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Kaohsiung, Taiwan
Photo: 毛貓大少爺 · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Kaohsiung

Taiwan · Asia · 2,733,566 people · Asia/Taipei · TWD

Kaohsiung scores 65.3/100 for digital nomads under balanced weights, ranking 379 of 1501 cities. Expect about $1,550 per month (country-level estimate), a nomad visa (Digital nomad visitor visa), and a measured median download speed of 41.3 Mbps.

Kaohsiung is Taiwan's southern port city, warmer and cheaper than Taipei, with a harbour art district, a metro and a growing nomad scene. Taiwan's Gold Card is the usual long-stay route.

  • Pier-2 art district
  • Warm winters
  • Metro and light rail
  • Cheaper than Taipei
Cost of living: 5.9 of 65 points (scores 53/100)Safety: 9.5 of 65 points (scores 86/100)Healthcare: 9.7 of 65 points (scores 87/100)Internet: 7.9 of 65 points (scores 72/100)Visa ease: 7.9 of 65 points (scores 71/100)Getting there & around: 3.9 of 65 points (scores 35/100)Climate: 6.5 of 65 points (scores 58/100)Air quality: 4.9 of 65 points (scores 44/100)Quality of life: 9.1 of 65 points (scores 82/100)65
Balanced score
out of 100
Vibe check
  • Cost5.9
  • Safety9.5
  • Health9.7
  • Internet7.9
  • Visa7.9
  • Mobility3.9
  • Climate6.5
  • Air4.9
  • QoL9.1

Rank 379 of 1,501 · its cost is a national estimate, so Top 10 lists rank it after cities with a local price

For US nomads

  • US passport entry
    90 days visa-free
    no visa needed for a visit
  • Time vs New York
    13 hours ahead of New York
    0h of a 9–6 day overlap with Eastern time
  • Time vs Los Angeles
    16 hours ahead of Los Angeles
    0h of a 9–6 day overlap with Pacific time
  • Non-stop from the US
    0 US airports
    Wikipedia, 2026-10

Prices are in US dollars. US citizens are taxed on worldwide income; the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion and state residency rules are worth a look before a long stay.

Eating out

OpenStreetMap, 2026-1116

660restaurants within 3 km

Mapped around the centre of Kaohsiung: plenty of choice within walking distance. A count of what is on the map, not a rating, and it does not affect the score.

How Kaohsiung scores, factor by factor

Superscripts link to the source list at the bottom. Country-level figures apply to all of Taiwan.

Cost of living

Monthly cost for one person (log-scaled, cheaper is better).
53
  • Monthly cost, one person: $1,5502 · country-level, 2026-09
  • Central one-bedroom rent: no data3 · city-level, 2026-09 — no city-level rent row in the WhereToEmigrate dataset

Safety

Homicide rate and political stability (country-level).
86
  • Homicide rate: 0.8 per 100k4 · country-level, 2021
  • Political stability: 83.1/1005 · country-level, 2025

Healthcare

WHO universal-health-coverage index and life expectancy (country-level).
87
  • UHC service coverage: no data6 · country-level, 2021 — no WHO UHC_INDEX_REPORTED for TWN
  • Life expectancy: 80.2 years7 · country-level, 2023

Internet

Median measured download and upload speed (M-Lab, city-level; the province or country aggregate where the city has too few tests).
72
  • Median download: 41.3 Mbps8 · city-level, 2024
  • Median upload: 17.8 Mbps8 · city-level, 2024
  • Tests measured: 10,3338 · city-level, 2024
  • Starlink: Coming soon (Service date is unknown at this time)9 · country-level, 2026-10, not scored

Visa ease

How easily your passport gets in and stays: visa-free days, eTA, visa on arrival, e-visa or consular visa, plus a nomad visa and how affordable its income threshold is. Averages US, EU and UK passports until you pick yours.
71
  • Nomad visa: Digital nomad visitor visa10 · min income $3,333/mo
  • Entry, US passport: 90 days11 · country-level, 2026-02
  • Entry, EU passport: 90 days11 · country-level, 2026-02
  • Entry, UK passport: 90 days11 · country-level, 2026-02

Getting there & around

Non-stop airport destinations (hub size) plus editorial walkability and transit ratings.
35
  • Non-stop destinations from KHH: 3612 · city-level, 2026-10
  • Walkability: 4/513 · editorial, 2026-09
  • Public transit: 4/513 · editorial, 2026-09

