Taiwan’s Ministry of Finance has recently clarified the business tax treatment of virtual assets. 

Virtual assets as defined in Article 3, Subparagraph 1 of the Virtual Asset Service Act (such as Bitcoin and Ethereum) and stablecoins as defined in Subparagraph 6 of the same article are used solely for payment or investment purposes and do not possess the nature of consumption. In accordance with the taxation principles set forth in Article 1 of the Value-Added and Non-Value-Added Business Tax Act, the sale of such virtual assets falls outside the scope of business tax and is therefore not subject to taxation. 

The Ministry noted that, given the rapid increase in domestic virtual asset transactions in recent years, it issued Decree No. 11504611390 (Tai-Cai-Shui-Zi) on September 3, 2026, after referencing the tax regulations of countries with business tax systems similar to Taiwan’s. The decree formally establishes that the aforementioned virtual assets and stablecoins are not subject to business tax, providing clear guidelines for both tax authorities and taxpayers to follow. 

It should be noted, however, that while the sale of virtual assets themselves is not subject to business tax, service fees or handling charges collected by operators for providing services such as virtual asset exchange are considered “consideration received for the sale of services” and remain subject to business tax. 

Furthermore, NFTs (non-fungible tokens) are not classified as virtual assets under Article 3, Subparagraph 1 of the Virtual Asset Service Act. Therefore, when a business operator sells NFTs or exchanges NFTs for goods or services, business tax continues to apply. Businesses and the general public should pay particular attention to this distinction.