year 106) (duty-free limit) and order Tai-Cai-Guan-Zi No. 1061011007 of 26 May 2017 (ROC year 106) (criteria for determining frequent importation); Articles 23, 24 and 26 of the Regulations Governing Inspection of Imported Food and Related Products; Articles 30 and 47 of the Act Governing Food Safety and Sanitation.
10. How to check whether your goods require inspection
- Find the 11-digit CCC code: use Taiwan tariff lookup or the Trade-Van single window.
- Check import rule field: F01, F02, 508, or 511 means TFDA inspection is required.
- HowBridge Logistics tool: enter product name in customs documents to see possible TFDA inspection alerts.
- Items requiring inspection must go through formal customs clearance: if the tariff line requires animal or plant quarantine (B01) or TFDA import inspection (F01), the simplified clearance used by air express and sea express does not apply — formal clearance is required, and goods already held in an express warehouse must first be transferred to a general warehouse.
11. Frequently asked questions
12. Sources and references for this page
Every figure in sections 8 and 9 can be traced back to the primary documents and peer-reviewed literature listed below; a further “authoritative citations” list at the foot of this page records the regulations and government research reports relied on. Verified on 21 August 2026.
- Taiwan Food and Drug Administration, Ministry of Health and Welfare, Annual Statistical Report on Imported Food Management and Border Inspection, ROC year 113 (2024) —— Consignments filed, inspection-method ratios, and failures by on-site checking, laboratory testing and document review, plus Table 7 (top 10 mid-level categories by consignments filed), Table 10 (testing results by producing country) and Table 11 (results by main test category). This is the most recent complete year of border inspection statistics published to date.
- TFDA, Annual Statistical Reports on Imported Food Management and Border Inspection for ROC years 110, 111 and 112 —— The ROC 110 to 112 figures in the four-year trend table.
- TFDA, Annual Report of the Food and Drug Administration for ROC year 114 (2025 Annual Report) —— Independently corroborates the ROC 113 border clearance figures: 761,342 consignments inspected, 68,535 sampled for laboratory testing, a 98.7% pass rate; 3,239 consignments tested for Sudan dyes with a breakdown by country of detection; and the BPI Border Prediction Intelligent system covering 12 product categories, with a non-compliance hit rate 1.15 times higher.
- Regulations Governing Inspection of Imported Food and Related Products (as amended on 21 August 2025, ROC year 114) —— Article 8 on inspection methods and sampling rates; Articles 9 to 11 on moving up and down tiers; Article 12 on batch-by-batch on-site checking; Articles 14 to 15 on preferential treatment for compliant traders.
- TFDA, “Enhanced Inspection Items for Imported Food and Related Products, ROC year 115” —— Control period from 1 January of ROC year 115 to 31 December of ROC year 115 (the 2026 calendar year), covering 23 items; drawn up by reference to the products that failed border testing in ROC year 114.
- Standards for Fees Charged for Inspection of Imported Food and Related Products (as amended on 27 January 2026, ROC year 115) —— Review fee rates, the minimum fee and the on-site fee. The rates in the schedule to that amendment take effect on 1 January of ROC year 116 (2027); the figures shown on this page are the values currently in force, with the future rates noted separately.
- Standards for Review Fees and Certificate Fees for Registration of Food and Food Additives, Article 2 (as amended on 9 December 2024, ROC year 113) —— NT$4,000 per application for registration of tablet and capsule foods; NT$6,000 per application for food additives.
- TFDA, “Table of Processing Deadlines for Public Applications” (announced 17 August 2026, ROC year 115, FDA Qi-Zi No. 1151604804) —— Processing periods (in calendar days) for document review, on-site inspection, sampling and testing, re-testing, and correction of Chinese labelling.
- TFDA, published cases under “Information on Border Inspection Failures for Imported Food” —— HowBridge compiled the 2,559 cases published between 3 January 2023 and 18 August 2026 to derive the distribution by source and by reason for failure, and separately the 450 detailed records published between 25 November 2025 and 11 August 2026 to derive the distribution of disposals.
- Regulations Governing Customs Clearance of Air Express Consignments and Regulations Governing Customs Clearance of Sea Express Consignments (both as amended on 23 February 2026, ROC year 115) —— Conditions and gross weight limits for express consignments, value bands, Article 12 (“consignments subject to import or export requirements must be cleared with a general declaration”), the ban on splitting declarations, and inspection and quarantine requirements. The pcode of the sea version is G0350071.
- Regulations Governing Customs Clearance of Postal Consignments (as amended on 1 April 2020, ROC year 109) —— Article 3 on the 30 kg gross weight limit; Article 7 on the duty-free threshold; Article 8 on full-value assessment once the limit is exceeded; Articles 11 to 12 on aggregation and frequent importation; Article 13 on items subject to inspection and quarantine being handled under the applicable rules.
