Taiwan will exchange my licence. Where do I go and what happens there?

The checker has told you your licence can be exchanged, which is the good news and also the end of most guides. Nobody then says which building you walk into, whether you need an appointment, or how long you will be there.

Short version. Any Motor Vehicles Office, no appointment, counter service, done while you wait, NT$200. The government’s own wording for where is 「辦理地點：各區監理所站」, meaning the regional offices and their stations, and the Taipei office lists the handling time as 隨到隨辦, which translates as “walk in and it gets done”.

The office, and the one way to pick the wrong one

The building you want is a 監理所 (regional Motor Vehicles Office) or a 監理站 (its local station). 公路局 publishes the full directory with every address and phone number, and it is the list to use rather than a map search, because it carries the column that matters.

That column is 業務職掌轄區範圍, the business each office actually handles for each district. They are not all interchangeable. In New Taipei, for example, the 臺北區監理所 in Shulin handles car business for twenty-two districts while motorcycle business for twelve of them is at the 板橋監理站 in Zhonghe, and for seven more it is at the 蘆洲監理站. So an afternoon can be lost by walking into the right agency at the wrong branch.

Two minutes on that page, or one phone call, settles it. Opening hours are Monday to Friday, 08:30 to 17:30, and going in the morning is the standard advice for a counter you may queue at.

You do not book anything

This is worth saying plainly, because the exam half of the process is the opposite. Sitting the written test means booking a slot online days in advance, and the hazard test has its own platform. The exchange has none of that. 臺北市區監理所 lists the intake as 櫃檯直接受理, straight to the counter, and the application method as 親自、委託申辦, in person or through someone acting for you.

That second word is useful. Somebody else can do this for you, provided they bring their own ID alongside your documents. If your working hours and the office’s hours do not overlap, that is the way out.

What goes in the folder

Bring the originals. Several items want a photocopy as well, and the office is not the place to discover that.

• Proof of who you are and that you may stay. For a foreigner, an ARC or a stay permit valid for six months or more, showing an address in Taiwan. A Taiwanese national with household registration brings the national ID card instead.
• Your passport, original and a photocopy, plus proof of your entry and exit record. The entry stamp in the passport usually covers it, and the National Immigration Agency issues a certificate if it does not.
• The original foreign licence, in date, with a photocopy. It has to be a full licence. Temporary, provisional, learner and probationary licences are named on the official page as not accepted.
• The verification certificate for that licence, and a Chinese translation if the licence is not in English. An English licence needs no translation at all. Both of these have a page of their own, because they are where the exchange usually stalls, and because most people do not realise both can be arranged after they land.
• The driving licence registration form (駕駛執照登記書), downloaded from your office’s site, with the medical check completed by a public hospital or a designated clinic. The medical certificate is valid for one year. A car licence also needs the physical-ability test (體能測驗); an ordinary heavy motorcycle licence is exempt from it.
• Photos, and here the two official pages disagree. 公路局 asks for three one-inch colour photos, glossy, plain background, no hat, ears visible, taken within the last two years, no composite images. 臺北市區監理所 asks for two. They cost almost nothing, so take three and let the counter keep what it needs.
• NT$200, in cash, the licence fee.

Six months is about the permit, not about you

The most common reason people put this off for half a year is a misreading of one line, and it costs them six months of not driving.

The requirement is that the permit you hold is a permit for six months or more. It is not a requirement that you have already been in Taiwan for six months. 公路局 says so about as directly as a government page can, 「得於入境之翌日起辦理」, you may do it from the day after you enter the country. A one-year ARC on its first week qualifies. This is the same misreading that turns people away from the exam route, and it is covered under the ARC question.

The four things that stop people at the window

Unpaid traffic fines. If you have an open violation, the counter will send you to settle it first, at the 裁決所 or its desk inside the same building, and only then process the exchange.

A Taiwanese licence you previously lost. If your ROC licence was ever revoked (吊銷 or 註銷), you cannot exchange a foreign one to replace it, and you may not drive here on the foreign licence or an international permit either. The route back is re-sitting the Taiwanese exams from scratch.

A Japanese licence without the right translator. Japan is a reciprocity partner, but the Chinese translation has to come from the Japan-Taiwan Exchange Association (日本台灣交流協會) specifically. A translation from anyone else is refused.

A mainland Chinese licence. It needs verification through the Straits Exchange Foundation, and the holder must pass the written test before the exchange, so it is not an exam-free route at all. Hong Kong and Macau licences have their own verification bodies.

What you walk out with

The Taiwanese licence, the same day. It runs for six years for a foreigner without an APRC, and renewal is a counter transaction rather than another exam.

One thing to ask before you hand your card over. Depending on the arrangement with the country that issued it, Taiwan may keep, hole-punch or corner-cut your original licence. If you were counting on keeping that one alive, ask at the window first, and read what happens when the foreign licence expires, because the answer is friendlier than most people expect.

If your verdict was “written test only”

Then all of the above still applies, the same office and the same folder, with the exam sitting in the middle of it. The test is the official question bank, which is free, in your language, and in the app. Nothing about the written exam is designed to catch you out, and it is the same fifty or forty questions everybody else studies.

And if the verdict was that there is no agreement with the country that issued your licence, none of this folder helps, and the route is the ordinary Taiwanese exams instead.