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Referendums inTaiwan at both the national and local level are governed by theReferendum Act of Taiwan, which was enacted by theLegislative Yuan in December 2003. Citizens can propose laws via referendums at the national and local levels. TheReferendum Act also allowed people to make changes or abolish laws by referendums.
The 7th amendment of theAdditional Articles of the Constitution in June 2005 also moved the final ratification process for futureconstitutional amendment and national territory alternation into a form of referendum. These referendum has a higher bar of proposing and approval set directly by theConstitution outside of theReferendum Act.
While the rights ofinitiatives andreferendums are mentioned in theThree Principles of the People and Chapter 9, Article 136 of theConstitution of 1947,[1] a law pertaining specifically to referendums was not enacted until 2003. The Referendum Act was promoted byDemocratic Progressive Party (DPP) politicians such asChai Trong-rong,Lin Yi-hsiung,Yeh Chu-lan,Lu Hsiu-yi,Lin Cho-shui, and theChen Shui-bian-Annette Lu administration. While both citizens of Taiwan and the Legislative Yuan can initiate the referendum process, thePan-Blue Coalition held a legislative majority at the time of the act's promulgation, and set an extremely high bar to prevent its application.[2][3][4][5][6][7] The first referendum to be proposed by the legislature is the2025 Taiwanese referendum backed by the Kuomintang and theTaiwan People's Party.
Article 17 of the Referendum Act states "When the country is under the threat of foreign force and the national sovereignty is likely to be changed, the President may, with the resolution of the meeting of theExecutive Yuan, apply the matters regarding the national security to referendum." Such a referendum has been held in2004.[8][9][10][11]
No national referendum question had reached the majority support quota until 2018, when seven questions were approved as part of a ten-question referendum. Three had been successful at the local level.New Power Party,Taiwan Solidarity Union, and some DPP members are major forces in the legislature calling for reform.[12][13][14]
TheLegislative Yuan revised several sections of the Referendum Act in December 2017. The first round proposal threshold for national and local referendums were cut from 0.1 to 0.01 percent of the electorate in the most recent presidential election, and the second tier proposal threshold for referendums was lowered from 5 to 1.5 percent of the electorate. Additionally, referendums will be declared passed if a majority of voters vote for propositions, and the number of agreeing votes reaches 25 percent of the electorate, instead of 50 percent.[15][16][17]
Several amendments to the Referendum Act were proposed in June 2019, among them a requirement for voters to provide a photocopy of theirNational Identification Card when voting on referendums.[18] An amendment to separate election years from referendum years was passed, and took effect in August 2021. The same amendment also limited referendum voting to every two years, and mandated a specific date for the vote, the fourth Saturday in August.[19][20] In November 2025, the Referendum Act was amended, mandating referendum proposals be approved within three to six months and be held alongside national elections, if an election was scheduled during that time.[21][22]
Article 25 of the Referendum Act was amended in 2018, permitting absentee voting for national referendums, once such procedures were enumerated in a separate law. TheCentral Election Commission proposed a bill on absentee voting in referendums in 2020, and it was approved by theExecutive Yuan in September 2021.[23][24]
The currentAdditional Articles of the Constitution designed two topics for a constitutional referendum in Articles 1, 4, and 12:Constitutional amendment and National territory alternation. The constitution has set a high bar in these referendums overReferendum Act.
The process for aconstitutional amendment or national territory alternation has to be initiated by one-fourth (25%) of the members of theLegislative Yuan (theunicameral parliament of Taiwan), then voted in theLegislative Yuan with at least three-fourths (75%) members attended and by a three-fourths (75%)supermajority. A constitutional referendum will then be conducted if the amendment is proposed by theLegislative Yuan, the quorum to pass the constitutional referendum is one-half (50%) of all eligible voters have voted yes.[25]
The first constitutional referendum scheduled since the 2005 amendments to the Additional Articles was the2022 Taiwanese voting age referendum.
There have beentwenty-one nationalreferendums inTaiwan. During the first six, two referendum questions were asked in each of three national elections.[26][27] In each of these six national referendums, "Yes" votes won a majority over "No" votes. However, the referendum results were invalidated each time due to low turnout rate. According to the Referendum Law, 50% turnout of qualified voters is required for the referendum to be valid. The threshold was not reached in any of the first six national referendums, as theKuomintang asked its supporters to boycott each referendum. Therefore, the removal of the turnout restriction in the referendum law has been proposed.[28] Several provisions regarding turnout were amended by theLegislative Yuan in December 2017.
