Getting IOST in Taiwan when no local exchange lists it

The short answer

You cannot buy IOST with Taiwan dollars on any Taiwanese exchange. Taiwan has a working, regulated set of local platforms, and the Financial Supervisory Commission keeps a public list of them, but none of the eleven registered firms offers IOST. So the realistic route has two halves. You buy crypto with TWD on a registered local platform such as MAX or BitoPro, then send it to a global exchange that lists IOST and buy there. The second half happens on a platform that is not registered in Taiwan, and that is the trade-off you need to understand before you start.

That makes Taiwan unusual in our coverage. In Japan, Korea, Thailand and Indonesia you can buy IOST with local money on a supervised exchange. In Vietnam there is no licensed exchange at all. Taiwan sits in between, with a regulated local industry that simply does not carry this coin. If you want the basics first, read what IOST is.

FSC rules and AML registration

Crypto in Taiwan is supervised by the Financial Supervisory Commission (金管會), through its Securities and Futures Bureau. Since 30 November 2024, under Article 6 of the Money Laundering Control Act, any virtual asset service provider serving Taiwan must complete AML registration. That covers exchanges, transfer services and custodians. The bureau’s own page says that operating without registration can bring up to two years in prison. This is still a registration system, not a licence system. It checks anti-money-laundering controls rather than approving a firm’s whole business, and that difference matters for the reform coming next.

The tax side sits with the Ministry of Finance. If you want to check the register yourself, the bureau publishes the current list and a PDF with company details.

The 11 registered platforms

The register updated on 28 October 2026 shows eleven firms. Eight were registered on 22 September 2025, and three more were added in September 2026. Not all of them are exchanges. KryptoGO Transfer is a transfer service and Liminal is custody only, so if you are looking for somewhere to swap TWD into crypto, the trading platforms are the relevant part of the list.

Two names are missing. The operator of ACE Exchange (王牌數位創新) appears on the FSC’s list of legacy firms that did not complete registration and may no longer serve users. Rybit is not among the eleven brands either. One company voluntarily withdrew its registration, but we could not confirm whether it was Rybit’s operator. If you still hold coins on a platform that is not on the current list, moving them somewhere registered is the sensible step.

Why no local exchange lists IOST

We checked the largest platforms directly where we could. BitoPro’s public trading-pairs API returned 35 pairs on bases such as BTC, ETH, USDT, USDC, BNB, SOL, XRP, TRX, DOGE and its own BITO token, with no IOST among them. MAX blocked our automated check, but CoinGecko lists no IOST market on MAX. The other registered firms show no IOST tickers on CoinGecko either. Our conclusion is that no FSC-registered Taiwanese platform listed IOST at the end of October 2026.

Exchanges do not publish why they skip a coin, so the reasons are our reading, not fact. Taiwanese platforms focus on large caps and stablecoins. IOST is a small-cap token whose main markets are on Binance and in Korea, and its move to IOST 3.0 on BNB Chain left two token formats that any exchange must support correctly. For a local platform, that is a lot of work for a thin market.

The TWD to crypto to IOST route

This is the route Taiwanese users describe, laid out step by step. It is a description of common practice, not an endorsement of the offshore leg. The general version for every country is on our how to buy IOST page.

Every arrow in that chain costs something. A worked example, using a formula rather than live numbers: IOST received equals the TWD you spend, divided by the platform’s TWD price for one unit of the crypto you buy, minus the network fee, times one minus the spot trading fee, divided by the IOST price in that crypto. Then subtract the IOST withdrawal fee. On Binance the spot fee is 0.10% at the regular tier, and at our last check an IOST L1 withdrawal cost 1 IOST with a memo required. The network you pick for the transfer usually matters more than the trading fee, so compare networks before you send. To see the IOST value in TWD at any moment, use the converter at the top of this page or the full IOST converter.

Many users skip the local platform and buy crypto with TWD on Binance or OKX P2P instead. That cuts a step, but it means dealing directly with strangers and keeping your whole route on unregistered platforms. Convenience-store channels come up too. BitoPro has offered a FamilyMart FamiPort cash-purchase option, and MaiCoin offered similar retail channels in the past. We could not confirm that these still work, so check BitoPro’s own site before relying on one.

