Career troops paying to quit Taiwan's military early rose more than 20-fold since 2018, lawmaker says

Taiwan's armed forces are losing more career officers and non-commissioned officers who would rather repay the state than finish their service, an opposition lawmaker said on Friday, 9 October 2026, warning that staffing gaps in front-line combat units could blunt the new weapons the military is buying.

Kuomintang legislator Ma Wen-chun, a long-serving member of the Legislative Yuan's Foreign and National Defense Committee, said the number of volunteer officers and NCOs who were discharged as unsuited to active service and had to pay compensation rose from 40 in 2018 to 846 in 2025, an increase of more than 20 times. She acknowledged that the 2025 figure was lower than the 2024 total, but said the Ministry of National Defense still had to explain why personnel were willing to pay to leave.

Citing data from the Legislative Yuan's Budget Center, Ma said the volunteer force stood at only 76.62 percent of its authorised strength at the end of June, that the ratio had stayed below 80 percent for three consecutive years, and that several categories of front-line combat units were still under 80 percent.

Recruitment figures questioned

Ma repeated a point she first raised in August. The ministry reported a 2025 recruitment achievement rate of 117.5 percent, but only after the recruitment target was cut from 18,906 to 14,563, while the number of people actually recruited has fallen year after year. A lower target makes the rate look better, she said, but it does not put more people into units that are short of personnel.

She blamed unreasonable pay, heavy duty loads and poor allocation of personnel. Those who stay end up doing several jobs at once, she said, while new recruits leave when military life does not match their expectations, producing a cycle of shortages, refilling and renewed losses that recruitment policy alone cannot fix.

Ma said the shortfall matters most as new fighter jets, self-propelled artillery, missiles and drones arrive, because operators and maintenance crews have to be trained before the equipment is delivered. Without enough people to train and operate the systems, she argued, additional arms purchases will not turn into complete combat power.

Dispute over pay

The lawmaker also accused the Executive Yuan of holding up a pay rise the legislature has already approved. An amendment to the Military Pay Act, passed on third reading, raises the monthly allowance for volunteer personnel to NT$30,000, but Ma said the cabinet has still not put the money in the budget. None of the reports carried an immediate response from the defence ministry.

Wider picture

Figures the ministry released in July give a broader view of early exits. From 2021 to the end of 2025, 6,315 service members applied for early discharge and 4,267 of them were liable to repay a combined NT$929 million. About NT$342 million had been paid, and roughly NT$589 million remained outstanding, partly because people may repay in up to 60 instalments. The ministry said 36 people had fallen behind on payments and were being pursued through collection and enforcement.

Applications peaked in 2024, when 1,589 people asked to leave early and 1,076 of them owed compensation. Three people faced bills of more than NT$20 million each, and the ministry did not disclose their service branch, post or rank. The July totals cover all compensation-liable early discharges, whereas Ma's new figures refer to volunteer officers and NCOs discharged as unsuited to service, so the two sets of numbers measure different groups.