Taiwan Needs a Global Influx of Entrepreneurial Energy

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In the latest Global Entrepreneurship Monitor 2025/2026 report, Taiwan is ranked as the second-best environment for entrepreneurship in the world. On paper, the "Beautiful Island" is a founder’s paradise: world-class infrastructure, a highly educated workforce, and a government that pours billions into R&D grants.

Yet, walk through the halls of any major global tech conference, and you will find a glaring void. Where are the Taiwanese software unicorns? Where are the disruptive global platforms that have become household names around the world? While Taiwan remains the undisputed king of hardware and semiconductors, it has struggled to produce a global success in the digital economy.

The reason is not a lack of talent or money. It is a lack of Global Entrepreneurial Energy.

To understand what Taiwan is missing, we must look at the global gold standard for innovation: the United States. Today, roughly 14% of US residents are immigrants. However, data from the National Foundation for American Policy (NFAP) shows that more than 55% of America’s billion-dollar startups (unicorns) were co-founded by at least one immigrant.When we combine first-generation immigrants and their children, they have founded or co-founded 64% of all US unicorns.

William Kerr at Harvard Business School shows that the 'Immigrant advantage' isn't just about hard work; it’s also about perspective. The US National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) argues that immigrants have a higher-than-average tolerance for risk because they have already survived leaving behind their safety nets to build a new life in a new country.

Many super immigrants didn’t move to the US specifically to set up companies. Great examples of this category would be Steve Chen (Youtube), Jensen Huang (NVIDIA) and Jerry Yang (Yahoo). These impressive entrepreneurs were born in Taiwan and moved to the US as children and later started companies that helped shape our modern world. 

In the UK, 14% of all companies are founded by an immigrant. Last year, official statistics from the Ministry of Economic Affairs showed that in a year where over 43,000 new companies were registered only 1,296 new foreign-invested companies were approved, accounting for a meager 3%.

So it makes sense that it would be good for Taiwan to get an influx of more immigrants.

I myself am an entrepreneur from Sweden who came to Taiwan 26 years ago and figure I will live here for the rest of my life. In 2002 I founded Enspyre, Taiwan’s leading B2B Lead Generation company. Together with more than 70 fantastic colleagues I help foreign multi-nationals giants and local startups reach their business customers in Taiwan and around the world.

To help people who like myself come from different countries and want to be entrepreneurs, in 2013 I published the book “How to Start a Business in Taiwan”.

Since 2016 I have co-organized Dragons’ Chamber, Taiwan’s only pitch event for immigrant entrepreneurs, together with Jessie Chou, CEO of MUSA Trademark. 

Over the last 10 years, together with a whole community of experienced investors and entrepreneurs who all volunteer their time, we have helped hundreds of immigrant entrepreneurs with mentorship and exposure. In the US, the names of immigrant-founded companies are on everyone’s lips. How many Taiwanese can name a local company founded by a foreign resident? 

If we work together, we can make a difference.

A lot has already been done to attract more foreigners to Taiwan. In 1999 the Immigration Act was enacted, creating the legal framework for permanent residency. People who have never been a foreigner can not understand the fear of sitting in front of an immigration official and hoping your visa extension will be issued. This fear is not conducive to giving it your all to build a startup.

● Laws preventing foreign residents from utilizing banking services were removed. 

● Foreign residents can now participate in the Taiwanese pension system.

● In 2015 the Entrepreneur Visa was launched to attract foreigners to set up a business.

● In 2018 the Gold Card program was launched to enable other talented foreigners. 

Despite these reforms there are still challenges. 

Starting in 2025, many banks started demanding that anyone who wants to set up a bank account for a business needs to have had a private bank account in that bank for at least 6 months. Jessie Chen, a consultant who acts as a liaison between foreign entrepreneurs and banks in Taiwan says “it really adds challenges to a startup. The total time spent on banking is a huge opportunity cost.”

Any foreigner who wants to invest in or set up a company in Taiwan has to apply for approval from the MOEA Department of Investment Review. This review often takes a long time. Many potential investors, entrepreneurs and acquirers give up. While no one denies the need to protect Taiwan from economic coercion, there are many ways that this rule could be adjusted:

● Set a limit under which no review is needed. 

● Approve a specific investor up to a higher amount than they are currently investing.

When a Taiwanese company pays dividends to a foreign non-resident investor, that investor has to pay 21% tax on these dividends. If the company instead had registered in Singapore for example, that same investor would have paid 2% tax. 

This tax issue coupled with the investment review, makes it attractive for an entrepreneur to register their business in another country where it might take days instead of weeks to get their company operational. 

Curtis Bergh, Director of Startup Grind in Singapore and a long term resident of both Singapore and Taiwan says “If Taiwan wants to compete with leading startup ecosystems, it needs to make it dramatically easier and more attractive to build in Taiwan. This includes modernizing a regulatory framework that, in its current form, is not optimized for a competitive startup environment — from company formation and slow banking processes to investor access and international market connectivity. These are foundational elements that need to evolve to create a truly fertile environment for globally competitive startups.”

The ultimate hurdle is the citizenship issue. By Taiwanese law, most foreign residents would have to give up their other nationality in order to become Taiwanese. For many reasons, this is a lot to ask, especially when Taiwanese people can so easily obtain a second passport. Making it easier for long-term foreign residents who have proven their loyalty to this nation to obtain dual citizenship, would signal to entrepreneurs from around the world that this is a place that would appreciate their investment and commitment.

Taiwan is a wonderful country. The strong democracy, the high living standards, the great convenience, the safe environment; people who come to Taiwan are quick to decide that this is a place they want to call home. 

We should invite more diverse groups of people to make Taiwan their home. Tweak the income hurdle to attract the best of the best from poorer countries. Find better ways to evaluate people than formal degrees from top universities considering how many world-changing entrepreneurs never graduated from university.

In my opinion, the secret sauce might be companies co-founded by a local person and an immigrant. One person understands the Taiwanese supply chains while another tackles selling into the global markets.

It is in Taiwan’s best interest to attract more smart, driven, creative people who can help drive the next wave of entrepreneurial growth in Taiwan. The next Taiwanese unicorn is waiting to be born.