How to Exchange TWD to RMB the Legal Way: Bank Limits, Remitting to China and PingPong for Business Payments

How do individuals in Taiwan exchange RMB? Five bank channels and their limits

The legitimate channel for individuals in Taiwan is a bank (a designated bank approved by the central bank to handle RMB business). Under Article 52 of the Regulations Governing the Conduct of Foreign Exchange Business by Banks (Taiwan), an individual may buy or sell up to RMB 20,000 per person per day through an account and up to RMB 20,000 per transaction in cash; over-the-counter and online banking are counted together, while buying and selling are counted separately.

Based on Article 52 of the Regulations Governing the Conduct of Foreign Exchange Business by Banks (amended 15 July 2025) and the Bank of Taiwan “DBU Customer RMB Business Q&A” (December 2020 edition). The RMB 20,000 and RMB 80,000 limits were set in 2013 when the central bank allowed designated banks to handle RMB business, and have not changed since. Procedures and fees differ by bank, so please check the notice of the bank you use before you go.

• Cash or account? You only need cash if you will spend it abroad; for remittances or online payments, a foreign-currency account is more economical.
• Look at the “selling” rate. When you buy RMB from a bank you use the bank’s selling rate; the cash selling rate is usually higher than the spot selling rate.
• A single conversion of NT$500,000 or more requires a declaration form. This is the declaration threshold in Article 2 of the Regulations Governing Declaration of Foreign Exchange Receipts and Disbursements or Transactions; an individual’s cumulative annual purchase limit is USD 5,000,000 or equivalent (Article 4).

Can RMB be remitted to mainland China? RMB 80,000 per day and things to note

An individual holding a Taiwan ID may remit up to RMB 80,000 per day to mainland China, and the purpose must be a current-account item (for example living expenses, payment for goods or services), not a capital-account item such as investment.

• Remitter and recipient do not need to share a name. The Bank of Taiwan Q&A states expressly that “the remitter and the recipient need not be the same account holder”; claims online that you can “only remit to yourself” do not match the bank’s documents.
• Give the recipient’s name in Chinese characters. Most mainland banks accept only the Chinese-character account name for an individual recipient, and a wrong name may cause the remittance to be returned.
• RMB 80,000 and RMB 20,000 are two different things. If you first buy RMB with NT$ and then remit it, the buying step is still subject to the daily RMB 20,000 limit; remitting RMB you already hold in a deposit is subject to the RMB 80,000 remittance limit.
• Declare the nature of the remittance honestly. The category must match the actual purpose; payment for goods, freight and living expenses each have their own nature code, and the bank reviews the remittance according to what you declare.
• If you remit US dollars, the recipient also faces a quota. If you remit US dollars or another foreign currency, the recipient converting it into RMB in mainland China is subject to the State Administration of Foreign Exchange’s annual individual conversion quota of USD 50,000 or equivalent per person per year; remitting RMB directly does not involve this conversion.

If I only want to pay on Taobao, do I need RMB first?

If you want RMB only to pay on Taobao or Pinduoduo, you do not necessarily need to exchange first: a Taiwan credit card can be linked to Alipay and charged directly, with the card issuer converting the amount into NT$. However, a Taiwan card counts as an overseas card on Alipay, a fee applies to a single payment over RMB 200, and the issuer’s foreign-transaction fee is added on top, so it is not always cheaper. For the actual cost of each method, see Alipay fees and a comparison of cross-border payment methods; once you have paid, have the parcel sent to HowBridge’s Shenzhen warehouse for consolidation to Taiwan.

How does a company pay a mainland China supplier? Bank wire transfer and PingPong receiving accounts

A company or firm paying a mainland China supplier for goods or freight is not subject to the individual daily RMB 20,000 limit; the legitimate approach is for the company to send a wire transfer from its bank in Taiwan. Recipients in mainland China or Hong Kong often use a cross-border receiving platform such as PingPong to collect foreign currency and then convert it into RMB.

• The Taiwan payer does not need a PingPong account. The account is opened by the recipient; you only enter the Hong Kong receiving-account details the recipient gives you into the bank’s wire transfer form. PingPong is a platform for businesses to collect trade payments, not a currency exchange, and individuals in Taiwan cannot use it to exchange RMB.
• The currency is usually US dollars. The receiving account mostly accepts US dollars or other foreign currencies, which the recipient converts into RMB on the platform. PingPong’s website states that its Hong Kong company holds a Money Service Operator (MSO) licence issued by Hong Kong Customs and lists licences including a payment business permit from the People’s Bank of China.
• Declaration thresholds. A company must declare a conversion of NT$500,000 or more (or equivalent); each conversion of USD 1,000,000 or more (or equivalent) requires supporting documents such as a contract, confirmed by the bank (Article 5 of the Regulations Governing Declaration of Foreign Exchange Receipts and Disbursements or Transactions); cumulative annual purchases exceeding USD 50,000,000 or equivalent require prior approval from the central bank (Articles 4 and 6).
• The recipient must prove the transaction background. Before crediting funds, a cross-border receiving platform usually requires the recipient to upload the contract, commercial invoice, remittance slip and proof of delivery, and conversion is allowed only after review. The payer needs to help provide these documents.

