What are the "verification" and "translation" Taiwan asks for with my licence?

This is where the exchange actually goes wrong. Not the eligibility, which the checker settles in a second, but two words on the document list that nobody explains, and that people assume they should have sorted out before flying here.

They are two different requirements, they are not both always needed, and both can be done after you arrive.

Verification is about your licence being real

Taiwan will not take your word that the plastic card is genuine, so it wants a verification certificate (驗證書) alongside the original. That certificate says an authority has checked the licence against the issuing body and it is what it claims to be.

Two routes exist and only one of them requires planning ahead.

Abroad, a Taiwanese embassy, representative office or other MOFA-authorised agency in the country that issued the licence can verify it. Fine if you are still there, useless if you are already in Taipei.

In Taiwan, your own country’s representative office here can do it, provided that office is authorised by its government to certify documents and Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has approved it for that purpose. Most of the large ones are. This is the route almost everyone actually uses and the one that is almost never mentioned in the guides, which is why people write in convinced they have to fly home or give up.

So the practical answer, if you are already here, is to contact your country’s office in Taipei before you contact anybody else.

Translation is a separate question, and often not needed

Here is the part worth reading carefully, because it saves most readers a step and a fee.

The rule says a Chinese translation is required when the licence is in a foreign language other than English. So if your licence is in English, there is no translation requirement at all. American, British, Irish, Canadian, Australian, New Zealand, Singaporean licences, and every other English-language one, skip this entirely. Verification still applies, translation does not.

If your licence is not in English, you need a Chinese translation and it has to be verified too. Three bodies can do that, a Taiwanese mission abroad, a domestic notary here in Taiwan (國內公證人), or your country’s office in Taiwan. Again, the middle one is the useful one, because it means the whole thing is a local errand.

As a rough sense of cost, private notaries in Taiwan publish rates around NT$500 for a plain Chinese document and NT$750 for a bilingual one or a translation between Chinese and English. Treat those as indicative and ask, since they are not government-set fees.

The rest of the folder

While you are collecting things, the full list at the counter is the original licence plus its verification, the translation if your licence needs one, your passport with a copy, an ARC or stay permit showing six months or more, a medical check from a public or designated hospital, two recent one-inch photos, and NT$200.

The medical check is worth doing early because it has its own validity window, and the photos have rules that trip people up, taken within two years, plain background, no hat, ears visible, and no composite images.

The one thing to ask before you hand anything over

Depending on the reciprocity arrangement with the place that issued it, Taiwan may keep, hole-punch or corner-cut your original licence when it issues the Taiwanese one. Ask at your 監理站 what happens to yours before you go, especially if you were planning to keep the original alive, which is a question with its own page.

And if none of this applies to you

All of the above is for people whose licence can actually be exchanged. If yours cannot, none of these documents matter and the route is the ordinary Taiwanese exams instead. Worth checking which of the two you are in before you spend a single NT$ on a notary.