What the calculator covers
Every scooter in Taiwan meets three fixed legal charges each year: the license tax (使用牌照稅, a local tax billed in April), the road fee (still widely called the fuel fee, 燃料費, and now officially the highway use, maintenance and safety management fee, billed in July) and compulsory insurance (強制險, renewed on your own policy date). All three come from official tables, so two scooters of the same size and class pay exactly the same, which is why they can be worked out in advance.
Fuel or charging, servicing, parking and optional insurance are not included; they depend too much on how you ride. Petrol scooters over five years old also need a yearly emission inspection, but the test fee is paid by the Ministry of Environment, so it costs you nothing and is left out.
Filling it in
- Power: choose petrol, or electric for a scooter that runs entirely on battery power.
- Engine size or motor power: for petrol, the displacement in cc from your vehicle registration certificate (行照, the card you carry with the scooter); decimals such as 124.6 are fine. For electric, the maximum motor power, in either imperial horsepower (HP) or metric horsepower (PS).
- Class on your certificate: ordinary heavy, large heavy, ordinary light or small light. Insurance is priced by this class, for electric scooters too. The Chinese name printed on the card is shown next to each option.
- Insurance term: one or two years. A two-year policy is paid up front; the calculator spreads it over two years.
How it is worked out, and when your bill will differ
License tax comes from Schedules 3 and 5 of the License Tax Act, the road fee from Schedule 2 of the fee regulations and insurance from the compulsory insurance rate table. A decimal engine size is placed in the bracket whose upper limit it does not exceed, so 124.6 cc counts as 51–125 cc.
Your actual bill can differ from the result when:
- You register or suspend a scooter part way through the year: license tax is charged for the days of use, so the first year is usually less than the full amount.
- The scooter is registered on an outlying island: the road fee is charged at 70%.
- The engine is over 1,800 cc: the road fee schedule’s scooter brackets stop at 1,800 cc, so we do not show a figure; go by the bill from the Highway Bureau.
- The scooter is used by a person with disabilities: it may qualify for a license tax exemption; ask your local tax bureau.
- It is electric: the law says local governments may exempt e-scooters from license tax, so the calculator shows the exemption and also the table amount that would apply without it.
Every figure was checked against the official source on the date shown at the top of the page. Laws and rates do change, and the notices sent by the tax bureau, the Highway Bureau and your insurer always prevail.