Frequently Asked Questions

Questions foreign residents and visitors most often have about Taiwanese dates.

What year is it in Taiwan?

Western is ROC . Taiwan officially uses the Republic of China (Minguo) era, which counts 1912 as year 1. Subtract 1911 from the Western year to get the ROC year. Use the year converter for any specific date.

My document says 115/07/29. What date is that?

29 July 2026. Taiwanese documents commonly print the ROC year first, so 115/07/29 is ROC year 115, month 7, day 29 — and 115 + 1911 = 2026. Watch out for this on residence permits, driver's licences, contracts and food expiry dates: a "115" is not the year 2015.

Which documents use ROC years?

Nearly all official ones: ARC and residence permits, national ID cards, driver's licences, household registration transcripts, birth and marriage certificates, tax filings, bank and insurance forms, court documents, and most government correspondence. Businesses aimed at international customers, including airlines and many banks' English-language forms, use Western years instead — so it is worth checking which one a form expects before you fill it in.

How do I write a date on a Taiwanese form?

Most forms have separate boxes labelled 年 (year), 月 (month) and 日 (day), and expect the ROC year in the first box. For formal documents the year is spelled out in Chinese characters digit by digit: ROC 115/7/29 becomes 中華民國一一五年七月二十九日. Note that the year is read as "one one five", not "one hundred fifteen". The year converter generates this string for you.

What does "before ROC" mean?

There is no ROC year 0. Dates before 1912 are counted backwards as "before ROC N" (民國前 N 年), where N = 1912 − Western year. So 1911 is before ROC 1. You will mostly encounter this on older household registration records, which sometimes reach back into the Qing dynasty or the Japanese colonial period.

Why do some old documents show Japanese era names?

Taiwan was under Japanese rule from 1895 to 1945, and records from that period are dated with the Meiji, Taishō and Shōwa eras. Land deeds and pre-war household records often carry these. The conversion table on the year converter lists them alongside ROC and Qing years.

What is the difference between the solar and lunar calendar?

Taiwan runs day-to-day life on the solar (Gregorian) calendar — the ROC calendar is simply that calendar with a different year count. The lunar calendar runs alongside it for festivals, temple events, ancestor rites and many family birthdays. Lunar dates map onto different solar dates every year, which is why Lunar New Year moves around. Convert them with the lunar calendar converter.

What is a leap month?

Twelve lunar months come to roughly 354 days, about 11 short of a solar year. To keep the lunar calendar in step with the seasons, an extra month is inserted every two to three years. It repeats the previous month's number — a leap sixth month follows the sixth month. 2025 had one.

Is my Chinese zodiac sign based on my birth year?

On the lunar year, which begins at Lunar New Year rather than 1 January. If you were born in January or the first half of February, your sign is usually the previous year's animal. Check the exact boundary with the lunar converter before you trust a chart that just maps Western years to animals.

Why did someone tell me I am a year older than I am?

They were probably using nominal age (虛歲), the traditional count in which a baby is one year old at birth and gains a year at New Year rather than on their birthday. It runs one to two years ahead of your actual age. Taiwan uses actual age for all legal and administrative purposes, but nominal age still comes up socially and in traditional medicine. The year converter shows both.

When are Taiwan's public holidays?

See the holidays page for 2026 and 2027 with dates, weekdays and make-up days. Note that the holiday list was significantly revised in 2025 — Teachers' Day, Retrocession Day and Constitution Day were restored as days off, so older lists circulating online are wrong.

How accurate is this site?

ROC conversion is simple year arithmetic and is exact. Lunar conversion uses standard astronomical tables covering 1900–2100, including all leap months. Holiday dates derived from the lunar calendar are computed the same way, but the final official schedule — particularly discretionary bridge days — is set by Taiwan's Directorate-General of Personnel Administration. This is an unofficial reference tool; for anything legal, rely on the issuing authority.