Is crypto legal in Taiwan? Regulation & rules (2026)

Taiwan's Cabinet approved the FSC-drafted Virtual Asset Services Act and transmitted it to the Legislative Yuan for deliberation — the country's first dedicated crypto statute, covering VASP licensing, capital requirements, asset segregation, stablecoin issuance approval, and criminal penalties of up to seven years for unlicensed stablecoin issuers.

The FSC released the draft Virtual Asset Services Act proposing a comprehensive licensing regime for VASPs and stablecoin issuers modelled on the EU, UK, Japan, and Hong Kong frameworks; the public comment period closed 24 May 2025 and the draft was submitted to the Executive Yuan in June 2025.

The 30 November 2024 deadline under the July 2024 Money Laundering Control Act amendment required all VASPs to complete FSC AML registration before providing services; non-compliance carries up to two years imprisonment and NT$5 million in fines. Only 23 exchanges had registered by the deadline.

Taiwan enacted amendments to the Money Laundering Control Act requiring every VASP to obtain FSC AML registration before commencing operations and compelling offshore VASPs to establish a local legal presence in Taiwan — a major step from voluntary guidelines to enforceable obligations.

The Taiwan Virtual Asset Service Providers Association was formally established with FSC support to issue binding self-regulatory codes; by January 2025 it had promulgated seven codes covering AML/CFT, virtual asset listing/delisting, customer protection, cybersecurity, anti-fraud reporting, and asset segregation.

Taiwan's first dedicated crypto AML/CTF regulations entered into force, requiring VASP operators to implement KYC procedures, maintain transaction records, and file large-transaction and suspicious-transaction reports with the Ministry of Justice Investigation Bureau within two business days of approval.

Amid the 2017 ICO boom, the FSC reissued its virtual-commodity classification and warned the public of speculative risks, while signalling that tokens meeting securities criteria would be regulated under the Securities and Exchange Act — laying the conceptual groundwork for the 2019 STO framework.