Following amendments to the Referendum Act, ten questions were asked during the2018 Taiwanese referendum, held alongsidelocal elections. The four-question2021 Taiwanese referendum was scheduled for August and postponed to December due to theCOVID-19 pandemic. The2025 Taiwanese referendum was the first to be held on the date prescribed by the 2019 amendments to the Referendum Act.
| National referendum | Date | Proposition No. | Results | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2004 Taiwanese cross-strait relations referendum | March 20, 2004 | 1, 2 | 2 rejected | Held jointly with2004 Taiwanese presidential election |
| 2008 Taiwanese transitional justice referendum | January 12, 2008 | 3, 4 | 2 rejected | Held jointly with2008 Taiwanese legislative election |
| 2008 Taiwanese United Nations membership referendum | March 22, 2008 | 5, 6 | 2 rejected | Held jointly with2008 Taiwanese presidential election |
| 2018 Taiwanese referendum | November 24, 2018 | 7—16 | 7 approved, 3 rejected | Held jointly with2018 Taiwanese local elections |
| 2021 Taiwanese referendum | December 18, 2021 | 17—20 | 4 rejected | Originally scheduled for August 28, 2021; postponed due to theCOVID-19 pandemic |
| 2022 Taiwanese constitutional referendum | November 26, 2022 | Constitutional-1 | rejected | Held jointly with2022 Taiwanese local elections |
| 2025 Taiwanese referendum | August 23, 2025 | 21 | rejected | First referendum to be held after the 2019 Referendum Act amendments mandating specific dates for referendums entered into force |
A national referendum on the state ofKuomintang party assets was proposed in 2006.[29] The Act Governing the Handling of Ill-gotten Properties by Political Parties and Their Affiliate Organizations was promulgated by the Legislative Yuan in July 2016 to handle the issue instead.[30]
In 2010, theReferendum Review Committee [zh], then controlled by thePan-Blue Coalition, rejected several referendum proposals against theEconomic Cooperation Framework Agreement, signed in 2010.[31][32][33][34] despite the collection of nearly 200,000 signatures supporting a referendum oncross-strait economic pacts.[35][36][37][38] Public opinion surveys show a majority of respondents opposed the signing of the ECFA with China and many experts, politicians, and protesters see a referendum for the ECFA as essential.[39][40][41]
In 2016, Kuomintang vice chairmanHau Lung-pin proposed that the fate of a food import ban in place against some prefectures of Japan since the 2011Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster be decided via referendum.[42][43] The Kuomintang legislative caucus moved to reduce turnout restrictions so the food import ban could be considered via referendum, but the proposal did not pass at the time.[44] A majority of people voted for question nine of the 2018 national referendum, expressing a desire for the import ban to remain in place.[45] In February 2022, theTsai Ing-wen presidential administration lifted the import ban for most foodstuffs produced in the region, as long as proper documentation on the origins of the food and results of radiation inspections were provided. Foods from the region that were still banned from the Japanese market at the time of Taiwan's announcement, such as mushrooms, the meat of wild animals, andkoshiabura, remained banned in Taiwan.[46][47]
From 1990 to 2003, sixteen local referendums were called.[48] Since the Referendum Act passed,six local referendums have been held as of 2021. The first one was held inKaohsiung in 2008 for reducing the size of classes in elementary school and high school. It was invalid due to its low turnout rate.[49] Four other local referendums attempted to legalize casinos and were valid due via special law: the ones held inPenghu in 2009 and 2016 failed[50] while the one held inLienchiang in 2012 succeeded.[51] A referendum on the establishment of casinos in Kinmen held in 2017 was defeated by low turnout and high opposition.[52][53] However, as inMainland China, the largest potential tourist source, has explicitly expressed the opposition of its nationals to engage gambling, no legal casino has yet been established in Taiwan.[54] Residents of Hsinchu passed a referendum about wastewater, held on the same day as the 2021 national referendum.[55][56]
| Division | Date | Proposition No. | Results | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kaohsiung City [zh] | November 15, 2008 | 1 | Rejected | |
| Penghu County [zh] | September 26, 2009 | 1 | Rejected | Proposition to legalize casinos |
| Lienchiang County [zh] | July 7, 2012 | 1 | Approved | Proposition to legalize casinos |
| Penghu County [zh] | October 15, 2016 | 2 | Rejected | Proposition to legalize casinos |
| Kinmen County [zh] | October 28, 2017 | 1 | Rejected | Proposition to legalize casinos |
| Hsinchu City [zh] | December 18, 2021 | 1 | Approved | Held jointly with2021 Taiwanese referendum |
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