Prefer a card to a bank transfer?

CEX.IO, running since 2013, sells crypto such as BNB by Visa or Mastercard in USD, EUR or GBP. It does not list IOST, and Taiwanese users sign up with its Nevis entity, which is not on the FSC register.

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Global exchanges and Taiwan

The IOST markets Taiwanese users reach include Binance, OKX, Bitget, KuCoin, Gate and MEXC. Binance has the deepest book of all, and our Binance review covers its fees, networks and memo rules. One correction to a common tip: Bybit has no IOST spot market. It offers only an IOSTUSDT perpetual, which is a leveraged contract and leaves you with no coins to withdraw. Our full IOST exchange list shows which venues support the L1 and BEP-20 networks.

None of these global exchanges is on the FSC register. Binance set up a local company in May 2023 and sought AML registration, but we found no completed registration. In practice that means the AML regime does not cover your relationship with them, and you have no Taiwanese supervisor to complain to if something goes wrong.

What the VASP Act changes

The Virtual Asset Service Act (虛擬資產服務法) passed its third reading in the Legislative Yuan on 30 June 2026. It replaces registration with licensing for exchanges, trading platforms, transfers, custody, underwriting, lending and other services, and it sets rules for issuing stablecoins. Fraud and market manipulation carry three to ten years in prison and fines of NT$10 million to NT$200 million. According to press reports, existing registrants must apply within 12 months of the Act taking effect and obtain a licence within about two years. The earliest effective date is put at around the first quarter of 2027, once nine sets of subordinate regulations are issued.

For IOST buyers, the Act does not put the coin on a local exchange. Licensing is about who may operate, not which tokens they list. What it may change is the offshore leg. A full licensing regime gives the FSC a firmer basis to act against foreign platforms that serve Taiwan without a licence, as regulators in Japan and Thailand have done. Nothing has been announced on that front, but it is the part we would watch.

Tax on crypto gains

We found no separate crypto tax in Taiwan. Under Ministry of Finance guidance as reported in the press, an individual’s occasional gain on a non-security virtual currency counts as property transaction income (財產交易所得), category 7 of Article 14(1) of the Income Tax Act. The taxable gain is the sale price minus your cost and expenses, and it is added to your comprehensive income for the year. Gains on security-type tokens fall under the securities transaction income tax instead, which is suspended. IOST is not treated as a security token in anything we found.

The tax bureaus do look at crypto. Press reports from December 2024 said audits of crypto platforms had found about NT$130 million in under-reported income and collected about NT$34 million in tax and penalties. As a labelled example, if you bought IOST for NT$20,000 and later sold it for NT$26,000 with NT$100 in fees, the reportable gain would be NT$5,900. How gains made on offshore exchanges interact with the basic income tax and overseas-income rules is something we could not confirm. Keep records of every leg, including the crypto purchase, and ask a Taiwanese tax adviser. This is not tax advice.

Risks for Taiwanese holders

Most losses on this route are operational, not dramatic. The first is the network. Native IOST on the L1 chain goes to an account name and needs a memo when you deposit to an exchange, while BEP-20 IOST on BNB Chain goes to a 0x address with no memo. Mixing them up can lose your coins. The second is timing. After the go-iost v4.0.0 mandatory upgrade in October 2026, exchanges paused IOST deposits and withdrawals for days, and Binance kept withdrawals off for longer. Our guide to sending IOST covers memos and test transfers in detail.

Test transfer first, then the rest!

The third risk is the coin itself. IOST trades far below its 2018 high, and outside Binance and the Korean exchanges its order books are thin, so prices can swing hard. Fake IOST tokens and fake airdrops circulate on social media. Read our page on whether IOST is safe and pick a wallet from our IOST wallet guide before you buy. For comparison with markets where IOST does trade against local money, see IOST in Japan and IOST in South Korea, or the IOST in Asia hub.