How much is actually deducted on a wire transfer to China? HowBridge’s real USD wire transfer

In October 2026, HowBridge paid a logistics freight fee to a mainland China recipient, who collected the funds through a PingPong Hong Kong receiving account. Below are the five steps it actually went through and the deduction at each stage, taken from our own remittance records.

A single example, for reference only; exchange rates change daily, and wire fees, intermediary bank fees and platform fees differ by bank and platform. The “1.58%” is the loss from US dollars to RMB calculated using the ECB reference rate of 2026-10-14, and does not include the bank’s spread when converting NT$ to US dollars.

The Financial Stability Board (FSB) 2025 G20 cross-border payments progress report, citing March 2025 data, puts the average cost of business-to-business (B2B) cross-border payments at 1.6%, of which 1.4% is the exchange-rate spread and 0.2% is fees; this is almost identical to our 1.58%, and the spread is likewise the largest part. The G20 target is to bring the average cost below 1% by the end of 2027, with no channel above 3%. Small personal remittances cost much more: the 2026 UN Secretary-General’s Sustainable Development Goals report, citing World Bank data, gives a global average cost of 6.36% for sending USD 200 in Q3 2025, against a target of below 3% by 2030.

What to watch for when a company pays by wire transfer: five pitfalls we ran into

• The contract effective date cannot be later than the remittance date. The platform reviews the transaction background; if the contract was signed after the remittance, it looks backdated and you may be asked for more documents or have the payment returned.
• The payer’s name must match exactly. The platform compares the payer’s English name on the incoming funds with the buyer on the contract; capitalization and the full company name must both match.
• Set aside the intermediary bank fee. With “recipient bears the fees”, the intermediary bank fee is deducted from the amount sent, and we were charged USD 20 this time; for the other side to receive the full amount, choose remitter-bears-fees or send the difference separately.
• Proof of delivery must match each item. For freight payments the platform asks for a bill of lading or waybill; we used the system’s shipment details (each item’s tracking number, customs clearance batch number and delivery order number) to prove the service was actually performed.
• The exchange-rate field on the remittance slip may be blank. A bank’s remittance slip does not always print the exchange rate and the NT$ amount, so keep the foreign-exchange conversion slip separately for bookkeeping, and if needed ask the bank for an MT103 message.

Why should you not use a private money changer or payment-on-behalf service?

The payment-on-behalf or exchange offers often seen online, “transfer NT$ to me and I will pay the RMB for you”, count as remittance and exchange business in Taiwan, which only banks may conduct. Article 29, paragraph 1 of the Banking Act (Taiwan) prohibits non-banks from conducting domestic or foreign remittance and exchange business; the penalty under Article 125, paragraph 1 is imprisonment of 3 to 10 years and a possible fine of NT$10,000,000 to NT$200,000,000, with heavier penalties where the proceeds reach NT$100,000,000 or more. However attractive the rate, if it is not a bank, do not use it.

• It counts whether or not you profit from the spread. The view in Supreme Court (Taiwan) Criminal Judgment 110-Tai-Shang-947: any conduct of sending or collecting money between different places counts as “remittance and exchange business” under the Banking Act, regardless of whether a spread is earned or what kind of funds are involved.
• Exchanging just NT$10,000 can still get you convicted. Taichung District Court (Taiwan) Judgment 113-Jin-Su-1942: the defendant advertised NT$-to-RMB exchange on Facebook, collected NT$ by electronic payment and paid the RMB through Alipay; with only 2 transactions totalling NT$10,000 and a profit of NT$1,491, the defendant was still sentenced to 9 months in prison, suspended for 2 years.
• Platforms are no different. In the CherryPay case, the platform matched cross-border currency exchanges and charged a 1-2% service fee, with transactions of about NT$1.119 billion between October 2016 and August 2018; Taiwan High Court Judgment 110-Jin-Shang-Su-36 found that the funds flowed through it and that it conducted remittance business without permission (commentary by Yueh-Ping Yang, Court Case Times issue 166).
• The cases are not small. According to the Investigation Bureau, Ministry of Justice (Taiwan), 2024 Annual Report on Economic Crime Prevention, underground remittance cases referred by the Bureau numbered 35 in 2022, 63 in 2023 and 29 in 2024, involving about NT$23.65 billion, NT$54.52 billion and NT$30.96 billion respectively. The report also notes that underground money changers often attract customers with “rates better than the bank’s posted rates”: if a rate looks unusually good, be on guard.

What do research and official data say?

Each study below was actually opened and checked; figures are given with the page number or data period.

Frequently asked questions

This page compiles banks’ public rules and HowBridge’s own payment experience and does not constitute financial or legal advice; limits and fees for exchange and remittance are subject to each bank’s latest notices. HowBridge provides only consolidation shipping and customs services from mainland China to Taiwan, and does not provide currency exchange, payment on behalf, or collection of payment for goods.