Climate

Share of months that are comfortable: 59–82°F (15–28 °C) mean, at most 5.9 in (150 mm) rain, at most 85% humidity.
58
  • Comfortable months: 7 of 1214 · city-level, 2001–2020 normals

Air quality

Annual mean PM2.5 on a fixed scale: 5 µg/m³ (WHO guideline) scores 100, 50 µg/m³ or worse scores 0.
44
  • Annual mean PM2.5: 30.3 µg/m³15 · city-level, 2023

Quality of life

Human Development Index and English proficiency (country-level).
82
  • Human Development Index: 0.92617 · country-level, 2021
  • English proficiency: moderate18 · country-level, 2024

What does Kaohsiung cost per month?

Total, one person$1,550country estimate
One-bedroom rent, centreno datacity-level rent unavailable
Country cost index (US = 100)43country

Can you stay legally?

Digital nomad visa · Taiwan

Digital nomad visitor visa

Not yet reviewedSubmit a review →
Income
$3,333/month
Initial stay
6 months, renewable up to 2 years
Apply
Consulate, then in the country
Read the Taiwan digital nomad visa guide →for Kaohsiung
Nomad visaDigital nomad visitor visa
Minimum income$3,333/month
US passport90 days
EU passport90 days
UK passport90 days

Visa rules change often. Verify with the issuing government before you book.

Do you pay tax here on income from abroad?

Tax status · Taiwan

Foreign investment income is outside regular tax, but remote work done in Taiwan is taxed after 90 days

Territorial

Taiwan taxes income from Taiwan sources only. Pay for work you do while in Taiwan is Taiwan-source, even from a foreign employer, once you stay over 90 days in a calendar year: 18% flat as a non-resident, 5%–40% from 183 days. Foreign dividends, interest, rent and gains are outside regular tax; a 20% minimum tax can reach them only if they total NT$1 million and basic income tops NT$7.5 million.

  • Remote work income

    Salary from a foreign employer or fees from foreign clients

    Taxed

    5%–40% progressive for residents; 18% flat for non-residents staying 91–182 days

  • Investments and pensions

    Dividends, interest, gains, rent and pensions from abroad

    Not taxed

    0% in the regular system; 20% minimum tax only above NT$7.5 million of basic income

  • Wealth

    Net wealth and inheritance

    No wealth tax

    Inheritance tax applies

Tax resident after
183 days a year
Top income tax rate
40%

On the nomad visa

Taiwan's digital nomad visitor visa, launched in January 2025, is a visitor visa with no residence permit, and it gives no tax status of its own: the 90-day and 183-day counts apply as to anyone. Up to 90 days in a calendar year, pay from a foreign employer is not taxed. From 91 to 182 days, that pay is Taiwan-source and taxed at a flat 18%, filed before you leave. From 183 days in the same calendar year you are resident and taxed at 5%–40% on it, while foreign investment income stays outside regular tax unless the minimum tax applies. Holders cannot join National Health Insurance without a residence permit, which is why the visa requires private health cover.

Not yet reviewed by a person · compiled from official pages read on 2026-10-27

General information, not tax advice. Tax treaties, your citizenship and your home country's exit rules can change the answer. US citizens are taxed by the US wherever they live.

Airports and nonstop flights

Kaohsiung is served by one airport.

AirportNonstop destinationsInternationalFrom US airports
KHHKaohsiung International Airport36320

Wikipedia airport pages as of 2026-10: seasonal routes included, charters and announced-but-not-started routes excluded.

What is the weather like through the year?

Comfortable months by our rule: Oct–Apr. Rank cities for Dec–Feb →

MonthJanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Mean °F707174778183858483817873
Rain in1.10.91.42.26.811.710.415.88.32.61.91.3
Humidity %767878808284828380767675

Green temperatures mark months that meet the comfort rule (59–82°F, ≤5.9 in rain, ≤85% humidity). NASA POWER 2001–2020 climatology at the city coordinates.

Where can you stay in Kaohsiung?

Three ways to live here, and what each does to the monthly budget. Rents are the one-bedroom figures from the cost table; hotels and short lets are priced per night and cost more, most of all in high season.

OptionRent per monthMonthly totalNotes
One-bedroom outside the centre——No city-level cost here; the total is a national estimate.
One-bedroom in the centre——No city-level rent figure for this city.
Hotel or short let——For the first weeks or a stay under a month. Compare hotels on Navoy →

Monthly rents assume an unfurnished lease of six months or more; furnished monthly lets usually cost 20 to 50 percent more.

