I have looked through Forumosa trying to find a post that specifically answers my question but couldn’t find one and no-one at the Immigration Office, UK Trade Office in Taipei, Taipei Representative Office (TRO) in London or at ACRO can give me an answer. Please help!
I am a UK citizen, in Taiwan, applying for my ARC and I have submitted my application for my ACRO UK police certificate. I now need to know whether this certificate needs authorising by the TRO in London. I have read that this needs to happen for marriage purposes (JFRV stuff) and for APRCs, but does this also need to happen just for an ARC? If I do need that authorisation what is the process.
After numerous phone calls and emails, the TRO have told me it may first need FCO authentication and to be approved by a notary and possibly translated, but they wouldn’t tell me the precise order that all those things had to happen in. I have read their website but still cant work out the order, or whether I also need to go to a notary with my letter of authorisation for my family. And it isn’t clear (at least to me) whether the translation needs to happen before or after I send it to the TRO. I have less than two months left to sort this out so I don’t have time to get something wrong.
Are there any UK citizens, or other nationalities that have recently undergone this and can tell me the exact process?
Requirements depend on the purpose of your ARC. If I recall correctly, UK citizens don’t need police certificates for work based ARC. So, do you need the document to get your work permit?
Fyi https://www.roc-taiwan.org/uk_en/post/1393.html If Police Certificate is required for the visa application, applicants must enclose both Police Certificates which is issued by their origin country and by their current residence country (the UK). Both documents must be authenticated by our Taiwan Oversea Offices.
For British Police Certificate, the TRO only accepts the Police Certificate issued by the ACRO Criminal Records Office.
This is the consular site in London, explains how to get it all done.
Apply online for the CR Cert
Fill in the online form from the FCO in London they cert the Crim Record Cert (costs) & SAE
Download and complete form from Taiwan consulate, send with SAE and postal order and your certified Crim Record.
Taiwan consulate stamp and cert it and return to you.
Bring back to Taiwan for translation and that should be it
Just done this a few months ago, the order I did it was, got criminal record certificate and had it officially stamped which was a separate process, had to send that to be stamped by the records office, translated with all the stamps and certificates, then sent that to the TRO to be stamped with the forms downloaded from the website. I did that for a few different certificates I needed
If you need the police certificate for your work permit, it doesn’t need to be authenticated. In that case, the recipient of the document is not NIA, but WDA (workforce development agency), and that is where you should ask whether the document should be authenticated.
This is what TRO says about authentication.
What documents do I need to authenticate?
Only your recipient authority possesses the information about which foreign documents need to be authenticated. Please check with your recipient authority before submitting the application to the TRO.
Only those that are required by your recipient authority, otherwise no documents should be automatically authenticated by the TRO.
The TRO does not possess information relating to the requirements of individual authorities. TRO staff cannot provide any advice on specific legal requirements, including which documents require signing or certification.
Hi Shaun,
Thanks for the advice. Can I ask what you were getting the ACRO for? Was it for ARC or for APRC or for marriage purposes? And did you not require anything to be notarised before sending it to the TRO?
Finally, am I right in understanding that this was the exact process you got it done in…
Get ACRO Certificate
Had it “legalised” by the FCO legalisation office in London (is this what you referred to as the records office?)
Got it translated into Chinese after FCO legalisation. Was there any particular translation service/agency you needed to use for authenticity purposes?
Sent it to the TRO
Sorry for all the additional questions and for sounding so anal about it, just want to make sure I get it right first time.
Thanks for replying Tando. Sorry if I’m a bit confused with my terminology. I called the WDA as you suggested and they told me that UK citizens don’t need to get the document authenticated by the TRO (again, as you said). They couldn’t tell me whether I needed authentication for other parts of the visa or arc process but I’m assuming that I don’t.
Work permit, visa, and arc are different things. You need to get a work permit to get a resident permission (visa/ARC) based on employment.
Your work permit is issued from WDA, and they need your police certificate.
Your resident permit is given from BOCA/NIA, and they need some documents which include your work permit.
BOCA/NIA don’t know whether WDA require your police certificate for your work permit to be authenticated, so you needed to ask to WDA. As well, WDA don’t know whether BOCA/NIA require documents they need for your resident permit to be authenticated.
You may ask to BOCA/NIA what documents they need for your visa and ARC, and which ones should be authenticated. They should have the answer for this question. Basically, any documents issued from foreign countries need to be authenticated. I don’t think they need your police certificate, though.
“7. Applicants who enter the R.O.C. (Taiwan) without a visa and have obtained a work permit issued by competent authorities of the R.O.C. (Taiwan) may apply to the Bureau of Consular Affairs or any of its Central, Southwestern, Southern, or Eastern Taiwan Offices for an extendable Visitor Visa. Subsequently and with the extendable Visitor Visa, the applicants must apply to the National Immigration Agency for an Alien Resident Certificate.”
