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How to Claim Labor Insurance in Taiwan from the Philippines: What Migrant Workers Are Covered For, and How a Claim Is Made

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By iStart Editorial Team·Published November 4, 2026

How to Claim Labor Insurance in Taiwan from the Philippines: What Migrant Workers Are Covered For, and How a Claim Is Made

Every month your payslip shows the same small deduction for Labor Insurance. Then a machine catches a hand on the night shift, a back gives out lifting a patient, or a call comes from home with bad news, and the question arrives: what does this insurance actually pay, and can I still claim if I am already back in the Philippines?

What you can claim depends on which insurance covers you, and that depends on who employs you. And the Bureau of Labor Insurance (BLI), under Taiwan's Ministry of Labor, has clear rules for papers made abroad and for money sent to a bank outside Taiwan. In our view, the costliest mistake with this insurance is a claim not filed in time. This guide follows the BLI's English pages and Taiwan's published laws as they stood on 26 October 2026.

Which Insurance Covers You as a Migrant Worker in Taiwan

Two schemes matter to you: Labor Insurance, the ordinary scheme, and Labor Occupational Accident Insurance, which since 1 May 2022 has stood apart under its own Act. Which ones you have depends on your employer, which the BLI calls your "insured unit"; you are the "insured person".

Factory, company and fishing workers. The BLI says foreign workers above 15 and under 65 years of age hired by factories and companies with more than five employees, and foreign workers in the fishing industry, must be enrolled in Labor Insurance through their employer. The law makes your employer enrol you on the day you report for work. If it enrols you late, cover starts only the day after it applies, and any loss that causes you is the employer's to compensate.

Caregivers and household workers. Since 1 May 2022, the BLI says, "foreign home caregivers and household assistants are subject to compulsory enrollment to the labor occupational accident insurance." The ordinary scheme stays voluntary for workers hired by a family, so a caregiver's record may show work-accident cover only.

Smaller employers. At a workplace with fewer than five employees, Labor Insurance is voluntary, but work-accident cover is still compulsory for employees of a registered business.

Two schemes do not cover you. Employment Insurance covers Taiwan's nationals and foreign spouses of nationals living in Taiwan; all other foreign workers cannot join it. The new Labor Pension does not cover migrant workers either. Both reach some foreign professionals, a different group from you.

For a migrant worker in Taiwan, October 2026. Labor Insurance: compulsory at factories and companies with more than five employees, aged above 15 and under 65, and in fishing; voluntary for workers hired by a family or at a workplace with fewer than five employees. Occupational accident insurance: compulsory for home caregivers and household assistants since 1 May 2022, and for employees of a registered business. Not for you: Employment Insurance and the new Labor Pension.

What Labor Insurance and Occupational Accident Insurance Pay For

Labor Insurance pays maternity, injury or sickness, permanent disability, old-age and survivor benefits, and work-accident cover adds its own, including medical care.

  • Injury or sickness off the job: paid only when you are hospitalized and not receiving your salary, from the fourth day in hospital, at 50% of your average monthly insurance salary, for up to six months, with six more if you had a full year of cover first.
  • Injury or sickness from work: from the fourth day you cannot work, in hospital or as an outpatient. The first two months are based on your average monthly insured salary in the six months before the month of the accident, and from the third month you receive 70% of it, for up to two years. The BLI describes this benefit as wage compensation.
  • Medical care for a work injury: treatment at a National Health Insurance hospital or clinic without the usual partial out-of-pocket charge, with the cost paid by the BLI.
  • Permanent disability: a claim needs a disability diagnosis report from a hospital authorized under National Health Insurance.
  • Death of the insured worker: a funeral grant, and survivor benefits for the family in an order of kin that starts with the spouse and children.
  • Death of a parent, spouse or child: an insured foreign worker can claim a funeral grant.
  • Maternity: after 280 days of cover, or 181 days for a premature birth, a lump sum of two months of average insured salary.

The lump-sum old-age benefit needs the qualifying age, 65 for anyone born in 1962 or later (60 to 64 if born earlier), and withdrawal from cover.

How Much Is Labor Insurance in Taiwan, and Who Pays

The BLI's ordinary premium rate is 11.5% of your monthly insured salary, in force from 1 January 2025. For a worker with an employer, the BLI splits it 20% you, 70% the employer and 10% the government. Employment Insurance's separate 1% is not charged for you, because you are not in that scheme. Under the occupational accident Act, the work-accident premium is paid in full by the employer.

Your insured salary is set from your total monthly pay using the government's Table of Grades of Labor Insurance Salary. Keep every payslip and compare your contribution with that 20% share. If there is no enrolment behind the deduction, check it at once.

How to Check Your Labor Insurance in Taiwan

The quickest check of your coverage is the "Online Application and Inquiry Download System for Foreign Workers" run by the Workforce Development Agency, under the Ministry of Labor. The BLI explains the result: "Y" means you are covered now, "N" means you are not covered at present, and "NONE" means there is no enrolment record for you at all. For more detail:

  • Call the BLI telephone service centre on 02-23961266, Ext. 3111, with your name, date of birth, ARC number and your most recent employer's name.
  • Write to the BLI with photocopies of your ARC and your health insurance IC card.
  • Visit any BLI local office with the originals of both cards.
  • Log in to the BLI's e-service (Chinese version) with an Alien Citizen Digital Certificate from the National Immigration Agency and a card reader.

If you are working and the system says NONE, write to the BLI or visit a local office.

Treat that record as a career document. When one contract ends and you are enrolled again on the next, the BLI says your years of coverage can be combined. Old-age rules and several benefits are measured in those years and in your insured salary. So check it at the start of every contract, the way you check a payslip. The record you build in Taiwan is yours, and owning it is part of owning a working life abroad.

