Financial requirements for citizenship

What are the financial requirements for applying for ROC citizenship (I’m thinking seriously of giving it a go)?

Are there income related clauses or can it all be covered by assets? I have had no income for the last few years, but have property in my wife’s name.

Coolingtower, Sat TV?

Brian

[color=blue][Moderator’s note: The “Basic Wage” on which financial requirements are based was raised to $17,280 on July 1, 2007. The figures given in this post have been modified to the new values.][/color]

The legal requirement in the Nationality Act can be found in Article 3 which states:

The practical requirements are specified in the Enforcement Rules of the Nationality Act in Article 7. The financial requirements are relative to the “Basic Wage” which is [color=red]currently set at $17,280[/color]. (This is the minimum monthly salary for a full time employee.)

The rules are different depending on if you are a foreign spouse or not:

[quote=“Foreign Spouse Requirements”]1. A person who applies for naturalization or restoration of nationality because he/she is the spouse of an ROC citizen shall conform to any of the following provisions:
(1) His/her average monthly income earned within the ROC in the past year is more than double the basic wage as promulgated by the Council of Labour Affairs, Executive Yuan; [color=red](currently $34,560)[/color]
(2) His/her deposits in a domestic financial institution over the last year is more than 24 times the basic wage as promulgated by the Council of Labour Affairs, Executive Yuan; [color=red](currently $414,720)[/color]
(3) Other requirements as recognized by the MOI.[/quote]

[quote=“Requirements for Others”]2. A person who applies for naturalization or restoration of nationality under any circumstance other than prescribed in the preceding Subparagraph shall conform to any of the following provisions:
(1) His/her average monthly income earned within the ROC in the past year is more than double the basic wage as promulgated by the Council of Labour Affairs, Executive Yuan; [color=red](currently $34,560)[/color]
(2) His/her total value of property, movable or immovable, is greater than NT$5 million;
(3) He/she is a skilled employee in a high-tech industry required by the ROC as prescribed in Subparagraph 2, Paragraph Three, Article 23 of the Entry & Exit and Migration Act, and thus is permitted to reside permanently in the ROC;
(4) Other requirements as recognized by the MOI.[/quote]

Proving your income is fairly straightforward:

Also for those with an ROC spouse or parent(s) you can include their income or property:

The “Other requirements as recognized by the MOI” clause means that the MOI has the discretion to determine what requirements are required to prove you can be self-supporting.

Thanks JLick.

I wonder what the quote Other requirements as recognized by the MOI.[/quote] may be? I guess I can just ask. I’m hoping that wife’s property might work (as seems to be the case with PARC). Other wise I’ll have to borrow 380000NT.

Brian

If your wife is an ROC citizen then you can use her or her parent’s property of proof that you can be self-supporting. The non-spouse requirements specify total property worth TW$5 million so if for example she has a house in her name worth that much then I’d guess you could use that as proof. I would go ask the MOI for an opinion on what they would accept.

[quote=“jlick”]The financial requirements are relative to the “Basic Wage” which is currently set at $15,840.

quote=“Foreign Spouse Requirements” His/her average monthly income earned within the ROC in the past year is more than double the basic wage as promulgated by the Council of Labour Affairs, Executive Yuan; [color=red](currently $31,680)[/color]
(2) His/her deposits in a domestic financial institution over the last year is more than 24 times the basic wage as promulgated by the Council of Labour Affairs, Executive Yuan; [color=red](currently $380,160)[/color][/quote]

[/quote]

On July 1, 2007 the Basic Wage was raised to $17,280. As a result, the income or assets requirements to qualify for citizenship have also been raised. In the above examples, the minimum salary requirement has risen to $34,560 and the bank balance requirement has risen to $414,720. The original post will be edited to reflect the new figures.

I am considering letting go of my valuable South-African passport and becoming a Taiwanese citizen.
But I have no money saved…

Do I also need a huge lump of money to stand a chance? Couldn’t find it anywhere.

blog.pixnet.net/nomoneynoid is the campaign to eliminate
financial requirements.

[quote]http://blog.pixnet.net/nomoneynoid is the campaign to eliminate
financial requirements.[/quote]

What’s the fuss? You only need to borrow the money and have it in your account for a day. Anyone can do that.

Brian

No, for those married to a citizen you need to show you have maintained a minimum deposit of at least $414,720 for [color=red]at least one year[/color]. But the alternative is to have a minimum income of $34,560. And in either case you can combine the assets or income of you and your spouse. While this may be difficult for an immigrant from southeast Asia to meet either requirement, for most immigrants from Western countries it should be easy to meet one or the other requirement.

Actually that’s completely wrong. You only need it for one day. I’ve done it.

Brian

That’s certainly good news, however the law still says the savings needs to be there for one year, so it may be you were just lucky or that the examination of this will change in the future.

It depends how you interpret the law (and as we know, in Taiwan government departments have a ludicrously wide scope for how they interpret the laws). At first I read it as meaning that you needed to make that sum in your total number of deposits over a year. Anyway the Household Registration people have their own internal regulations, and they just require a proof of bank balance form from a bank (for which a deposit for a day will suffice).

what i want to know is, can i just renounce my US citizenship now and live in Taiwan while i wait to qualify for citizenship (length of time). i have a JFRV/ARC.

Well for one thing, your ARC is limited by your passport validity. You won’t be able to renew your ARC if you no longer have a passport.

No way.

[quote=“Battery9”]I am considering letting go of my valuable South-African passport and becoming a Taiwanese citizen.
But I have no money saved…

Do I also need a huge lump of money to stand a chance? Couldn’t find it anywhere.[/quote]

Why would you want to give up your South African passport?

[quote=“MustangSammy”][quote=“Battery9”]I am considering letting go of my valuable South-African passport and becoming a Taiwanese citizen.
But I have no money saved…

Do I also need a huge lump of money to stand a chance? Couldn’t find it anywhere.[/quote]

Why would you want to give up your South African passport?[/quote]
You have to renounce your citizenship in order to become an ROC citizen.

[quote=“sandman”][quote=“MustangSammy”][quote=“Battery9”]I am considering letting go of my valuable South-African passport and becoming a Taiwanese citizen.
But I have no money saved…

Do I also need a huge lump of money to stand a chance? Couldn’t find it anywhere.[/quote]

Why would you want to give up your South African passport?[/quote]
You have to renounce your citizenship in order to become an ROC citizen.[/quote]

I know that, but why would Battery 9 want to give up his/her SA citizenship? If there’s only one thing useful about having an SA passport, is that it is more useful than a Taiwanese passport.

Getting back to the topic of Financial requirements for citizenship, I also can confirm you only need the cash for one day, cos its the call of household registration people. As an unmarried Brit, I had to show NT$5m. That part of the process was probably the easiest part.

The Household Registry office only looked at my tax statement from the previous year. I remember it was either $731,000 or $713,000. I really don’t remember needing a bank statement. Perhaps it is how much you report on your tax form in a year and not “minimum deposit”.

The only non-government documents I needed were proof of employment with the company’s stamp, and a copy of my passport.

There is bound to be someone who is in the process of becoming a citizen and makes frequent visits to a HR office who will eventually ask, find the truth and post it here.

(In the above requirements, it does seem odd that he/she meet ANY of the following" and then the last one is “Anything else as recognized by the MOI.” It sounds like the MOI could randomly describe your requirements, nullifying the “any” in their top statements.)