TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — The Ministry of the Interior said Thursday that being overweight is the leading reason for military service exemptions in Taiwan.
A draft-dodging scandal involving celebrities has prompted the Ministry of National Defense and the Ministry of the Interior to possibly revise physical classification standards for draftees. Currently, men with a BMI over 35 qualify for an exemption, but the ministries are considering raising that threshold to 45.
When asked during a legislative session about ways individuals falsify medical conditions to avoid service, Interior Minister Liu Shyh-fang (劉世芳) said some claim to have ankylosing spondylitis, mental disorders, or pneumothorax. He added that high blood pressure is also quite common.
The ministry’s Department of Conscription Administration said that for men born between 1994 and 2004, the service period was reduced to four months, with an exemption rate of 20–25%. After the term was restored to one year in 2023, the 2024 exemption rate was 16%, or about 17,000 men.
Among the top five reasons for exemption in 2024, being overweight accounted for about 30%. This was followed by below-average intelligence scores, autism, flat feet, and arrhythmia.
From January to August this year, the exemption rate has remained around 16%, with the top five reasons being overweight, flat feet, arrhythmia, low intelligence scores, and mental health conditions.
Over the past decade, the most common violation of the Act of Military Service for Officers and Non-commissioned Officers of the Armed Forces was leaving the country without permission or failing to return after an approved departure, with 2,146 prosecutions.
The second most frequent offense was failing to report for physical examination or self-inflicted injury to alter one’s fitness classification, with 572 cases, 193 of which occurred in New Taipei City.
Between 2015 and 2024, there were 125 finalized court rulings on the issue. Of these, 94 resulted in prison sentences of six months or less, and one received a sentence of up to two years.
There were also 19 cases dismissed, seven fined, two rejected, one acquitted, and one exempted from sentencing.
