Single-person households overtake two- and three-person households combined in Taiwan

Single-person households have become Taiwan’s largest household type. Last year, about 3.993 million households had only one person registered at the address, accounting for 40.5 percent of all households.

That share surpassed the combined total for two-person and three-person households, which stood at about 3.763 million households, or 38.19 percent. The change marks the first time single-person households have exceeded those two categories combined in the available statistics.

In 2020, Taiwan had about 8.933 million households. Single-person households made up roughly 34 percent, while two-person households accounted for 20.5 percent and three-person households 18.1 percent. Together, the latter two categories still held a 4.6 percentage-point advantage.

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The increase in single-person households has clearly outpaced the numbers of marriages and home completions.

By 2025, the total number of households had risen to 9.85 million, an increase of 917,000 in five years. Single-person households increased by 951,100, exceeding the growth in total households. Their share therefore rose to 40.5 percent, 2.31 percentage points above the combined share of two- and three-person households.

Real-estate analysts attributed the shift partly to people choosing not to marry or have children and partly to the effects of an ultra-aged society. Sinyi Realty analyst Tseng Ching-te also noted that recent annual new-home completions, at 120,000 to 170,000 units, exceeded the roughly 100,000 to 120,000 marriages recorded each year.

He cautioned that the figures may have been inflated by household registrations linked to Taiwan’s House and Land Tax 2.0 rules. The system, implemented in 2024 and levied from 2025, requires registration at a property to qualify for owner-occupier tax benefits. Tseng advised new homeowners to plan registration dates carefully, including for property and land taxes and the six-year continuous-registration and residence requirement for the NT$4 million exemption under the integrated housing and land tax.

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If people purchase a new home, they should move their household registration there and pay attention to the registration timing for housing and land taxes.