When English-language media reports on Taiwan’s military, and especially on its reserves, wildly varying numbers are used. Is it in the millions or is it only 300,000? Or even less? This can make it difficult for readers and outside observers to understand even what is being reported, let alone what is the actual state of the military.
This article is intended to serve as a guide to the different ways that Taiwan’s reserves can be counted, and to give some sense of the drawbacks and advantages of each method. Before starting, it’s important to understand that the reserves are drawn from two different sources. One is men who have undergone conscription, and the other is men and women who served as professional soldiers and have retired.
Almost 2 million men and women are currently registered as being in Taiwan’s reserves, but only 700,000 of these are obliged to train, and this year only 110,000 will actually receive that training. How many of these could be deployed at short notice is simply unknown.
2 Million Mobilizable
According to a report by the Legislative Yuan, in June of 2024 there were 1,981,822 listed reservists. This maximalist number includes everyone who could be called up for service who hasn’t aged out of the reserve system.
Former conscripts can be called up until the end of the year they turn 36. Former professional soldiers can be called up until they turn 45. For non-commissioned officers, or NCOs, it is 50. Officers retain their eligibility even longer on a progressive scale starting at 58 and ending at 70 for senior generals.
Because former conscripts leave the reserves nine years before retired professional soldiers, the actual number of military-age men with military experience is significantly more than 2 million. However, the number with professional experience and training is much lower. Data from the Veterans Affairs Council shows that in July 2025 there were 40,894 veterans under the age of 50.
As will be detailed later, the vast majority of these almost 2 million reservists are neither training nor otherwise interacting with the reserve system.
It is often reported that Taiwan has some 1.6 million reservists available. This number is based on an International Institute for Strategic Studies report, rather than Taiwan’s own figures.
700,000 Trainable
The same Legislative Yuan report listed the number of reservists who could be called up for training as 710,569. This number excludes 153,598 people who are eligible but have special circumstances that exclude them in practice.
Reservists remain in this bracket for eight years after their conscription ends or they leave the professional military. NCOs and officers remain in this bracket for 12 years. In March 2025, legislation was introduced to allow the eight-year limit to be increased, but implementation is not clear.
These reservists should have been receiving training every two years, but the actual annual training numbers show that actual numbers are woefully far below this.
Many of the conscript reservists in this bracket will have served only four months, a duration that was introduced in 2017 and reversed to one year in 2024. However, because most Taiwanese men do their conscription after university, in their early 20s, and how long they serve is determined by their birth year rather than the year they do conscription, many conscripts served one year after 2017, and most conscripts in 2025 are still serving four months.
In 2025, roughly 75,000 men will be conscripted, but only 9,839 are expected to serve in the one-year program.
110,000 Trained
The Liberty Times reported on Monday that the military will increase the number of reservists trained in 2026 to 126,000, up from 108,942 announced for this year. 51,685 people should receive the new 14-day training regime. 33,860 people are still on the old system of five to seven days. An additional 23,397 reservists are due to be mobilized this year.
A spokesperson for Taiwan’s Veterans Affairs Council initially told Domino Theory that roughly 100,000 reserves would be trained this year, then clarified that 108,942 was indeed the publicly reported figure and that it wasn’t clear if Taiwan would hit it or not.
The figure of 300,000 trained reservists sometimes cited traces back to a 2019 statement by the defense ministry, issued in response to media reports of American criticisms. But it is extremely hard to square this with the numbers that the government now publicizes for annual training.
Clearly, there is still a huge difference between the number of reservists who should be being trained and those actually receiving it. The defense ministry does not have the budget allocated to fund all the reservists in the eight-year bracket, according to Guermantes Lailari, a retired U.S. Air Force officer and a visiting researcher at the Institute for National Defense and Security Research government-affiliated military think tank in Taipei who has written about Taiwan’s reserves.
Other bottleneck issues include land and trainers: “[The] Ministry of National Defense does not have enough training areas to train all these reservists since [it], over the years, decided to sell off some of the land available for training to private developers,” Lailari wrote to Domino Theory. He said that there needs to be a “ten-fold” increase in the number of trainers.
A final issue that Lailari identified is business attitude: “Many Taiwanese businesses that employ these reservists are not supportive of their personnel being away from work,” which “could affect political parties trying to increase the numbers trained and/or increasing the number of days in military training and away from work.”
Unknown Equipped
The most important number could be how many of Taiwan’s reserves can actually be mobilized, given rumors there is not enough equipment.
“It’s a big question,” say Sih Han-Tsun (薛翰駿), the editor at Watchout, a civil defense organization in Taiwan, who is also studying law at the National Defense University and is currently in the reserves. “If you ask the government, they will say, ‘Okay, no problem.’”
Domino Theory asked the defense ministry how many rifles were available for the reserve force, and was told this information is confidential.
Sih pointed out that that the reserves don’t exercise at the kind of scale that would allay these concerns. This year, Defense Minister Wellington Koo (顧立雄) stated that around 22,000 reservists participated in the Han Kuang exercises in July, including the mobilization of an entire reserve brigade, the 206th, which had 3,000 personnel, including officers.
Of the almost 2 million reservists who could be mobilized, some 700,000 are within the eight years of active service or conscription that qualify them for regular training. However, Taiwan is only training approximately 110,000 of its reserves this year.
If the number you want is how many well-trained and well-equipped reservists can be put into the field, or perhaps on the beaches, the landing grounds and the streets, then unfortunately Taiwan has not compellingly demonstrated the answer to this for a very long time.
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