Cities with a similar profile

Also in Asia: Abbottabad, Agra, Ahmedabad, Ahvaz, Akita, Almaty

Ready to see Kaohsiung for yourself?

Nostos tells you where. Navoy, the AI travel planner behind it, builds the trip: itineraries, places to stay and what to book before you land.

Opens on navoy.io.

The vibe

What people post about living in Kaohsiung, read for its mood. It is a reading of opinions, not a fact, and it is not part of the score.

Mixed · 62Commenters describe Kaohsiung as laid-back, uncrowded and friendly, but the content is thin, mostly travel-vlog praise, and few residents weigh in on costs or daily-life friction.

People praise
  • friendliness
  • laid-back pace
  • uncrowded
  • kindness of locals
  • affordable prices
People warn about
  • little detail on living costs
  • limited internet and transport info
  • language barrier
  • sparse resident feedback
  • Locals are warm and helpful to newcomers
  • Feels calmer and less crowded than bigger cities
  • Costs seen as reasonable compared with Southeast Asia
  • Real cost and daily-life details are still missing
  • Good base for studying or working slowly

Read from 7 videos, 27 comments and 0 posts on 2026-11-07; the summary is written by a language model and can misread sarcasm.

Frequently asked

How much does it cost to live in Kaohsiung as a digital nomad?
A single person typically spends about $1,550 per month in Kaohsiung (a country-level estimate for Taiwan). That is a 53/100 cost score, where 100 is the cheapest city in the dataset.
Is Kaohsiung safe for digital nomads?
Kaohsiung scores 86/100 on safety. Taiwan records 0.8 homicides per 100,000 people per year (WHO, 2021) and a political-stability score of 83.1/100 (World Bank WGI). Both figures are national, so neighbourhood-level risk can differ.
Does Taiwan have a digital nomad visa?
Yes. Taiwan offers the Digital nomad visitor visa with a minimum income of about $3,333 per month. Verify current rules with the issuing authority before applying. Full guide: https://nostos.navoy.io/visas/taiwan
How fast is the internet in Kaohsiung?
Measured median download speed in Kaohsiung was 41.3 Mbps (upload 17.8 Mbps) across 10,333 M-Lab tests in 2024. Measured speeds run below advertised plan speeds everywhere, so compare cities rather than reading the number as a plan.
Is Starlink available in Kaohsiung?
Not yet. Starlink's availability map lists Taiwan as coming soon (Service date is unknown at this time) as of 2026-10. Roaming plans may work for short stays, but local rules on using them vary.
Which airports serve Kaohsiung and how many nonstop flights are there?
Kaohsiung is served by Kaohsiung International Airport (KHH) with 36 nonstop destinations, of which 32 are international. 0 US airports have a nonstop link. Source: Wikipedia, 2026-10.
When is the best time of year to be in Kaohsiung?
The most comfortable months are Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, Oct, Nov, Dec. Mean temperatures range from 70°F (21°C) in Jan to 85°F (29°C) in Jul (NASA POWER 2001–2020 climatology).
Kaohsiung or Taichung: which is better for digital nomads?
Taichung is the city with the closest factor profile to Kaohsiung in this dataset. Which one wins depends on your weights; the comparison page puts every factor side by side with the numbers behind them.

Sources

Dataset 2026.11.3, published 2026-11-10. Download the full dataset or read the methodology.

