A four-day national holiday is not a suggestion. Mid-Autumn Festival on 25 September and Confucius’s Birthday / Teachers’ Day on 28 September are both commemorative holidays with a day off. Most private employers follow the calendar. If you are on a local contract, the days are paid. If you are asked to work, labor rules generally require holiday pay or compensatory leave; the Bureau of Labor Insurance explains coverage at bli.gov.tw/en, and the Ministry of Labor’s holiday-pay FAQ is the document to send a manager who “didn’t realize.”
Banks, the National Immigration Agency counters, household registration offices and most clinics close Friday and Monday. Appointments already booked for those days were usually moved last week. Do not show up at a district office on Friday with an ARC photocopy problem.
Retail splits. Department stores and malls in Xinyi and Banqiao stay open, often with holiday hours. Independent shops and many restaurants take at least Friday night for family dinners. 7-Eleven, FamilyMart and Hi-Life do not close. Night markets run. Delivery platforms surge after 6 p.m. on Friday; fees and wait times rise.
Public transport does not shut down. Taipei Metro, buses, YouBike, TRA and THSR all operate. They run holiday or weekend patterns, not the Tuesday peak. Last MRT trains can be earlier than you remember. THSR’s extra 176 holiday services are already loaded; standing tickets are still sold.
For anyone paid in New Taiwan dollars, the practical cash question is smaller than it looks. Mooncakes, grill kits and a taxi home after the last train are the only costs that jump this week. There is no island-wide “festival surcharge” mandated by law. Individual restaurants add one; read the menu.
If you freelance for a firm that treats U.S. Labor Day as the holiday calendar, say so in writing before Friday. Taiwan’s Friday is the holiday. Your Slack status will not reopen a closed ward office.