Foreign nationals with residency in Taiwan may naturalize after continuously living in the country for at least five (5) years.

Certain foreign immediate family members of Taiwanese nationals may naturalize after continuously living in the country for at least three (3) years.

Constitutional civil and political rights as well as citizens’ responsibilities are only granted to those nationals who establish their household registration in Taiwan.

While the executive branch of the government published explanations in May 2023 determining that Mainland Chinese residents are no longer to be considered ROC nationals, [1] legal scholars argue that the matter is not resolved as executive branch explanations are not legally binding and that unless amended by the Legislative Yuan, both the Nationality Act and the Cross-Strait Act still include citizens of Mainland China (i.e., the PRC) as ROC nationals.

[3] The Treaty also ruled that residents who chose to remain in ceded territory were granted Japanese nationality in 1897.

The ROC also encouraged overseas Chinese businessmen to settle in Taiwan to facilitate economic development.

Regulations concerning evidence of ROC nationality by descent were particularly lax during this period, allowing many overseas Chinese the right to settle in Taiwan.

Legal reforms in the 1990s and 2000s greatly reduced the ease by which further grants of nationality were made to overseas Chinese and Mongolian, and restricted citizenship rights only to those with household registration in Taiwan.

[14] Foreigners over the age of 20 may naturalize as ROC nationals after residing in Taiwan for more than five years and demonstrating proficiency in Mandarin Chinese.

[16] Candidates for naturalization are typically required to renounce their previous nationalities unless they are workers in a reserved occupational field.

[20] All Taiwanese nationals who obtain Hukou in the People's Republic of China automatically have their passports cancelled and any residence rights in Taiwan revoked.

[21] In practice, exercise of most citizenship benefits, such as suffrage, and labor rights, requires possession of the National Identification Card, which is only issued to people with household registration in the Taiwan Area aged 14 and older.

In the international standard ISO 3166-1, the proper nationality designation for people domiciled in Taiwan is not ROC, but rather TWN.

This three-letter code TWN is also the official designation adopted by the International Civil Aviation Organization[24] for use on a machine-readable travel document when dealing with entry/exit procedures at immigration authorities outside Taiwan.

If the residents of the People's Republic of China (including Hong Kong and Macau) seek to settle permanently in Taiwan and gain citizenship rights, they do not naturalize like citizens of foreign countries.

The rationale behind this extension of the principle of jus sanguinis to existing nationals, as well as the recognition of dual citizenships, is to acknowledge the support given by overseas Chinese historically to the Kuomintang regime, particularly during the Xinhai Revolution.