Just got mine through Interlink Travel, who took my passport & money & mailed the thing off to Los Angeles. Pretty painless, if a bit expensive, but I was completely clueless about the options & what I really needed to get, so I went w/them.
Paid something like $7000NT for a 6-month multiple-entry visitor’s visa, good for periods of up to 60 days each visit. 12-month visa costs the same for U.S. citizens, but I was an idiot & failed to realize my passport expires before that… Would be a decent deal otherwise since it’s a multiple entry visa.
If you have an ARC, they also offer a cheaper 1-month business visa, and I don’t think it matters if you’re not going there on business. That requires a business card/job certificate, from Taiwan, but the travel agent didn’t tell me about that option until after I’d already gotten my passport back :\
Took about a week to get it back, but you can rush it for an additional fee. It might be cheaper/easier to just mail if off yourself, depending how much time you have.
I have paid NT4000 for a single entry and it took almost 2 weeks. Since it has to be mailed to HK, processed and then sent back, I can’t see how it would be so fast as 4 days. I was also told that you can’t get a multi-entry unless you have a company sponsoring you.
Do let us know if this turns out as promised.
I use WHOSE travel in Taichung. Foreign run so it’s easy to communicate.
My (Irish) passport is with a travel agent at the moment, so we’ll see what happens. No idea as to cost yet (I seem to remember NT$5k being mentioned), but nothing supplied except a passport and photos, no ARC (and in fact it’s not even the passport I used to enter Taiwan), but several used six-month F visas in there.
Would be useful if folks stated their nationality and whether or not they have ARCs and previous used China visas in their passports within the last six month, as the former seems to matter as to price and I have been told they like to see at least one China visa in the last six months for people with no Taiwan ARC.
I was all set today to send my stuff out with the travel agent for a visa when they informed me that I can’t get a business visa because my ARC expires July 31 (so less than 30 days after my visa would be issued). Which sucks. Basically they told me that I have to go to Hong Kong and get a tourist visa. I was also hoping to get at least a double entry 60 day visa because I have another trip in August.
So, has anyone run into this ARC expiring thing before? Or gotten a business visa without an ARC? Or gotten a double (or multiple) entry 60 day tourist visa?
Also, has anyone gotten a tourist visa in Hong Kong recently? Did you need hotel bookings or anything like that? I stay at the guesthouse of the institute I visit, so I’d need to make something up.
Oh, and I’m American and I have a bunch of previous visas, but they’re all in my old passport.
[quote=“zyzzx”]I was all set today to send my stuff out with the travel agent for a visa when they informed me that I can’t get a business visa because my ARC expires July 31 (so less than 30 days after my visa would be issued). Which sucks. Basically they told me that I have to go to Hong Kong and get a tourist visa. I was also hoping to get at least a double entry 60 day visa because I have another trip in August.
So, has anyone run into this ARC expiring thing before? Or gotten a business visa without an ARC? Or gotten a double (or multiple) entry 60 day tourist visa?
Also, has anyone gotten a tourist visa in Hong Kong recently? Did you need hotel bookings or anything like that? I stay at the guesthouse of the institute I visit, so I’d need to make something up.
Oh, and I’m American and I have a bunch of previous visas, but they’re all in my old passport.[/quote]
Went to HK about 3 weeks ago and got a F type visa, 6 month with double entry, no multiple entry available at the moment.
I am Austrian, have basically continious F typ visa since 4 years now, first 1 year multiple, than 6 month multiple and since last year what ever they give you.
I always give in the same contact details from a company my Austrian client works with, I just do the consulting (QC kind of).
Oh, and I got it within the next day at 5pm.
[quote=“zyzzx”]…I was also hoping to get at least a double entry 60 day visa because I have another trip in August…[/quote] If you’re doing multiple trips & planning to continue going from Taiwan in the future you might as well get the 12-month multiple entry tourist visa. Unlimited(?) visits up to 60 days each visit. Costs a bit more, but doesn’t require hotel info, sponsorship letters, etc. Furthermore, your ARC has zero bearing on the matter since the visa’s only based on U.S. citizenship & they ship your passport off to the States anyway.
Of course, maybe you’d need to worry about “working/doing business” while on a tourist visa, but if you’re “visiting an institute” for academic/research purposes, they probably would care less than if you’re there to make a buck… Might save you some hassle.
