Taiwan eSIM: Article 3 Needs Two IDs, Not Just a Passport
A Xie Xie eSIM for Taiwan needs no ID at checkout. Taiwan's own SIM rule (NCC, 26 April 2024) asks a local buyer for two original documents, not one passport.
12 plans for Taiwan, from 1 GB at $3.99 to 20 GB at $25.99, plus 6 unlimited-data tiers. 5 GB for 30 days costs $9.99 — 6th cheapest of 29 in Asia, against a $10.99 median. Our retail prices from the operator catalogue, checked 28 September 2026.
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What it costs per day
Cheapest per day: 3 GB for 30 days at 27¢ a day. The dearest per day is Unlimited for 3 days at $4.16. Short plans always cost more per day: validity is rounded up, and unused days are paid for anyway.
How much data to buy
Four ways people use a phone abroad, sized against this country’s own plans. The gigabytes are an estimate built from published per-hour rates — nobody measured your phone.
The hours behind each row are our assumption, not yours — put your own in and the same rates do the arithmetic.
Where a row shows a range, the cell is sized on the lower number, which assumes the evening runs on hotel Wi-Fi. On mobile data around the clock, read the upper number and take the next size up. The per-hour rates and the 15% added for background traffic are listed with their sources in the calculator.
What applies in Taiwan
Operator facts from the Airalo catalogue, read 28 September 2026. Rules and networks change — check the date before you rely on a line here.
Does this apply to you? (the rule is real, and your checkout has no ID step)
A Taiwan eSIM is Xie Xie, an Airalo data-only profile that roams onto Taiwan Mobile on a foreign number, not a Taiwanese carrier’s own subscriber number. Taiwan’s identity-check rule for a local SIM number is real, and it does not reach the Taiwan eSIM this site sells. The rule sits in Regulations the National Communications Commission (NCC) issued on 26 April 2024. It binds a Taiwanese carrier allocated a subscriber number.
Xie Xie roams onto Taiwan Mobile on a foreign number; none is allocated to you.
Checkout for Xie Xie carries no ID upload and no Know Your Customer (KYC) step (Airalo catalog data, checked 17 August 2026). That’s a product fact, not a legal exemption. The duty in the Regulations sits on a Taiwanese carrier issuing its own number. Xie Xie issues none.
That answer comes from reading both documents behind the rule in full, not from a guess at how strict Taiwan sounds. What follows quotes the article and corrects a common mistake. Most seller pages write “bring your passport,” when a local SIM purchase asks for two documents, not one.
The chain, whole and dated: Act, delegation, Regulations
Four links tie this rule to a named regulator and a dated act, and each one is a quote, not an inference.
Article 2 of the Telecommunications Management Act defines who the “competent authority” is throughout the Act. It reads:
“The competent authority herein referred to is the National Communications Commission.”
Article 69, paragraph 2, hands that authority the job of writing the rule. Documents and procedures for telecommunications numbers “shall be promulgated by the competent authority”. Article 1 of the Regulations then closes the loop, naming its own legal basis. It reads:
“These Regulations are enacted in accordance with the provisions of Paragraph 2, Article 69 of the Telecommunications Management Act (hereinafter referred to as the Act).”
The Regulations' own header carries the date and the agency: announced 26 April 2024, National Communications Commission (國家通訊傳播委員會). That header field proves less on its own than it looks. The Act carries the same agency line, and the legislature passed the Act, not the NCC. The header dates the rule; Articles 1 and 2 are what prove who had the power to write it.
That’s the whole chain, read start to finish across two primary sources, not inferred from one. The saved Act page runs 128,299 characters, version amended 5 January 2026. The saved Regulations page runs 21,966, unchanged since 2024. Both counts are of the portal page as saved, navigation chrome included. Both were read in full on 17 August 2026, via law.moj.gov.tw’s English-language portal. We reached it through a Taiwan-based proxy — a direct request from outside the island refused the connection.
Contrast that with a case where only one link exists. A decree changing a separate code, whose current text was never read, hedges everywhere that rule might have moved since. Here both ends sit in front of us in full, each with its own article number.
What Article 3 actually requires — and why “just a passport” is wrong
Article 3 of the Regulations asks a foreign national for two original documents, and a passport by itself meets neither branch of it.
The article opens with the general duty:
“Prior to assigning subscriber numbers to subscribers for use, telecommunications enterprises allocated with subscriber numbers should verify and register the subscriber information.”
It then lists what that information is. For a foreign national, item (2) reads:
“Subscribers who are foreign nationals must provide either the original copies of their passport and valid Alien Resident Certificate, or the original copy of either the passport or valid Alien Resident Certificate, supplemented by other original identity certification documents.”