How to Claim Labor Insurance: The Steps in Taiwan

  1. Tell your employer at once and get the right form. Each benefit has its own "Application Form and Payment Receipt" on the BLI's Tables and Forms Download page.
  2. For an injury or sickness, get the original medical diagnosis. For an accident on the way to or from work, or on a business trip, the BLI has a separate report form for the insured person to fill in.
  3. Gather the supporting papers the BLI lists: employer and witness certificates, attendance and leave records, and salary records.
  4. Your employer fills in and seals the form and sends it to the BLI. The Enforcement Rules of the Labor Insurance Act say the insured unit must process your claim and "shall not receive any form of monetary compensation."
  5. If your employer has closed down, gone bankrupt or otherwise fails to file, the same Rules let you apply yourself. For a work accident, you may apply on your own even if your employer never enrolled you, because work-accident cover starts the day you start work.
  6. Name your own bank account for the payment.

Watch the clock. The Labor Insurance Act says a claim is extinguished if it is not made within five years from the day the benefit becomes payable, except for old-age benefits, and the occupational accident Act also sets five years. Online, the one benefit application the BLI describes in English, for maternity, asks for a Citizen Digital Certificate from the Ministry of the Interior and a National ID number. For a migrant worker, online means checking your cover, not filing the claim.

Claiming from the Philippines After You Have Gone Home

Leaving Taiwan does not change the five-year limit on a benefit that became payable while you were insured. Benefits for an injury or illness that began while you were covered stay claimable for a year after cover ends, under both Acts, and the Enforcement Rules let you file that Labor Insurance claim yourself. The BLI says your employer cannot apply for a premium refund on the ground that you went home after finishing your contract without ever receiving a benefit.

A Filipina with a support on her left wrist waters potted plants on the shaded porch of a house in the Philippines in the late afternoon, calm and steady.

Money to a Philippine bank. Benefits are paid straight into your own account. An overseas account is allowed, but you pay the remittance charge, and the BLI asks for your name, overseas address, account number, and bank and branch in English, plus the SWIFT code.

Papers made in the Philippines. Under the Act's Enforcement Rules, they need authentication by an R.O.C. embassy, consulate, representative office or office in the country where they were made. The same Rules excuse a document in English from translation unless the BLI considers one necessary, as its survivor and family funeral grant pages do. If a translation was not authenticated abroad, a court or notary public in Taiwan can notarize it.

A disability diagnosed after you leave. For someone disabled outside Taiwan, the diagnosis report comes from the original diagnosing hospital, and the five-year limit runs from the date of the diagnosis.

If a worker dies. A family living abroad can authorize an agent with a power of attorney, plus identity and kinship documents, and have the benefit sent to their own account, with every bank detail in printed English. With no bank account in Taiwan, a family paid a survivor pension can ask to be paid every six months instead of monthly, to cut remittance charges.

The old-age lump sum waits for the qualifying age; it cannot be taken early because you left. A claimant without household registration in Taiwan sends a passport and its Chinese translation notarized by an R.O.C. mission. Beyond these rules, the BLI's English pages do not set out a separate procedure for a returned worker's own claim, so ask the BLI directly: No. 4, Sec. 1, Roosevelt Rd., Jhongjheng District, Taipei City 100232, phone +886-2-23961266, weekdays 8:30 to 12:30 and 13:30 to 17:30. Its online contact form asks for your passport or ARC number and warns that its replies to Gmail addresses are blocked, so use another email. Whatever happens with this claim, your SSS membership at home is separate.

Protect Your Claim

The Labor Insurance Act says the rights of an insured person "to all kinds of insurance benefits may not be assigned, offset, attached or mortgaged," and your employer must file without charging you. So nobody has a reason to charge you to "process" a claim, to hold your ARC or passport until you pay, or to ask you to sign your benefit over. If someone asks for a fee to file your claim, refuse.

Where an employer failed to enrol you, or a broker is holding your papers, call Taiwan's 1955 hotline. For a work accident, the BLI pays and then recovers the money from the employer: the missing enrolment is the employer's failure, not yours.

Before You Leave Taiwan: A Claim-Ready Checklist

  • Check your enrolment status (Y, N or NONE) and ask the BLI for your record.
  • Copy your passport, ARC, health insurance IC card and work documents.
  • Keep every payslip and your last contract.
  • Get the originals of any medical diagnosis and hospital receipts.
  • Confirm a bank account that can receive an international transfer, with its SWIFT code.
  • Write down the BLI's address and phone, and your last employer's details.
  • Note the date any benefit became payable; except for old-age benefits, the five-year clock starts there.

The Questions Filipinos Ask Us Most

Can I get my Labor Insurance contributions back when I go home?

No. The BLI says an employer cannot apply for a premium refund on the ground that a foreign worker went home after finishing the contract without ever receiving a benefit. What you paid for was the cover during your contract.

Is a caregiver working for a family covered?

Yes for work accidents: occupational accident insurance has been compulsory for foreign home caregivers and household assistants since 1 May 2022. Ordinary Labor Insurance covers you only if your employer enrolls you voluntarily.

How long do I have to claim?

Five years from the day the benefit becomes payable, under the Labor Insurance Act, except for old-age benefits; the occupational accident Act also sets five years.

Can the money be sent to my bank in the Philippines?

Yes. Benefits go to your own account, and an overseas account is allowed. You pay the remittance charge and give the BLI your bank details in English with the SWIFT code.

Sources

Bureau of Labor Insurance (BLI), Ministry of Labor, Taiwan — English pages:

Taiwan's laws (Ministry of Justice, official English text):