This is a really outstanding post/comment by Lain and the links are really helpful. I just want to add some additional notes and info about this comment and the subsequent ones:
In the linked blog post, the author mentions that AF384 holders have troubles applying for an Open Work Permit, but it might still be possible. Here is the application form: http://hr.mcu.edu.tw/sites/default/files/MCU/外國人工作許可申請書(個人)_1.pdf (I pulled it off somewhere, so if someone knows the official location, please add that)
The blog author also posted a link at the end of the blog post, which matches what I found via Google Search:
- AF-042就業服務法第51條第1項第1、3、4款申請書-工作許可【個人工作許可】
- https://ws.wda.gov.tw/Download.ashx?u=LzAwMS9VcGxvYWQvMjk5L3JlbGZpbGUvODc4OC82NTYwL2U4MzQwMjE1LTAyM2MtNGYyYS1iN2FiLWU0NGZmY2QzMzkwYy5wZGY%3D&n=QUYtMDQy5bCx5pyN5rOV56ysNTHmop3nrKwx6aCF56ysMeOAgTPjgIE05qy%2B55Sz6KuL5pu4KOWAi%2BS6uikucGRm
Please note that this is from the official ministry of labor government website and has dates for when it was updated and last reviewed. It is slightly different from the version of the form that you posted.
Note that the blog post seems to probably be from 2018:
Then on the 2nd page: “one original most recent 3-month household registration transcript of lineal relatives living with the Employed” (直系血親共同生活者3 個月內之戶籍謄本正本及親屬關係證明文件).
The version of the form that I posted in this comment instead says:
依親對象之身分證明文件影本。5.The ID certificate photocopy of the relative (in Taiwan) you depend on
Here we see it’s “依親對象” rather than “共同生活”. I’m not sure if this helps AF384 holders actually. Sometimes it feels like people sometimes treat AF384 as 依親, just that your relative is deceased. So, why did it change? Things don’t change for no reason, usually. It would be interesting to find out. At this point I can only speculate. This could be important because people in our situation may have our parent(s) 身份證 which I have presented before I think. Could that be sufficient for us? It would be interesting to find out.
Keep in mind that 對象 can sometimes mean a partner (i.e. marriage), although it doesn’t need to mean this. I don’t think it’s really meant to be restricted to such a definition in this case, but I think it could contribute to confusion or just an annoying tendency for some people to start thinking of us in that context automatically. In combination with the fact that our TARCs have “spouse” fields (empty for those of us who are not married), I just find the whole process to be riddled with possible assumptions about how laws should be applied.
If you look at the various criteria for TARC applicants, there is no designation of which count as 依親: https://www.immigration.gov.tw/media/42540/相關證明文件一覽表.pdf
Does anyone have any documentation that shows which categories count as 依親? I find it interesting that on our TARCs, there is only a possible field for “spouse” but not for dependent relative.
If you search Google for images related to “依親居留證”, it’s not easy to find examples of AF353:
I found this example but it’s really old and fuzzy, but to me it doesn’t look like it lists 依親 for AF353 (this is almost 2 decades old, though – another case of multiracial/multinational people having trouble in Taiwan): 台烏聯姻 5混血兒終於取得居留權││TVBS新聞網
If you look closely, if looks like in the photo AF353 was classified as 海外僑民, which may be outdated terminology or at least not what our TARCs say currently.
Also a small note about this:
(just to emphasize, TARC is “our” NWOHR thing, foreigners do not apply for a TARC)
I think this is true for most cases, but there is or was at least one case where naturalizing foreigners who renounce their original citizenship must be on a TARC while waiting for a specific duration to qualify for HHR and passport, I think (or something like that). So, yes, TARC is in most cases for people with heritage from someone with Taiwan HHR, but there is one or more cases where a foreigner with no such lineage/heritage may get a TARC.