  1. 1.City population (latest census or official estimate), Wikipedia (citing national statistics offices). CC BY-SA 4.0. Retrieved 2026-09-22. City-proper figures; the per-city source URL is stored with the seed row.
  2. 2.2026 Cost of Living Index (country level), WhereNext. CC BY 4.0. Retrieved 2026-09-22. Country-level monthly estimate used only where no city-level figure exists; cost_index kept for every city.
  3. 3.Cost of Living Global 2026 (city rows), WhereToEmigrate. CC BY 4.0. Retrieved 2026-09-22. monthly_cost_single_eur and rent_1br_center_eur, converted to USD at the ECB reference rate on the retrieval date (see ecb-frankfurter).
  4. 4.Intentional homicide rate, Taiwan (National Police Agency via Wikipedia), Wikipedia, citing Taiwan National Police Agency. CC BY-SA 4.0. Retrieved 2026-09-22. Taiwan is not covered by WHO GHO.
  5. 5.Worldwide Governance Indicators — Political Stability and Absence of Violence (score 0–100), World Bank. CC BY 4.0. Retrieved 2026-09-22.
  6. 6.UHC service coverage index, World Health Organization, Global Health Observatory. CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO (WHO data policy). Retrieved 2026-09-22.
  7. 7.Life expectancy at birth, Taiwan (Ministry of the Interior), Taiwan Ministry of the Interior, Department of Statistics. Open Government Data License, Taiwan. Retrieved 2026-09-22. Taiwan is not covered by WHO GHO; figure transcribed from the MOI abridged life table.
  8. 8.M-Lab NDT statistics (city aggregates, 2024), Measurement Lab. CC0 1.0. Retrieved 2026-09-22. Median of daily median download/upload throughput over 2024 for the city aggregate; sample count is the number of tests. Speeds reflect user-initiated tests, not advertised plans.
  9. 9.Starlink availability map, SpaceX (Starlink). Factual status cited from starlink.com. Retrieved 2026-10-07. Residential service status per country from the file Starlink's map loads. Grouped as on the map: launched or available = available; coming soon, pending regulatory approval or test = coming soon; blacklisted = not offered; unknown or excluded = unknown. Shown on city pages and as a ranker filter; not part of any score. Roaming and maritime plans can work in more places.
  10. 10.Nostos long-stay visa guides, Navoy. CC BY 4.0. Retrieved 2026-10-04. One record per country in data/manual/visas/<iso2>.json, compiled into data/visa-guides.json. Each guide lists the official government pages it was compiled from with retrieval dates. A guide's `verification` field is set only when a named person has re-read every source; until then pages say the guide is not yet reviewed by a person.
  11. 11.Passport Index dataset (visa requirements, 199 passports × 199 destinations), Ilya Ilyankou (compiled from passportindex.org). MIT. Retrieved 2026-09-22. Days per visit where stated; 'visa free' without a limit is credited as unlimited; eTA, visa on arrival, e-visa and visa required are credited 0 days for scoring but shown by kind. The default US/EU/UK figures use the US, German and British passports.
  12. 12.Airport destinations (Wikipedia airline and destination tables), Wikipedia contributors; countries via Wikidata. CC BY-SA 4.0. Retrieved 2026-09-24. Distinct destination airports listed in each airport article's passenger table, resolved through Wikidata. Seasonal routes count; charters and routes announced but not yet flying are excluded. The as-of date is the newest article revision among the city's airports. Falls back to the OpenFlights snapshot when an airport has no article or table.
  13. 13.Walkability and transit ratings (editorial), Navoy. CC BY 4.0. Retrieved 2026-09-22. Judgment ratings, not measurements. Explained on /methodology.
  14. 14.NASA POWER climatology (2001–2020 monthly means), NASA Langley Research Center. Public domain (US Government). Retrieved 2026-09-22. T2M, PRECTOTCORR and RH2M at the city coordinates (0.5° grid). Monthly precipitation = mm/day × days in month.
  15. 15.SatPM2.5 satellite-derived annual PM2.5 (V6.GL.02.04), Atmospheric Composition Analysis Group, Washington University in St. Louis. CC BY 4.0. Retrieved 2026-10-07. Annual 2023 PM2.5 for the 0.1° grid cell at the city centre, from satellite aerosol retrievals combined with a chemical transport model and ground monitors. Used only for cities with no WHO database row. Where the same country has WHO-measured cities, values are scaled by the median measured/satellite ratio there (corrects desert-dust overestimates in the Gulf). Across 811 cities with both, log-correlation with WHO values is 0.89 and the median difference 2 µg/m³.
  16. 16.OpenStreetMap restaurants (Overpass API), OpenStreetMap contributors. ODbL 1.0. Retrieved 2026-10-02. Count of OpenStreetMap elements tagged amenity=restaurant within 3 km of the city centre coordinate. Measures how many restaurants are mapped, which tracks real density well where OpenStreetMap is well maintained (Europe, the Americas, East and Southeast Asia) and under-counts where it is not (parts of Africa and Central Asia).
  17. 17.Human Development Index, Taiwan (DGBAS calculation), Taiwan Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics. Open Government Data License, Taiwan. Retrieved 2026-09-22. UNDP does not publish an HDI for Taiwan; DGBAS applies the same method.
  18. 18.EF English Proficiency Index 2024 (band), EF Education First. Proprietary; band cited as a fact with attribution. Retrieved 2026-09-22. Only the proficiency band is stored, transcribed by hand from the public ranking.