The disaster was the latest in a series that have called into question Taiwan's safety record.
The bus, with flames shooting from the front, had rammed into an expressway barrier near Taipei.
The images showed thick plumes of smoke and burned-out wreckage at the roadside.
A police spokesman said the bus had caught fire before it crashed into the barrier but gave no reason.
"All the people on the bus died," Lin Kuan-cheng, spokesman for the National Fire Agency,said.
"At this stage it is still not clear why no passengers escaped from the bus."
The bodies of the victims remained inside the bus as police and prosecutors examined the site.
One image in Hong Kong's South China Morning Post newspaper showed two men trying to smash the windows with fire extinguishers as the doors of the vehicle remained shut.
The Liberty Times newspaper quoted an unnamed eyewitness as saying passengers were pounding the bus windows for help as the driver swerved sharply before the crash.
A firefighter at the scene said there were no survivors still calling for help when they arrived.
The tour group of 24 people, three children, 15 women and six men was from China's northeastern city of Dalian, Taiwan's interior ministry said.
A Taiwanese driver and Taiwanese tour guide were also killed, the National Fire Agency confirmed.
The group were on their way to Taipei's main Taoyuan airport for a 4:30 pm flight back to Dalian after an eight-day tour of the island. The accident happened shortly before 1:00 pm.
- String of accidents -Chinese tour groups have increasingly visited Taiwan in recent years after a boom in mainland tourism.
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