Flood Relief in Taiwan: Eligibility, Evidence and Documents

To apply for government relief money after your home floods, go to the district office (區公所) (or township or city office) where the disaster happened, not to an insurance company. Whether you can receive it depends mainly on whether the water inside your home reached 50 cm or more, and you must photograph the water line height before you clean up. This article covers only government relief and evidence; for insurance claims, see the guide to typhoon and flood insurance claims.

Flood relief applications: who pays, how much, and on what basis

The nationwide basis is the standards for flood disaster relief types and amounts (水災災害救助種類及標準; "the standard" below), issued by the Ministry of Economic Affairs under the authority of Article 63 of the Disaster Prevention and Protection Act (災害防救法); the national laws and regulations database (全國法規資料庫) shows the latest amendment on December 10, 2025. The points that matter most to you:

• Precondition: disasters caused by flooding after the Central Weather Administration (CWA) has issued a heavy rain advisory or a typhoon warning (Article 3).
• Threshold: the home where you actually live was flooded to 50 cm or more by a flood, counting one door number as one household (Article 4).
• Which spaces count: bedrooms, living rooms, dining rooms, and the kitchen, toilet and bathroom if they are in the same connected building; a city or county government may also recognize other indoor living spaces related to daily life (Article 4).
• Amount: flood relief for a household is up to ("maximum") NT$20,000 per household, and the actual payment is made by each special municipality, county or city government under local conditions (Article 7). So for the same 60 cm of flooding, the amount received can differ between cities and counties.
• If the home cannot be lived in: NT$20,000 is not the only relief. When a home is damaged by the disaster to the point of being unfit to live in, there is separate relocation relief of NT$20,000 per person, limited to 5 people; a household that has received relocation relief cannot also receive the flood relief for households (Article 7). Whether a home is "unfit to live in" has criteria (Article 6, for example a roof damaged by more than one third, or walls damaged or leaning so that repairs are needed before it can be lived in), and requires that you were registered at and actually living at that address at the time of the disaster. The Taichung page also lists temporary short-term shelter (NT$600 per day, for up to 10 days) and emergency aid (NT$10,000 to NT$30,000 per case, determined by the district office); for other cities and counties, ask the district office.
• Who pays: the city or county government and the district office where the disaster happened each budget for and pay it (Article 10); when the disaster is especially severe, the Executive Yuan can approve an additional amount (Article 11).

Where actual amounts differ between cities and counties

The Water Resources Agency once compiled the standards of each city and county. The table below is taken from that overview (compiled May 4, 2023, which is already 3 years old); it is only meant to show that "every place is different" and must not be treated as this year's amounts.

The Taoyuan social affairs bureau web page (updated October 22, 2026) still uses this tier structure: NT$10,000 for 50 cm up to under 100 cm, and NT$20,000 for 100 cm or more. For the current figures in your own city or county, ask the district office (區公所) or the social affairs bureau directly.

Check first whether you will be excluded: apartment-building basements, garages and arcades usually do not count

For many people the worst damage is in the basement or a ground-floor garage, but relief counts the "home" (living quarters). The Taoyuan social affairs bureau states explicitly that the home is limited to bedrooms, living rooms, dining rooms and the connected kitchen, toilet and bathroom, and does not include other spaces such as animal sheds, storerooms, work sheds, arcades, corridors, and the garages and basements of apartment-building complexes. Note that the original wording refers to the garages and basements of "apartment-building complexes" (大樓集合住宅); whether the basement of your own standalone multi-story house (透天厝) counts is not stated on the page, so ask the district office. Whether other cities and counties are the same also needs to be asked locally, because Article 4 of the standard lets each city and county decide.

Evidence: take these photos BEFORE you start cleaning

The hardest item among the relief documents is the photos. The Tainan social affairs bureau's application instructions require photos that "show the flood height or water-line height," and the Annan District office in Tainan additionally requires the applicant's affidavit to state the flood height; Taoyuan requires 2 to 6 photos of the damage, and Taichung likewise 2 to 6. Once the water recedes and the mud is cleared, the water line can be washed away, so the order matters.

1. While the water is still there: from a safe position, photograph the standing water in front of your door and your door number. Personal safety comes first: do not wade into the water to take photos, and do not touch any outlets or appliances.
2. After the water recedes, before you start work: in each flooded room, take at least one photo with "the water line on the wall plus a tape measure held against it down to the floor"; then take one wide shot that includes the door number or an identifiable feature of the interior.
3. Write down the numbers: use a tape measure to measure the height from the indoor floor to the highest point of the water line, and note the date, room and number in your phone's notes. The Taichung standard in the Water Resources Agency overview says "measured from the indoor floor"; do not measure from the road outside or from outside the threshold. For how other cities and counties measure, asking the district office is the most reliable.
4. Photograph damaged items: take close-up photos of the soaked furniture, appliances and flooring. These are not a requirement for the relief money, but they will be useful later for insurance claims or when talking to your landlord or the management committee (管委會).
5. Back up: keep the original photo files on your phone and back them up to the cloud; do not edit them with photo-editing software, and do not compress the files so much that the numbers can no longer be read.

