Mainland Travel Permit for Taiwan Residents

Mainland Travel Permit for Taiwan Residents
Front and back of the travel permit
Issued by	People's Republic of China
Type of document	Travel Document
Purpose	For travelling to Mainland China
Eligibility requirements	Republic of China nationals who are residents of Taiwan
Expiration	10 years

The Mainland Travel Permit for Taiwan Residents, also known as Taiwan Compatriot Permit, is a type of travel document issued by Ministry of Public Security of the People's Republic of China (MPS) to nationals of the Republic of China (Taiwan) with household registration in the Taiwan Area for entry into Mainland China. The Republic of China passport is not considered as a valid travel document by the People's Republic of China.

The permit serves as the sole travel document and identity document for ROC nationals in PRC and is used in all occasions in lieu of the ROC passport.

Due to the special political status of Taiwan, neither the PRC nor the ROC recognizes the passports issued by the other and neither considers travel between Mainland China and Taiwan as formal international travel. This permit is therefore issued as the travel document for Taiwanese residents to enter Mainland China since 1987, when then President of the Republic of China, Chiang Ching-Kuo, decided to lift the mutual travel ban across the Taiwan Strait.

The design of the older permits, issued until July 2015, takes the form of a regular machine-readable passport, but it does not have the National Emblem of the People's Republic of China printed on its cover as the regular PRC passport does. The document is valid for 5 years and has 32 pages. The design of the current version takes the form of an ID card, and is nearly identical to the Mainland Travel Permit for Hong Kong and Macao Residents with a few differences, such as a different color scheme. Newer permits are also valid for 5 years.