Emergency information in Taiwan
Police 110, fire and ambulance 119. The number worth saving is the free tourist hotline on 0800-011-765, staffed around the clock in English, Japanese and Chinese for emergencies, lost documents and interpreting.
Emergency numbers
The tourist hotline is the one worth saving: it handles emergencies, lost documents and interpretation around the clock in English.
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Police: 110
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Fire and ambulance: 119
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Free tourist hotline (Tourism Administration): 0800-011-765 (provides round-the-clock assistance in English, Japanese and Chinese for emergencies, lost documents, or interpretation).
National Health Insurance does not cover non-residents, so care at an international centre is paid in cash, by card or billed to your insurer.
The tourist hotline is the number to save
0800-011-765 is toll-free, answered around the clock in English, Japanese, Korean and Mandarin, and handles everything from a lost bag to interpreting for you in a hospital.
- 0800-011-765, free, 24 hours a day, run by the Tourism Administration. English, Japanese, Korean and Mandarin.
- It is a general-purpose line for visitors: emergencies, lost documents, transport, accommodation, and interpretation when someone else needs to understand you.
- Use it as the translator layer over 110 and 119, which are answered in Chinese - call the emergency number first if anyone is in danger, then the hotline to sort out what follows.
- From a foreign mobile it may not dial as a free 0800 number; a hotel phone or a local SIM makes it straightforward.
- Save it before you land. The moment you need it is not the moment to be searching for it.
One number that covers the whole trip
Taiwan is an easy country to travel in until something goes wrong in a language you do not read. The Tourist Hotline on 0800-011-765 is the state's answer to that: toll-free, staffed around the clock, and answered in Mandarin, English, Japanese and Korean by operators whose job is visitors specifically.
What people actually use it for:
- Emergencies, as an interpreter between you and the service that turned up.
- Lost documents and lost property - Taiwan has an unusually good record of things being handed in, and the hotline knows which office holds what.
- Transport and accommodation questions at hours when no information desk is open.
It does not replace the emergency numbers
For anything urgent the order is unchanged: 110 for police, 119 for fire and ambulance. Those lines are answered in Chinese, so if you can, have someone nearby speak - a hotel desk, a shop, a passer-by; help is offered readily here.
Then call the hotline. The part of an emergency that goes wrong for a visitor is rarely the ambulance; it is the hour afterwards, in an admissions office, with forms.
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