Why not ask your lawyer, Marco?
As others have suggested, I’m going to delete this post within the next day for several reasons, especially to prevent discussion of illegal activity on this site. Thank you everyone for your insight.
EDIT: Keeping this open a bit longer
you made a claim, but have shown no sourse to support your claim. can you show which law says you need a permit to “live” in taiwan for the duration your stay permit allows? I cannot find anything to make it an offence of something to live in taiwan for the duration I’m allowed to stay.
laws say you are eligible to get a residence certificate under certain circumstances , but are there any laws saying you must get it instead of doing visa runs, including visitor visa runs, under such circumstances?
added: here I’ve used the word “law” in a loose way, includeing any regulations.
you can do business without visa.
purposes that do not require a permit—such as engaging in tourism, visiting friends or relatives, attending social events, conducting business, attending exhibitions, and engaging in fact-finding missions or international exchanges
@Marco, it says such as. purposes that do not require a permit are not limitted to those listed things.
The “must” comes from this loop (in law):
- Foreign nationals must hold a valid immigration status while in Taiwan.
- You must abide by the terms of your visa, otherwise your visa is void.
The bit that’s in regulation/operating procedure is:
A discrepancy between the intent of entry and the status used to enter is sufficient to violate the terms of the visa.
yes, and which law says you cannot enter in taiwan to “live” here for the duration you are allowed, in other words, you need a permit to “live” here?
visa exempt stay is a valid immigration status, and if you don’t overstay nor do some doggy things like begging, just enjoying to live here as a tourist for the allowed duration violates nothing the term of your visa (exempt) .
Assessment of intent is in regulation and operating procedure, not law.
marco’s claim is it is illegal, and you need a permit to live. many long stayers are allowed to “live” here with visa runs, if you say on operation.
again, here I’ve used the word “law” in a loose way, includeing any regulations. so, which regulation or operating procedure says people whose intention is to live in taiwan for the maximum duration laws allow them should not enter?
I feel like OP is wanting the answer to two different questions:
- On the US side, to qualify for the exclusion you need to pass either a physical presence test (330 days/year abroad–doesn’t have to be a calendar year) or bona fide residence. You should be able to do this no problem and qualify for the exclusion. You’ll get taxes returned to you. If you are physically out of the US I don’t think you’d ever have to produce proof of paying taxes abroad.
- Paying Taiwanese taxes is more complicated. I pay on my US salary and bring a letter in every year, but a lot of people just don’t do this. I also think if you were a true digital nomad–say you traveled through a bunch of countries–no one in Taiwan would care.
I think your basic plan’s not a bad one for a year or two but doesn’t sound sustainable long term.
Why not just apply for gold card? You would likely qualify and it would simplify things. You can get PR after 3 years.
Visa run is okay as well I suppose but there’s some risks to it such as getting denied entry if you visited too many times (though not likely). Just don’t say you are working. I am not sure if immigrations here go after people about that, but why risk it? You may get in trouble if you got in trouble for a different reason, like traffic accident or slander and they found out you’re working, or maybe your nosy neighbor feels like you’re laughing too loud at night and reports you, it’s a reason for them to investigate and perhaps deport you for working illegally.
As others have said, there is no need to break the law by doing visa runs. You should just apply for an employment Gold Card.
Pretty much all mid-level professionals should qualify for it. Everyone should be getting the Gold Card unless they are a recent college grad coming here to teach ESL.
It’s fraud if you are lying to the officials.
Tell them that you are intending to live here and work long term on visa runs. I dare you.
@tando and @Marco that’s a very interesting topic. Please keep discussing it here, but be aware it’s not about being right or wrong. Rather we are trying to collect information here for others to answer their open questions.
My feeling is that it’s most likely either illegal or a gray zone. Pretty sure it’s not legal as in “that’s what this visa free entry is meant for, and I surely won’t get into trouble if I do that”.
Several people offered some interesting information that I wasn’t aware of. Thus I’d like to keep this thread online for now, at least until we have some kind of consensus on “legal, gray, illegal”.
We don’t suggest or even discuss illegal stuff here on Forumosa. But more light on this topic can’t hurt, especially visa runs are something that seemingly many people do.
That’s what I think too.
Or maybe “probably illegal, but in effect gray because Taiwanese authorities so far haven’t shown much interest in stopping it or asking visa runners what they’re doing”. Which would apply to many things in Taiwan, of course…
why does it matter what they are doing? If doing visa runs is illegal, it is illegal regardless of what they do while they are in taiwan. doing things without a required permit is illegal regardless of their visa status.
It’s not unusual for immigration officers to want to verify the purpose of stay, e.g., to check someone entering for “tourism” is indeed a tourist.
I don’t have a problem with people doing visa runs or engaging in activities outside of what they reported to immigration officers, but I think you’re being kind of contrarian for the sake of being contrarian here. Maybe @Marco is interested in continuing the argument, but I’m not tbh.
I don’t think doing visa runs per se is illegal, and if it is the Taiwanese government hasn’t done much if anything to prevent it AFAIK.
Sure, but if someone is spending most of their time in the country, they clearly have some sort of income coming from somewhere, which the government might be interested in knowing about. If they wanted to crack down on it they would start by asking questions at immigration. Some countries do this. Hell, I get asked more questions entering the US as a US citizen than I do entering Taiwan as a non-citizen.
no. what I’m interested in is,
- whether or not doing remote work in taiwan is included in work mentioned in Article 43 of ESA
- whether doing visa runs itself is illegal
- whether you need a permit to “live” in Taiwan while you are allowed to stay
if someone kindly shows me regulations or government interpretations clearly answering to these, my curiosity will be satisfied. just arguing or repeating ones claims without any sourses may not be much of a help.
when you have a job you can do remotely, i don’t think doing the work itself is the purpose of your stay, unless being in taiwan is essential for the job.
sure, but it matters just when doing visa runs itself is not illegal. if doing visa runs is illegal, no need to ask those questions.