What exactly is a JFRV?

My guess is JFRV is a "R"esident "V"isa for the purpose of "J"oin "F"amily. It is just a permission to enter Taiwan, and valid for no longer than 3 months. IMO, it should be distinguished from ARC.

http://www.boca.gov.tw/

Information on Republic of China Resident Visas

Eligible Persons:
Foreign nationals, who hold ordinary passports or other legal travel documents, who intend to stay in the Republic of China for more than six months for the purpose of join family; pursed studies; undertake employment; invest; conduct missionary work; conduct official duties; participate in international exchange programs; and engage in other activities approved by MOFA or other relevant agencies at the central-government level.

Visa Validity:
A Resident Visa is valid for three months.

Duration of stay:
Resident Visa holders are required to apply for the Alien Resident Certificate and Re-entry Permit at local service centers of the National Immigration Agency within 15 days starting from the next day of their arrival. They may stay in the ROC as long as the Alien Resident Certificate remains valid.

The page also says,

Notice
6. Those who enter the R.O.C. (Taiwan) on a Resident Visa or get a Resident Visa after having arrived in the R.O.C. (Taiwan) must apply for an Alien Resident Certificate and Re-entry Permit at local service centers of National Immigration Agency. The former must apply within 15 days from the next day of arrival, and the latter must apply within 15 days from the Resident Visa issuance date. Duration of stay is noted on the Alien Resident Certificate.

Yeah obviously it should be distinguished. An ARC is not a visa and a visa is not an ARC. JFRV is also not a term in ROC law. People here use the JFRV interchangeably to refer to resident visa and ARCs. This has to end as it simply causes confusion.

All ARCs are ā€œsupportedā€ or ā€œbasedā€ on a visa. There are several ā€œkindsā€ of ARCs, depending on the visa it is based. Each conveys different rights and obligations. Meaning you are given an ARC because you married a ROC national, or you are here on a visa to work here, or you are a student on astudent visa. But every foreigner who has gotten a visa to live here gets an ARC. It is the ā€œtypeā€, or rather, the ā€œreasonā€, the visa that actually varies. ARC is just a term for the foreignerā€™s ID.

The married folk get the Joining Family resident visa can work and have other advantages, but the first time yes, you can only get one year because there have been too many instances where people get married under false pretenses in order to engage in illegal activities. Hence, the distrust. That is why some government official will interview you. But compared to US, it will be easy stuff.

Best of luck on the move. Welcome to the Island.

No. No. No. No. No. Not true.

Holding a valid visa and entering Taiwan means that the foreigner merely has a right to stay ļ¼ˆåœē•™ļ¼‰, whereas an Alien Resident Certificate (ARC) is issued to a foreigner who has the right to reside (居ē•™ļ¼‰in Taiwan. (rf. Art. 22 Immigration Act )

Once a foreigner holds an ARC or APRC, any previously issued visa and particularly the purpose of such visa is entirely irrelevant. In the case of an ARC, what matters is the residence purpose noted on the ARC. Or to put this into practical terms: once a foreigner has been issued an ARC, the NIA will stamp the original visa in the passport as ā€œinvalidā€ or ā€œusedā€.

A foreigner married to a ROC national is issued an ARC like anyone else!! The purpose stated will be ā€œå±…ē•™ē†ē”± 依č¦Ŗā€.

I was trying to make it simple. Wiothout a visa, a foreigner cannot get an ARC. If teh reason for having a visa is gone -divorce or death of spouse, losing job or missing days of class- the ARC becomes invalid and hence, the date written on it is just symbolic. That is something people need to understand.

Usually, the reason written on the ARc ciorresponds to the visa. ie you are married, or a student, or a worker, or whatever missionary/religious etc. That si all the user needs to know. That the visa somehow was ā€œusedā€ to grant him the right of abode as stated per the ARc is the Governmet officialā€™s deal, AFAIK.

All teh user neds to know is that he needs to be A, to have B in order to get that coveted AC. But we also need to tell people why they can lose the righst stated on teh ARC, why they need to dot their is and cross their ts. many people -like OP- think it is like US Green Card, when it is far more ā€œfragileā€. Byut we are not getting into that. The reson to be here becomes relevant in te sense that any tresspassing to those limits will result in ARC becoming invalid. ie: students that work, spouses may die or divorce, jobs can be lost. Then you have to find anotehr eason to be here. Legally I mean.

The simplest way to explain what an ARC is is your ID given by the ROC government.

Though very off topic,

If I remember correctly, this is not always correct. A baby born in Taiwan whose parent(s) are legal resident(s) can get ARC(=residence permission) without a visa(=entry permission) .

But he would be here based on his or her or their parentsā€™ visa.

I donā€™t think itā€™s based on parentā€™s visa. The visa itself would be no longer valid with high probability when the baby is born, since itā€™s valid for just 3 months. The babyā€™s ARC is based on his purpose of joining family.

Letā€™s say, a foreign person can get a visa based on a work permit, then come here and should get an ARC. The visa is one of requirements to get the ARC, but I think the ARC is based on the work permit (the purpose of residency).

A spouse of the person can get a visa based on marriage, then come here and get an ARC. The ARC is based on their marriage (joining family), but not the visa, again.

Their baby born in Taiwan can get ARC without his own visa. The ARC is based on the purpose of joining family.

Of course, the reason of residency, which an ARC is based on, is gone, the ARC is no longer valid.

My understandings are, both of visa and ARC are isseued based on a valid purpose of residency. A foreigner needs a visa to enter Taiwan for residence, and should get an ARC to stay here. Once the person comes here and gets an ARC, the ARC can be renewed as long as the purpose is valid. A baby does not need a visa, because already being here.

