Taiwan’s Ministry of Finance issued an interpretive ruling on August 6, 2026, to clarify the withholding tax obligations of online lending platform operators when paying interest to lenders. 

Online lending services have expanded in Taiwan in recent years, with some platforms not only matching lenders and borrowers but also participating in interest-rate setting and transaction management while charging service fees to both parties. Some operators also exercise substantive control over the transfer of loan principal and interest by instructing banks or electronic payment institutions to process payments or by collecting and disbursing funds on behalf of users. According to the Ministry, operators that exercise such control are deemed the actual “payers” of interest income and therefore qualify as withholding agents under Paragraph 5 of Article 7 and Article 89 of the Income Tax Act. 

Under the new ruling, when a platform pays interest income to a lender, it must withhold the applicable tax, file the required returns, and issue withholding or non-withholding statements in accordance with Articles 88, 89, and 92 of the Act. Borrowers, meanwhile, are no longer required to carry out withholding procedures for the same interest payments, thereby simplifying tax compliance. For interest paid before the ruling was issued, online lending platform operators are not required to retroactively file withholding or non-withholding statements. Instead, lenders must include the interest received in their income for the relevant tax year and report it when filing their income tax returns.