- Customs Act, Article 49, paragraph 2; Ministry of Finance announcement Tai-Cai-Guan-Zi No. 1061018778 and order No. 1061011007 —— The legal basis for the NT$2,000 duty-free limit, and the criterion that “frequent importation” means more than 6 duty-free releases within a half-year period.
- Act Governing Food Safety and Sanitation, Articles 30 and 47 —— Article 30 on the duty to file for import inspection and the authority for exempting goods not for sale; Article 47, subparagraph 14 on the fine of NT$30,000 to NT$3 million for failing to file or filing false information.
- Ministry of Health and Welfare announcement Wei-Shou-Shi-Zi No. 1081300310 of 16 April 2019 (ROC year 108) —— “Conditions under which imported food and related products qualify for exemption from applying for import inspection, and the applicable clearance codes” — the original source of the personal-use threshold and the DH-series clearance codes.
- Academic literature | Chen HC et al. (2015), “Border inspections of imported food and related products in Taiwan”, Journal of Food and Drug Analysis (DOI: 10.1016/j.jfda.2014.08.001) —— A peer-reviewed paper by TFDA authors. It records “Noncompliance of label requirements” as the main finding of sensory and document inspection, covering mislabelling, missing Chinese labels, type that is too small and the like; it also identifies spices (16.3%), pork offal (8.0%) and Chinese herbal food ingredients (7.7%) as the categories with the highest failure rates.
- Academic literature | Lien KW et al. (2019), “Inspections of imported foods to Taiwan: an overview”, Journal of Consumer Protection and Food Safety —— An overview study of Taiwan's imported food inspection system.
- Academic literature | Wu LY et al. (2023), “EL V.2 Model for Predicting Food Safety Risks at Taiwan Border”, Foods (DOI: 10.3390/foods12112118) —— An ensemble learning model for predicting food safety risk at Taiwan's border, and the academic foundation of the BPI Border Prediction Intelligent system.
- Academic literature | Wu LY and Weng SS (2021), “Ensemble Learning Models for Food Safety Risk Prediction”, Sustainability —— A machine learning modelling study of risk-based sampling.
- Academic literature | Tu WC et al. (2024), “Application and effectiveness of artificial intelligence…”, Journal of Food and Drug Analysis (DOI: 10.38212/2224-6614.3490) —— An evaluation of the effectiveness of applying artificial intelligence to border inspection.
- Japan, Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, “Statistics on Imported Food Monitoring, FY Reiwa 6 (2024)” —— In FY Reiwa 6: 2,466,004 import notifications, 206,227 inspections (8.4%) and 731 violations (0.03%).
- South Korea, Ministry of Food and Drug Safety (식품의약품안전처), Annual Report on Inspection of Imported Food (수입식품 등 검사연보) (2025) —— In 2025: 874,928 import declarations, 143,845 precision inspections (16.4%) and 1,420 failures (0.16%).
- United States, FDA Import Summary / Import Refusals datasets —— In fiscal year 2024, Human Foods totalled 15,876,725 lines, with 51,844 field examinations, 12,155 sampled for laboratory analysis and 8,741 refused entry; the rates are HowBridge's own calculations from those public datasets.
- European Union, RASFF / ACN annual report 2025 —— In 2025 there were 5,344 notifications, of which 1,428 were border rejections.
- Act Governing Food Safety and Sanitation, Article 8, paragraph 3 and Article 34 —— Article 8, paragraph 3 is the legal basis for the rule that a registered food business “may commence business only after doing so”; Article 34 provides that “where a major food sanitation and safety incident occurs, or where imported products failing inspection becomes a serious situation, the central competent authority may suspend the inspection applications of the businesses, places of origin or products concerned”.
- Customs Administration, Ministry of Finance, Customs Annual Report for ROC year 113 (2024) —— The numbers of import and export declarations and of postal parcels in “Trends in the main lines of business over the past 10 years”; the declaration count includes the mini three links, express declarations and express simplified declaration forms.
- Customs Administration, Ministry of Finance, “Real-name authentication for express consignment consignees” (EZ WAY app) —— Since 16 May 2020 (ROC year 109) Customs has verified the power of attorney for express consignment declarations through the clearance system; declarations are not accepted where real-name authentication has not been completed.
- Operational Directions for Customs Cooperation in Import and Export Trade Management (order Tai-Guan-Ye-Zi No. 1111006433 of 14 March 2022, ROC year 111) —— Point 4: the CCC codes of goods subject to trade management are automatically assigned by the computer to C2 or C3 at clearance; point 8: how released goods found not to meet import requirements are handled.
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