The government says this type of visa exists, as demostrated in the above quotations, and the governmentā€™s existence has a legal basis (albeit a controversial one). If you donā€™t like the term ā€œjoining family resident visaā€, you can say ā€œresident visa for the purpose of joining familyā€ or RVJF or RVFTPOJF. If you come up with a better term, by all means share it with us. :slight_smile:

If your objection is that it should just be called a resident visa, period, then frankly thatā€™s not much of an objection.

A working holiday visa is technically a visitor visa, but if you just call it a visitor visa then that will cause confusion. The term ā€œworking holiday visaā€ is not mentioned in the Immigration Act iirc, but itā€™s the term used by BOCA, the TECOā€™s, the NTB etc. (most of the time ā€“ sometimes the term ā€œyouth mobility visaā€ or something similar pops up). Youā€™ll find that this visa also has a legal basis, if you look carefully enough.

You keep saying this, but Iā€™m not seeing it.

At least, the OP was confusing visa and ARC.

Not only OP got confused. There are tons of threads where people confuse this.

In this threat alloverthefloor seems to believe his ARC with the purpose of joining family is a ā€œJFRVā€, as opposed to the ARC he now has to change his JFRV into. The thread is even titled ā€œChanging my JFRV to ARCā€.

Another thread, another confusion:

In another thread, tomthorne mixes things up completely:

There should be a clear and strictly enforced mod policy on this as well a concise and clear primer outlining the specific terms at the top of the Visa & Residency forum.

It is exhausting to reply to questions and explain procedures and steps to people, when suddenly some other Forumosan enters the thread and posts something utterly wrong and confusing.

How should people navigate the complexities of ROC immigration law and policy, when Forumosa is full of unmoderated half-truths and inaccuracies?

I will also try to make things clear.

All foreigners need to hold valid ARCs (or APRCs) to legally reside in Taiwan. There are several reasons that a foreign person can get an ARC, such as study, join family, employment, investigation, but no matter by what reason the person resides here, having a valid ARC is mandatory to reside in Taiwan for any foreigner.

In most cases, getting a visa based on the reason is a mandatory step to get an ARC, but the visa itself does not grant the personā€™s legal residency in Taiwan. It is just a step to get an ARC. And, there are few cases that getting a visa is waived to get an ARC.

Legal work right is a related but different thing. A foreign person usually needs to have a work permit to legally work in Taiwan. To get a visa and ARC based on employment, the applicant needs to have a work permit, which is applied by the employee. APRC holders can apply for open work permits by themselves. Exceptionally, foreign spouses of ROC citizens, holding ARCs based on their marriage, donā€™t need to get work permits, because their ARCs grant their work rights without a work permit.

They (the spouses) still need to have ARCs to reside in Taiwan, and to get an ARC based on a marriage, getting a visa base on the marriage is a required step. The applied category is ā€joining family", but marriage with an ROC citizen is not the only reason in the category of joining family. At least, spouses and minor dependents of legal residents, or relatives of ROC citizens also can get visa and ARCs based on the purpose of joining family.

[quote=ā€œtando, post:40, topic:161377, full:trueā€]
no matter by what reason the person resides here, having a valid ARC is mandatory to reside in Taiwan for any foreigner[/quote]

We should say ā€œresideā€ with quotation marks, because you can be a de facto resident (by the dictionary definition) and a resident for tax purposes without an ARC and also without breaking the law.

@hsinhai78 I had a look at some old threads and noticed there was also a certain Mr. Hsinhai using the term JFRV in such a way that people could be confused, but I also had a look through the Enforcement Rules of the Employment Service Act and believe you are correct that the formula for open work rights is actually marriage plus ARC, not marriage plus visa.

This doesnā€™t change the fact that JFRVā€™s exist, but unless I receive contrary advice from reliable sources, I will from now on refer to marriage-based ARCā€™s or JFRV-based ARCā€™s as indicating open work rights, rather than simply JFRVā€™s.

I believe youā€™re also correct that an APRC holder married to a local does not need an OWP, as itā€™s still marriage plus ARC, just with a P added.

Thank you for pointing these things out. :thumbsup:

If you have open work rights, foreign language kindergarten classes are still illegal for the employer. However, kindergarten teachers need to meet the governmentā€™s standards as qualified ā€œeducare providersā€, or else they can be fined by the education authorities.

13 posts were split to a new topic: From JFRV

You donā€™t have an open work permit with an ARC, but you do with a JFRV. How can you say that itā€™s the same?

You are completely confusing things discussed here.

A JFRV (joining family resident visa) does not grant a work right, but an ARC based on a marriage with a ROC citizen does. It is still a kind of ARC.

Correctly to say, the special kind ARC does not give an open work permit, but waive its holder having a work permit.

@yyy: Do you now see what I mean?

This is what I do. Iā€™ve never entirely got the idea of JFRVs as a term - I arrived after our wedding on a tourist visa applied for with the purpose of joining family, and converted that to an ARC granted in the basis of my marriage to a Taiwanese citizen. I donā€™t have a ā€œJFRVā€, I have an ARC obtained as a result of being married.

Actually, thatā€™s not going to work. What you term a ā€œmarriage-based ARCā€ could be obtained via a child, as a result of divorce or spousal death. Weā€™re going to need a more accurate descriptor. I was thinking of ā€œdependant-based ARCā€ - but is a spouse necessarily a dependant? To be really accurate weā€™re going to need some version of the words join and family. Weā€™ll need to describe the word reside in some way. Oh, and weā€™ll need some word that suggests permission to enter a country. I donā€™t know, maybe visa?

Iā€™m at a loss as to what we could use.