If you really had no time to take photos, the Tainan social affairs bureau's announcement says the district office will set up a disaster survey team to inspect on site; but if the water line has already disappeared, the inspection loses its basis, so do not gamble on this step.

Preparing documents: follow the district office's announcement

Each city and county sets its own document list, and it is adjusted for individual disasters. The table below compiles the public pages of Taoyuan, Taichung and Tainan so that you can gather roughly what is needed ("—" means that page does not list it, not that it is not required):

"Registration is not required" comes from Tainan's 2019 announcement; the point is that you actually lived there, so renters should not give up because their household registration is not at the flooded address. Whether other cities and counties treat it the same way is quickest to confirm by phone.

Renters should note this in particular: what the Taoyuan page asks for is "proof of a lawful home," and everything it lists is either a document in the owner's name (building transcript, building permit, tax certificate) or a water or electricity bill receipt; it does not describe an alternative for people who rent. If you rent, first ask the district office whether a lease agreement (租賃契約), a residence certificate from the neighborhood chief (里長, lǐzhǎng), or utility bill receipts can be used instead.

Timeline: from reporting to payment

1. When the disaster happens: Article 5 of the standard provides that damage reporting is organized by village or neighborhood, with the village or neighborhood chief and the village or neighborhood clerk surveying the number of affected households and the losses and reporting them; so if you are in the disaster area, first let your neighborhood chief (里長, lǐzhǎng) or neighborhood clerk know that your home was affected.
2. After the water recedes and you have taken photos: go to the district office (social affairs section, 社會課) and ask how to apply for this disaster and for the forms. Whether you fill in a form yourself and which documents to bring can differ between cities and counties and between events; follow the district office's announcement for this event.
3. Survey: when necessary, the district office will notify affected households to cooperate with the damage survey. If you still do not cooperate after being notified twice, no relief will be given (Article 5), so respond when you get a call or notice.
4. Approval and payment: the district office reports the survey results to the city or county government, which supervises the survey and makes the payment (Article 5). There is no nationwide figure for how long payment takes; follow what the district office tells you.

Application deadline: no nationwide rule could be found

The standard itself sets no application deadline, and each city and county has its own practice. Tainan's social affairs bureau announcement in 2019 gave a deadline of August 28 (8 月 28 日前) for applying to the district office, which was the program deadline for that particular event; the Taoyuan social affairs bureau page does not state a deadline. For general deadlines in other cities and counties (for example within a certain number of days), follow each district office's announcement. In practice, treat it as "the sooner the better," and ask the district office in the first week after the disaster.

Easy ways to lose out

• No double claims: for disaster events in the same period, only one of the same type of relief can be claimed, and duplicate payments are recovered (Article 9). If you qualify for both a city or county special program and another subsidy, first ask the district office whether you can receive both.
• Measuring the wrong height: water depth is measured from the indoor floor, not from the road outside the door. If the photo has no scale, the district office may find it hard to recognize.
• One door number, one household: in a standalone multi-story house, the first and second floors under the same door number count as one household; how households that sublet parts of the same building are counted, ask the district office.
• Thinking about evidence only after cleaning up: this is the most common regret; once the water line is gone it is very hard to make up.

Who to contact

Work out your situation first, then contact the right party:

• Personal safety is threatened (water still rising, someone trapped): call 119.
• Want to know how to apply, the forms and the deadline: the social affairs section of the district office (區公所); for cross-district or amount questions, ask the city or county social affairs bureau's social assistance section.
• The water has receded and you need to cut power, inspect and clean up: first read the order for cleaning up after a flood; for handling appliances and outlets, see also safety checks for flooded appliances.
• Want to see where flooding continues and where warnings are in force: see the real-time flood dashboard.
• Want to know what to do before the next heavy rain: see the typhoon and heavy rain self-help guide and emergency kit.

Last updated: 2026-10-26

Sources

• National laws and regulations database (全國法規資料庫), the standards for flood disaster relief types and amounts (水災災害救助種類及標準), (in Chinese): every article number in the text (precondition, 50 cm threshold, scope of the home, maximum NT$20,000, reporting procedure, no duplicate claims, funding) comes from this.
• National laws and regulations database (全國法規資料庫), Article 63 of the Disaster Prevention and Protection Act (in Chinese): types and standards of relief are set uniformly by the central competent authority in consultation with cities and counties, the legal basis for the standard above.
• Taoyuan City Government social affairs bureau (社會局), home flood relief (in Chinese): amounts for 50 to 100 cm and for 100 cm or more, district office handling, 2 to 6 photos, the spaces that are not counted.
• Taichung City Government, disaster relief resources (in Chinese): NT$15,000 per household and the required documents.
• Tainan City social affairs bureau (社會局), flood relief application instructions (2019) (in Chinese): photos must show the flood or water-line height, registration not required, program deadline for an individual event.
• Annan District office, Tainan City (安南區公所), home flood relief application notice (in Chinese): the applicant's affidavit must state the flood height.
• Water Resources Agency, Ministry of Economic Affairs (水利署), summary overview of flood relief matters (compiled 2023-05-04) (in Chinese): shows that the amount tiers differ between cities and counties; an older version, for reference only.

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