Two paths, both needing two originals. Path one: passport plus a valid Alien Resident Certificate (ARC), both originals. Path two: one of those two — passport or ARC — plus another original identity document.
A short-term visitor doesn’t hold an ARC. The Regulations never define that certificate. So the reading here rests on its name, not on a definition in the text. It certifies alien residence, and a tourist entering on a visitor stamp holds none. A tourist buying a local Taiwan SIM number can’t take path one. The rule pushes them onto path two: passport, plus one more original document beside it. Not a passport alone.
One caveat about what happens in a shop. The search results captured for this page on 10 August 2026 include a traveller reporting a Chunghwa counter that took a passport by itself. That post carries no date we could verify, so it isn’t cited here as a witness. Where the text and a counter diverge, this page states the text and marks the gap.
What that second document can be, the Regulations don’t say. There’s no schedule and no list of accepted types. Only “other original identity certification documents,” undefined anywhere in the text we read. This page doesn’t guess at what a given counter accepts in that slot.
A third path exists, and it isn’t for the tourist holding a passport at the counter. Paragraph 4 covers someone who can produce neither document. It reads:
“The application of subscribers that are unable to provide a National Identification Card or passport to meet the requirement of presenting two forms of identification as prescribed in Paragraph 2 shall be handled depending on the alternative forms of identification in accordance with other laws and regulations.”
That sentence also settles the reading above in the drafter’s own words. It calls Paragraph 2 “the requirement of presenting two forms of identification”. The phrase occurs once in the Regulations, right there, in the paragraph written for the person who has neither document.
The other laws aren’t named, and we haven’t read them. This page makes no claim about what they require.
One detail the Regulations spell out that no seller page in our search repeats: buying through an agent adds to the bar, not below it. Paragraph 3 adds one more duty. It reads:
“The agent should provide the subscriber information prescribed in the preceding paragraph, as well as the agent’s National Identification Card, along with the subscriber’s agent authorization documents.”
The agent shows their own national ID card and a power of attorney, on top of what the subscriber provides.
None of this happens by uploading a photo from home. Article 5 restricts how the check can run. It reads:
“Verification through the internet or methods other than in-person at the counter shall not be permitted, except as provided in Paragraph 5 of Article 3 or approved by the competent authority.”
Two exceptions sit inside that sentence. One is the digital-signature route of Article 3, paragraph 5, which still requires uploading the information Paragraph 2 specifies. The other is whatever the NCC approves case by case, and we found no such approval to read. Article 5 also lets a carrier verify on an on-site visit instead of at the counter. For a tourist, the counter is what’s left.
Zero hits for “SIM” in either text — and what that does and doesn’t mean
Search both texts for the word “SIM,” whole word, case-insensitive, and you get zero hits in either one. That’s inside a rule naming exactly what a foreign buyer hands over.
That’s a whole-word count (\bSIM\b), run against the two saved source files: 128,299 characters for the Act, 21,966 for the Regulations. The bare substring, instead of the whole word, turns up two matches in the Act. Both are unrelated words that happen to contain the letters “s-i-m”: “simple” once, “simultaneously” once. The Regulations don’t contain that substring at all. “Passport,” by contrast, returns zero hits in the Act and six in the Regulations, all inside Article 3.
Taiwan isn’t the first case where an abbreviation search gives the wrong answer. India’s telecommunications law does the same. It shows zero for the word “SIM”. The obligation is still live, because the legislator writes out “subscriber identity module” — or, here, “subscriber number” — instead of the short form. A keyword count for an abbreviation tells you what vocabulary a drafter used. It doesn’t tell you whether an obligation exists. Read the article itself before deciding there’s nothing there.
What you get: Xie Xie on Taiwan Mobile, 5G, data-only
Xie Xie is a 5G, data-only eSIM roaming on the Taiwan Mobile network. Airalo’s own checkout for it runs no KYC step and asks for no ID upload (Airalo catalog data, checked 17 August 2026). It carries no Taiwanese phone number and no voice line — the same shape that keeps it outside the subscriber-number duty above.
This Taiwan eSIM installs for 365 days from purchase. Its usage clock starts at first connection, not at install and not at purchase. A top-up bought within 90 days of the last one attaches to the existing profile instead of forcing a fresh install (Airalo catalog data, checked 17 August 2026).
| Plan | Price |
|---|---|
| 1 GB / 7 days | $3.99 |
| 2 GB / 15 days | $5.99 |
| 3 GB / 30 days | $7.99 |
| 5 GB / 30 days | $9.99 |
| 10 GB / 30 days | $15.99 |
| 20 GB / 30 days | $25.99 |
| Unlimited / 3 days | $12.49 |
| Unlimited / 5 days | $18.99 |
| Unlimited / 7 days | $22.99 |
| Unlimited / 10 days | $31.99 |
| Unlimited / 15 days | $48.99 |
| Unlimited / 30 days | $68.99 |
Airalo lists its own rate separately on its site.
