Married in Taiwan, Divorcing in the States and Getting it Recognized in Taiwan

Hello everyone,

I am currently in the process of getting a divorce. I’m an American married to a Taiwanese. We have no children together. We were married in Taiwan about ten years ago. We moved back to the States five years ago and have had quite a few problems that have finally resulted in us separating. I don’t want to bore you with the details, so I’ll keep it simple. We separated, she moved to another state, and I received divorce papers today. I’m not at all saddened by this. In fact, I’m quite happy.

Since I plan to move back to Taiwan sometime in the near future, how would I go about getting this divorce recognized in Taiwan? I looked over at the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office and read about authenticating documents under the consular division. It lists the following steps

  1. Documents presented to this office for certification should be notarized by Notary Public, verified by County Clerk with county seal, and certified by Secretary of State’s Office.
  2. An extra copy of each document is needed for certification. (one must be original which will be returned to the applicant after certification, while the duplicate copy will be retained by this office to be filed.)

My plan is to get the divorce decree notarized in my state and then send it to her state to be verified, stamped, and certified by the secretary of state’s office. From there, I would send it to the TECO to be certified. When in Taiwan, I would take these documents to the Household Registration Office. Would this be enough to have my divorce recognized in Taiwan?

I think you would need to get it notorized in the state where the divorce was granted. I don’t think that a state can validate another’s notary. Plus shouldn’t the divorce document already be notorized if it’s been granted or have some other legal court certification? Sounds like the document needs to be apostilled in the state it came from before taking it to TECO.