Don't Let Family Mail You Meat: NT$200,000 Fine

Updated: 2026-11-01

Families often mail food from home as a surprise. But if it contains pork products, you, the recipient, are the one who gets fined.

The fines

A parcel from a country with African swine fever (ASF) that contains pork products: the recipient is fined NT$200,000 the first time and NT$1,000,000 the second time.
If you receive a parcel with meat and do not hand it over to be destroyed, you can be fined up to NT$150,000.
A migrant worker who is penalized can lose their work permit and be ordered to leave Taiwan (Employment Service Act, Article 73).
Bringing meat yourself when you return from home is the same: NT$200,000. Foreigners without an ARC who cannot pay on the spot are refused entry.

What not to send

Sausages, meat floss, jerky, ham, canned meat, cured or dried meat, buns or pastries with meat filling, instant noodles with meat in the seasoning. Safest: do not send any meat or animal products at all.

If you receive a parcel with meat

Do not open it further and do not eat it.
Hand it over to the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency (防檢署) to be destroyed right away. Ask your employer or broker for help, or call 1955 to ask how.
If you did not order it and it is the first time and not on purpose, you may not be fined. But if your family sent it and you never told them not to, you may be treated as the importer. So tell your family now.

Message for your family back home

Copy this message and send it:

Dear family: please do not send any food with meat in it to Taiwan (sausages, meat floss, jerky, canned meat, instant noodles with meat flavor). If a parcel is found to contain pork, I, the person receiving it, can be fined NT$200,000 and sent home. If you want to send something, please send food without meat. Thank you 🙏

Confused, or already received a parcel? Call 1955 (free, 24 hours, English available).

Official sources