The 5 GB, 30-day plan is the tier most three- to four-week trips land on.
One thing this page won’t state as settled: whether every Xie Xie plan is rechargeable. Airalo’s catalog holds two separate Xie Xie entries — one for the six data-sized packages, one for the six unlimited-duration packages. The two disagree on a rechargeability flag: true for the data-sized group, false for the unlimited group. Both still carry the identical line “Rechargeable online with no expiry”. We found the mismatch reading the catalog directly on 17 August 2026. Nothing in the data resolves it, so this page makes no claim either way. Confirm at checkout before assuming.
The APN Android makes you type: globaldata
On Android, type globaldata into the Access Point Name (APN) field by hand, or the eSIM installs with no data at all. iOS sets the same value automatically once the profile installs; Android doesn’t (Airalo catalog data, checked 17 August 2026).
The setting sits under Settings > Network & internet > SIMs > Xie Xie > Access Point Names on stock Android. The exact path shifts slightly by phone maker. Add a new APN. Set the field to globaldata. Leave the rest at their defaults, then save and select it as active for the Xie Xie line.
globaldata isn’t unique to Taiwan. It’s the same manual APN value Airalo’s China eSIM needs. Taiwan is one of 73 countries in Airalo’s catalog where Android needs it typed in by hand — 121 of 368 operator entries overall, 32.9%, checked 3 September 2026. India’s catalog moved to automatic Android APN entry since this page’s earlier checks and no longer belongs to that group.
Before you fly, and on landing
Install the profile before departure, on Wi-Fi, not at the gate. The Quick Response (QR) code needs a working internet connection to complete. An airport connection on arrival in Taiwan isn’t guaranteed. The 365-day install window means buying weeks ahead of the trip costs nothing (Airalo catalog data, checked 17 August 2026).
Nothing activates at install. A profile that shows installed but inactive before boarding is normal, not a fault. The clock starts once you land and switch on data roaming for the Xie Xie line.
Running Xie Xie alongside a home SIM works on any dual-SIM phone. Set Xie Xie as the data line. Turn off cellular data — not the whole line — on the home SIM, so nothing pulls an expensive home-carrier roaming charge by accident. Xie Xie carries no Taiwanese phone number. Anything that verifies you by SMS to a local number sits outside what it can do — a delivery app, a bank one-time code, a loyalty sign-up. That’s a limit of being data-only, not a rule from Article 3.
None of the identity-check reasoning above touches this device. It binds a Taiwanese carrier assigning its own subscriber number, and Xie Xie never does that. If a shop, hotel, or SIM counter separately asks for your passport during the trip, that’s the local-registration rule above. It runs as its own separate transaction — not a step this eSIM requires.
If this is your first eSIM install, the steps are the same regardless of destination. The iPhone install guide and the Android install guide cover the QR-scan and manual-entry paths in full.
FAQ
Do I need a passport to use an eSIM in Taiwan?
Do Taiwan SIM cards require registration?
Is a passport alone enough to buy a local Taiwan SIM card as a tourist?
Who wrote this rule, and when?
What's the APN for Xie Xie on Android?
Is Xie Xie rechargeable?
Which network does the Taiwan eSIM use?
Sources and freshness
Checked against the Telecommunications Management Act, amended 5 January 2026 (128,299 characters of saved page text, our own count). Also checked: the Regulations Governing the Use of the Subscriber Numbers on Telecommunications Enterprises, announced 26 April 2024 by the National Communications Commission (21,966 characters, same method). Both read in full on 17 August 2026, via law.moj.gov.tw’s English-language portal, reached through a Taiwan-based proxy after a direct request refused the connection outright.
Read in full: the Act’s Chapter I definitions (Articles 2 and 3) and Article 69; all 26 articles of the Regulations. Two gaps stay open on purpose. The “other original identity certification documents” Article 3(2) allows aren’t listed anywhere in the Regulations. Article 3(4) points someone with neither document toward “other laws and regulations” we haven’t read. No claim here rests on either gap.
Xie Xie’s plans, pricing, KYC status, and install and top-up windows come from Airalo’s own catalog data, checked 17 August 2026. That includes the rechargeability mismatch flagged above. Airalo can change any of it without notice.
This page has not checked what Chunghwa Telecom, Taiwan Mobile, FarEasTone, or Taiwan Star ask at their own counters. The reading above is of the national Regulations, not of any one carrier’s own procedure.
Sources cited only — expert review pending. For individualized advice, consult a licensed professional.