Vietnam grades
and Taiwanese admission

The one Vietnam-specific number, and what it actually is

Taiwan’s Ministry of Education runs an Education Division in Vietnam that publishes its guidance in Vietnamese — one of only two receiving governments in this cluster that does. Its 2026 Taiwan Scholarship guidance states the academic bar directly on Vietnam’s own scale:

“ứng viên xin học bổng cho bậc cử nhân phải có điểm trung bình mỗi năm học ở bậc trung học phổ thông đạt từ 7.8 điểm trở lên”

An average of at least 7.8 for each year of upper secondary school — or 3.12 on a 4-point scale. MOE Education Division, Vietnam, published 3 February 2026.

Note the wording: each year, not the final average. Against Circular 08/2021 Article 10 §5, a 7.8 sits in the upper half of Khá.

Three practical details that no aggregator carries:

• Which office you apply to depends on where you live. The Hanoi office handles applicants resident from Huế northward; the Ho Chi Minh City office handles Đà Nẵng southward, and Cambodia.
• Language: TOCFL Level 3 for Chinese-taught programmes — well above the ordinary admission floor — or TOEFL iBT 68, IELTS 6, TOEIC 750 for English-taught.
• Window: 3 February to 31 March 2026. Stipend NT$15,000 a month for undergraduates, NT$20,000 for master’s and doctoral students, with tuition covered up to NT$40,000 a semester and a five-year lifetime cap.

And one caution, because this is where people go wrong. That 7.8 is regional scholarship screening, not a Taiwanese admission rule. The same scholarship is announced with different numbers elsewhere — 6.5 CGPA for South Asia, GPA 3.0 and 3.5 for applicants filing through the office in the United States. Anyone telling you “Taiwan requires 7.8” has taken a Hanoi scholarship threshold and turned it into a national standard.

For ordinary admission, Taiwan sets no academic standard at all

This is written into the law rather than left unsaid. The Regulations Regarding International Students Undertaking Studies in Taiwan (English text), last amended 19 September 2025, require each university to submit admission rules to the Ministry covering — Article 6 — the admission method, the language of instruction, the language ability standard and the financial proof standard. An academic threshold is not among the mandatory headings.

Article 7 then lists what an applicant files: the application form, the qualification documents, proof of finances, and whatever else the school asks for. There is no minimum grade, no GPA, no class rank. Foreign qualifications are handled under the credential recognition regulations, which test whether the awarding institution and programme are recognised — never how well you scored.

The universities follow suit. Of fifteen we read — NTU, NCKU, NTHU, NYCU, NCCU, NTUST, NTNU and eight private and technical universities — fourteen publish no GPA threshold for international applicants. Both exceptions sit inside industry-academia programmes: I-Shou’s INTENSE programme asks for “an average grade of 60 during degree study excluding the final semester”, and National Formosa University’s semiconductor programme says a “cumulative GPA of 3.00 or above will receive priority consideration” — priority, not a bar.

TOCFL is the real gate, and the naming will trip you up

The binding minimum comes from an MOE directive rather than the regulation itself. The safeguarding directive, amended 8 September 2025, sets it at point 4(5): applicants needing Chinese must reach TOCFL A2 or above; those needing English, CEFR B1 or above.

Point 4(6) adds a concession with a hard edge, and it is worth reading before you accept a place:

A fresh high-school graduate may apply at TOCFL A1, but must obtain A2 or above before the second semester begins — “未達要求者學校應依規定開除該生學籍”, the school shall expel the student.

Now the trap. TOCFL’s own system has three bands, A, B and C, each containing two levels, numbered 1 to 6. The MOE directive writes its thresholds as “A2” and “A1” meaning the CEFR codes. Band A is not CEFR A2.

Levels and vocabulary as published by TOCFL (official brochure). The CEFR column is TOCFL’s own alignment.

Universities use both conventions and do not warn you. National Formosa writes “TOCFL Level 2”; Tsing Hua writes “TOCFL (Band C / Level 5)” for its Chinese Literature master’s; Taiwan Tech writes “進階級”. Read the table above before you book a test, because “A2” and “Level 2” happen to mean the same thing while “Band A” and “A2” do not.

Some universities set more than the floor. Ming Chuan requires TOCFL B1 for fully Chinese-taught programmes, and Chung Yuan requires B1 of undergraduates while asking only A2 of graduate students — the reverse of what you would expect. Tsing Hua sets English above the national floor at CEFR B2, TOEFL iBT 71, IELTS 5.5 or TOEIC 750, while Cheng Kung publishes CEFR levels and no test scores at all.

One university publishes a rule specifically for Vietnamese applicants

I-Shou University is the only one of the fifteen that names Vietnam in its requirements:

“Vietnamese applicants are required to provide a certificate of language proficiency in Chinese or English when applying for admission. For admission to a Chinese-taught program, an applicant should provide a TOCFL certificate for Level 2 or above… For admission to an English-taught program, an applicant should provide a TOEFL iBT score report (at least 26), a TOEIC score report (at least 375), or an IELTS score report (an overall band score of 3.0 or higher).”

