Emergency Numbers and What to Actually Do If Something Goes Wrong in Taiwan
By Raytio Ray
A general safety orientation for foreign residents in Taiwan: emergency numbers, what to have ready, and what to expect when you call for help.
Nobody wants to think about emergencies while they're settling into a new country, but a few minutes of preparation now is the difference between fumbling through a stressful moment and knowing exactly what to do. This isn't meant to be alarming; it's meant to be the kind of thing you read once, file away, and hopefully never need.
The two numbers worth knowing cold
Taiwan's emergency numbers are well established and worth memorizing rather than looking up in the moment:
- 110 for police.
- 119 for fire and ambulance services.
These are the numbers you'd use whether you're the one who needs help or you're reporting an emergency involving someone else. It's worth saving both in your phone under clear labels, and it's worth knowing them from memory too, since a dead phone or no signal is exactly the situation where memorized numbers matter most.
English support can vary
Here's the part worth being realistic about: whether the person who answers speaks English, and how fluently, can vary depending on who's on duty, where you are, and which service you're calling. Major cities like Taipei generally have better odds of English support than rural areas, but it's not something you should count on as a guarantee in the moment. This isn't a criticism of the system; it's just a practical reality worth planning around rather than being caught off guard by.
Because of that, a few things go a long way toward closing the gap even if the call itself is in Chinese:
- Basic Chinese phrases for an emergency (your location, what's wrong, that you need help) are worth having ready, even if your Chinese is otherwise limited. A translation app can help you piece these together in advance, before you need them.
- If you're with anyone who speaks Chinese when something happens, let them make the call or stay on the line to help communicate.
- Simply stating your location clearly and repeating it if needed matters more than fluent sentence structure. Emergency responders are used to working with limited information and will generally do their best to get what they need from you.
Have your address written down, in Chinese
This is one of the single most useful things you can do in advance, and it costs nothing: have your home address written out in Chinese characters, saved somewhere you can access quickly, like a note on your phone's lock screen or a physical card in your wallet. If you ever need to give your location under stress, whether that's to an emergency responder, a taxi driver, or a neighbor helping you find help, being able to show a written Chinese address removes an entire layer of difficulty from an already stressful moment.
The same logic applies to any address you visit regularly or might need to direct someone to, not just your home.
Keep your ARC and passport information accessible
In a medical emergency specifically, having quick access to your Alien Resident Certificate (ARC) or passport information can matter, both for identification purposes and for anything related to insurance or National Health Insurance (NHI) coverage. You don't necessarily need the physical documents on you every moment of every day, but knowing where they are, or having a photo of the key details saved securely on your phone, can save time if you or someone with you needs to act quickly on your behalf.
What to actually do in the moment
If something goes wrong, the general sequence is straightforward, even if the specifics of your situation aren't:
1. Call 110 for police or 119 for fire and ambulance, depending on what kind of help you need.
2. State your location as clearly as you can, ideally with your address ready in Chinese if you have it saved.
3. Describe what's happening as simply and directly as possible; you don't need perfect sentences, just clear information.
4. If you're with someone who speaks Chinese, let them help communicate, but don't wait to call just because you're alone and unsure of the language.
5. Stay on the line and follow whatever instructions you're given, even if you're not fully confident you understood every word.
The bigger picture
None of this is meant to make Taiwan sound riskier than it is; by most measures, it's a genuinely safe place to live, which is part of why so many foreign residents feel comfortable here. The point of an emergency plan isn't to expect the worst, it's to make sure that if something does happen, you're not also fighting a language and information gap on top of whatever the actual emergency is. A saved address, two memorized numbers, and a rough sense of what to say gets you most of the way there.
If you're still getting settled and want a hand with the parts of moving in that are more logistical than urgent, our services page covers what we help with beyond the apartment search itself.