Pakistan or Taiwan
Two countries side by side across the same rows as the full comparison. A dash means the value is missing: fields are not filled with guesses. about the data
| Pakistan | Taiwan | |
|---|---|---|
| Salary in IT | — | — |
| Citizenship | — | — |
| Partner can work | — | — |
| Parents | — | — |
| Pets | difficult | no trouble |
| Pet limit | no limit | no limit |
| Quarantine | — | no |
| Residence permit fee | — | — |
| Rent, 2 bedrooms | $ 145 · estimate | $ 915 · estimate |
| Basket | $ 14,8 | $ 47,6 |
| Life expectancy | 67.8 | 80.8 |
| Homicides/100k | 4.33 | 0.61 |
| Natural hazards, 0–10 | 7.4 | — |
How the two sets of routes differ
Long-stay routes in this reference: Pakistan — 22, Taiwan — 154. Types present in both: work, study, family, investment and repatriation. Taiwan adds: remote work, startup, talent, retirement, job seeking and working holiday.
Fees, thresholds and deadlines
Pakistan: fees range from 200 to 400 PKR. Routes with no fee: 1. Routes with a published decision deadline: 9; the shortest is 1 days. Taiwan: fees range from 100 to 4,200 TWD. Routes with no fee: 4. Routes stating an income threshold: 30; the lowest is 26,000 TWD a month. Routes with a published decision deadline: 75; the shortest is 3 days.
Beyond the first permit
Permanent status: Taiwan after 5 years; the other country publishes no term.
Pakistan in brief
Pakistan is the world's fifth most populous country, with English-language official paperwork and a visible IT outsourcing industry in Karachi and Lahore. The work route has two steps: a mission abroad issues an entry work visa for three months — within 48 hours under the service's own rules and without security clearance — while an extension of up to two years with multiple entries is decided by the Ministry of Interior, where clearance is mandatory, as is a recommendation from the Board of Investment. The visa policy sets out a rule rare for the region: if the agencies do not answer within 30 days, the case counts as approved. The visa is issued to the worker and the family at once. The directorate describes no permanent residence for an ordinary foreigner: a long stay rests on renewing the visa. Citizenship is available on a closed list of grounds, and the list is asymmetric by sex — a foreign woman married to a Pakistani man is on it, a foreign man married to a Pakistani woman is not. Bringing in cats and dogs requires a prior permit from the agriculture ministry, while antibody titration is not needed. The background in figures: life expectancy 67.8 years (World Bank, 2024), homicides 4.33 per 100,000 (UNODC, 2024), average PM2.5 concentration 58.4 µg/m³ — almost twelve times the WHO guideline (World Bank, 2023). INFORM rates natural risks at 7.4 out of 10, with floods at 9.5 and earthquakes at 9.2 — among the highest values in the world.
Taiwan in brief
Taiwan is one of the few destinations where the primary source is available in full and in official English translation: the Immigration Act sits in the Ministry of Justice's law database, and the animal import rules are laid out page by page on the quarantine agency's site. The structure is simple: the visa is only for entry, and it is the Alien Resident Certificate (ARC) that allows a person to live there — obtained within 30 days of arrival, valid for up to three years and renewable. Permanent residence is granted after five years of residence with 183 days in each of them. The fork that determines everything: workers in the categories Taiwanese law treats as unskilled labour are excluded from this system — neither the resident visa nor permanent residence is open to them, and their spouses cannot obtain a resident certificate. The spouse of a national reaches permanent residence not in five years but in ten. A rule worth knowing in advance: overstaying the card by less than 30 days can be fixed with a fine, but a whole year is then deducted from the qualifying period for permanent residence. Bringing animals is straightforward: there is no quarantine at all where the requirements are met, but those requirements are strict — a microchip, vaccination, an antibody titre of at least 0.5 IU/ml and an application 20 days ahead; Pit Bull Terriers are banned. The country has fewer indicators than the others: the World Bank, the WHO, UNODC and INFORM do not treat Taiwan as a state and publish no data on it, so the indicators section here holds only what Ookla and livingcost provide.
Other comparisons
Pakistan or… South Korea · Japan · Thailand · Kazakhstan · Lebanon · Uzbekistan · Malaysia · Azerbaijan
Taiwan or… Philippines · Bangladesh · Kuwait · Iraq · Mongolia · Oman · People's Republic of China · Sri Lanka
More on each: Pakistan · Taiwan. Build your own comparison — up to four countries
This material is for reference and is not legal, tax or immigration advice. Visa rules, tax thresholds and prices change. Before deciding anything, check the official sources and consult a licensed professional in the relevant country.