Worth reading carefully rather than celebrating. The same prospectus states its general standard as CEFR B1 for English-taught programmes, and the figures in the Vietnam clause sit well below that. We reproduce both as printed and do not reconcile them — if you are applying there, ask which governs your programme, and get the answer in writing.

National Formosa names Vietnam among the countries eligible for its industry-academia classes, and separately warns that Vietnamese and Indonesian applicants must supply a language certificate for the study visa itself, not only for admission.

If you are offered a place on an industry-academia programme, read this first

The New Southbound industry-academia international classes recruit heavily in Vietnam. They combine coursework with placements at a named partner company, with tuition subsidised and a monthly allowance from the employer, and at several universities a company representative sits on the admissions panel. National Formosa states its selection outright as “written materials (50%) + joint interviews by the school and the company (50%)”.

Taiwan regulates these programmes separately, and the numbers below are your protection. They are worth knowing before you sign anything. From MOE’s programme norms:

• Classes must be scheduled Monday to Friday, daytime.
• One credit corresponds to at most 80 internship hours.
• Internship plus part-time work at the same employer: no more than 40 hours a week.
• No more than 8 hours a day, and finishing no later than 22:00.
• Internship allowance and wages must be paid separately into your own account, and employers are expressly barred from deducting agency fees or tuition — “囊禁廠商有代扣代辦費或代扣學雑費之情形”.
• Students on non-degree classes are not covered by Article 50 of the Employment Service Act and may not work at all.

Two further things Taiwan states plainly. First, these programmes are an explicit carve-out: the safeguarding directive says at point 5(6) that international students’ off-campus internships must match those of domestic students “除新南向國際產學合作專班外” — except for these classes. They run under a different internship regime, and the caps above are the compensating limits.

Second, recruiting students through agents is prohibited. Article 6 of the regulations bars a university from outsourcing recruitment to any outside body, and requires schools to check whether applicants are being charged unreasonable fees or put into lending relationships. MOE stated the position publicly in 2018: schools recruiting through labour intermediaries face penalties under the law and referral to prosecutors. If someone is charging you a fee to place you on one of these programmes, that is against Taiwan’s own rules, not a normal cost.

Outside these programmes the general limit applies: international students may not work more than 20 hours a week during term, and need a work permit from the Workforce Development Agency.

What to send

• Your qualification and full transcripts, notarised, with a certified translation. No one will convert the marks — they establish that the credential is real.
• A TOCFL or CEFR certificate at the level your target university publishes. This is the requirement most likely to rule you out and the one you can still change.
• Financial proof — typically US$4,000 to US$5,000, or NT$120,000, depending on the university.
• For the scholarship, file with the office covering your province, and check the current year’s figure rather than ours.

See how the Vietnamese scale works and the Taiwanese 100-point scale. Taiwan also publishes a Huayu Enrichment Scholarship for Chinese-language study, NT$28,000 a month for two to twelve months, with the same February–March window.

Sources

The documents this page rests on. Every one was read in full unless noted.

• MOE Education Division, Vietnam — 2026 Taiwan Scholarship guidance (PDF, in Vietnamese) — the 7.8/10 threshold for each year of upper secondary, the TOCFL Level 3 condition, the stipends and the Hanoi / Ho Chi Minh City catchment split. Verified directly.
• Regulations Regarding International Students Undertaking Studies in Taiwan (amended 19 September 2025) — Article 6, which requires language and financial standards and no academic one, and Article 7’s document list.
• MOE directive on safeguarding international students’ rights (amended 8 September 2025) — point 4(5) setting TOCFL A2 / CEFR B1, point 4(6) and its expulsion clause, and point 5(6) exempting the New Southbound programmes from the internship-parity rule. Verified directly.
• TOCFL — test levels — the three bands, six levels, CEFR alignment and vocabulary counts behind the naming table on this page.
• MOE — norms for New Southbound industry-academia international classes (PDF) — the 40-hour weekly cap, the 8-hour day, the 22:00 limit, the separate-payment rule and the ban on deducting agency fees or tuition.
• MOE — clarification on international-class recruitment — the position that recruiting through labour intermediaries is prohibited and referable to prosecutors.
• I-Shou University — admission prospectus for international students (PDF) — the clause naming Vietnamese applicants, and the general CEFR B1 standard it sits alongside. Verified directly.
• National Formosa University — Fall 2026 application guide (PDF, 4 March 2026) — Vietnam named as an eligible country, the visa language-certificate note, and the 50% written / 50% joint school-and-company interview weighting.

The TOCFL and CEFR levels for Tsing Hua, Cheng Kung, Ming Chuan and the other universities are linked inline beside each requirement.

Every figure on this page was read from a Taiwanese government body or a Taiwanese university’s own site, linked above. The industry-academia section quotes MOE regulation and MOE’s own clarification release only; no allegation from any other source appears on this page.

The regulations were amended on 19 September 2025 and the directive on 8 September 2025, both recently — check the current text before relying on any provision. Admission and scholarship decisions are made by the university and by the Ministry of Education. The figures on your official Vietnamese transcript are always the authoritative ones.