Going through this myself right now. I’m not fully through the process yet but I’m getting close and found this to be pretty accurate and concise: American getting married to Taiwanese, JFRV process?
I did the FBI background check in January and it was actually completed much faster than expected – everything says to expect to wait 12 weeks, but I got the “online” version back in about a week after it arrived at the FBI office, and the paper one (to my parents’ house in MN) in about 3-4 weeks.
- You can get your fingerprints done at a local NIA office – just make sure that you print out the fingerprint card on stock paper
- You will then have to mail this to the FBI, I used DHL from a local 711 and it was like $1000NTD
- You will have to get it authenticated by the Washington D.C. TECRO office. What I ended up doing was having the FBI send the results back to my parents’ house, and then having my parents’ send the package to TECRO with all of the required information (I forget exactly, you should call them after you’ve received the online FBI background check response and they’ll tell you what they need you to send them. They need a cashiers check though and cannot take personal checks).
If you are on visa exempt you will have to leave the country as other people have said – though flight tickets to Macau are actually pretty cheap if you can do it during the week day.
The only other source of confusion that I wanted to point out was the
Original and one photocopy of marriage registration issued by competent authorities of the applicant’s country.
requirement on the BOCA page: Bureau of Consular Affairs, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Republic of China(Taiwan)-Resident Visas for Foreign Spouses of R.O.C.(Taiwan) Citizens Having Household Registration . The USA doesn’t have a “marriage registration system” which I believe means that the Taiwanese Marriage certificate is enough – I haven’t actually confirmed this yet but it’s what I could gather from research. You may have to fight with whoever is issuing the visa on this point (not sure if enough American’s have been married here yet that the process is standard).