[quote]If you’re doing multiple trips & planning to continue going from Taiwan in the future you might as well get the 12-month multiple entry tourist visa. Unlimited(?) visits up to 60 days each visit. Costs a bit more, but doesn’t require hotel info, sponsorship letters, etc. Furthermore, your ARC has zero bearing on the matter since the visa’s only based on U.S. citizenship & they ship your passport off to the States anyway.
Of course, maybe you’d need to worry about “working/doing business” while on a tourist visa, but if you’re “visiting an institute” for academic/research purposes, they probably would care less than if you’re there to make a buck… Might save you some hassle.[/quote]
I also thought the ARC thing was weird, but after poking around the China Foreign Ministry website, I found something that said: “2. Applicants should be physically in Hong Kong during visa application except foreign business people residing presently in Taiwan.” So I guess that’s where the ARC thing comes in, and it’s just about the travel agency sending off to Hong Kong for me, so if I go myself it shouldn’t be a problem.
Wow, I’d never heard of an unlimited entry tourist visa. So is it really that easy to get all these fancy visas in Hong Kong? Do they pretty much give you whatever you ask for? Because in the US they sometimes don’t, even when you do have all the invitation letter/supporting documents, etc. A tourist visa is no problem for this trip, but I just realized that it may not be a good idea for the second trip, as I’ll be going to sensitive areas (Tibet and Xinjiang) as part of a scientific group, so it’ll be pretty obvious to the permit people that I’m not a tourist.
I guess I’ll just find an agency and see what they can do.
[quote=“zyzzx”]Wow, I’d never heard of an unlimited entry tourist visa. So is it really that easy to get all these fancy visas in Hong Kong?[/quote] Got mine through a travel agent in Taipei. Just dropped off my passport & paid the fee, then came back in a week or so to pick it up. They mailed it off to Los Angeles though, not HK. Visa doesn’t stipulate a specific # of entries, it just says “M(多)” and that each visit can be up to 60 days in duration.
They don’t seem to care too much about foreigners traveling to Xinjiang, but paperwork for Tibet seemed to be a huge hassle & cash cow for the gov’t. Maybe a trip to HK is your best bet after all. Good luck!
Just a word of warning: if you plan to go to Tibet you do not mention it at all when applying for a visa to China. Otherwise you will be rejected. Make up a fake itinerary like everyone else.
sjhuz01, who did you use to get a multi-entry tourist visa? I was told I could not get such a thing from taiwan. Also, how much was it?
[quote=“Mucha Man”]sjhuz01, who did you use to get a multi-entry tourist visa? I was told I could not get such a thing from Taiwan. Also, how much was it?[/quote]I used Interlink Travel 11F-1, No. 68, Guang Fu N. Road (886) 2-2578-0611．
…You’re Canadian though, right? I’m from the U.S., so you might have different options.
Anyway, here’s the info they sent me:
1-year multiple entry visa:
need passport, 1 X 2" photo, fee NT$8,500, need 13 working days to process. If you rush for 8 working days [… ] NT$9,900.
single entry:
need passport, 1 X 2" photo, name card or job certificate, ARC copy, fee NT$7,200 and 7 working days to process.
Sounds like they might be more expensive than other travel agents, but they’re the one I happened to find. Tourist visa fee for U.S. citizens is $230US regardless, so $20US for shipping/processing isn’t too bad.
Well, I can suggest that if anyone does go to Hong Kong to get their China visa, don’t go to CTS. First they told me that my invitation letters were no good, because only the originals were valid (I had one faxed and one scanned and emailed). I have never used, or even seen, an original of any of my invitation letters in the past, so I don’t know what that was about. So in the end, even with two organizations inviting me, I could only apply for a tourist visa. Then when I picked it up, I see that they gave me a 2 entry 30 day tourist visa. Since my next trip is ~45 days, I tried to ask if it would be a problem to cancel the 2nd entry and get a new 60 day visa or something like that, and the guy informed me that in Hong Kong, they can only give out 30 day visas - he said you can’t get anything longer than 30 days, which sounds totally ridiculous. Of course apparently my emailed invitation letter saying I’ll be there for 45 days is completely worthless anyway. Seems to me that CTS is being excessively anal…
What, you don’t have friends you can ask over a six hour hike and a 5 hour dinner?
Anyway, you can either go to HK on the way into China, apply there and wait a day to receive your visa or you can apply via a travel agency here in Taipei. They will mail your passport off to HK and you will get it back with visa in two weeks.