Notice that on this form, in contrast to many other government forms, you can only fill out one address field. Usually you provide both your HHR address, and the address of where you live. But it seems here they only want one address which is the address of your dependent (“lineal relative(s) living with the Employed”).
I might be going crazy, but I didn’t see this. All I saw was one field for address, which is for:
在台居住地址Address of Resident in Taiwan
and under 申請人(Name of foreigner)：
住居所
To me, this seems like it would be the 居留證 holder.
Also, note that this form is a “one size fits all” solution for all cases. However, not all cases will need all fields. We don’t know which are required fields for which scenarios. For example, there is a section if you have someone act as an agent on your behalf to fill out the paperwork, and this is certainly not applicable/required for all applicant scenarios.
So, do AF384 need to have a relative vouch for them as seems to be the spirit/intent of those fields? Or do they simply not need to fill them in? I’m not sure if any of us truly can answer that unless we’ve applied and talked about it in depth with several official sources.
Another example of form fields like this: tax rates for home ownership are different based on if you reside there or not. The application form for identifying the home as the one you primarily live in has fields to indicate if you have a 居留證, but the same form later also has a field for HHR. If the form anticipates that the applicant using the form could be on a visa, they probably can’t be expected to fill out the HHR part, right? I can write more notes after I go clarify that with that office for that form, but this is just an example of form fields applying to different people/scenarios differently for a single form.
Part of me wants to know what would happen if an AF384 holders walks into the MOL and asks for an Open Work Permit—are we worrying too much, and they have some SOPs guiding that? But then again, I currently don’t want to risk anything …
According to this, if only your person is in Taiwan, but your work has no relation to Taiwan whatsoever (e.g. no one pays you NTD, you don’t spend NTD, etc.), then you could do this kind of “work” or more specifically, you don’t require a work permit.
Sadly, we didn’t double-check this answer, but I did some further research on this. Here is what I found:
勞動部勞動法令查詢系統-判解函釋
This is a government-issued clarification about the question what constitutes “work,” and that under specific circumstances, those people in Taiwan who do “work” do not require a work permit. There is no English version, but you can open the link and follow along and perhaps the others can double-check my interpretation.
Because I didn’t want to do it myself, I asked a relative to help me ask the labor office, and he said the office told him that if the work is outside of Taiwan, for a non-Taiwan employer, and the employee is employed outside of Taiwan (i.e. the legally binding agreement is formed outside of Taiwan), the ministry of labor does not care about it. That said, they handle labor issues, but isn’t deportation or visa cancellation handled by the NIA? Can 1 office truly answer this question on their own? I assume NIA wouldn’t take such action on their own if the labor office does not see it as a violation, but is that a safe assumption? What about the tax office?
Returning to another topic, unrelated to work but related to (re-)establishing my own HHR in Taiwan during residency, something you said earlier, and something you said in your latest post, caught my eye – the issue about the validity of the old address on an old HHR (my father’s old HHR that I would want to re-activate and re-use as my own):
My question on all of this is: What if the old address on my deceased father’s old HHR is no longer valid? Can that pose any problems for me if I were to try to use that old HHR (with invalid address, of deceased parent) as my own for purposes of establishing 1-year residency on the TARC?
I don’t think the address currently needs to be valid for the TARC application. I think it’s just that the HHR needs to be not cancelled. A lot of streets and buildings were demolished and renamed and addresses changed over the past generation or two. Many addresses changed or do not exist anymore.
On the subject of address, I used a relative’s address for my TARC (not lineal relative and this relative is not used in my application in any way) and it’s just a way for them to know where I plan to reside. I recently bought a new home, and went to change the address. One staff person correctly asked if I bought a home and gave me a form, and as a side note incorrectly asked if I was from Hong Kong, maybe because currently there aren’t a lot of other types of people at the immigration office (although I still consider it to be total speculation on their behalf, maybe because I’m multiracial and Anthony Wong has been in the news lately). I explained to them I was a NWOHR. After I filled out the form I got another ticket and went to another counter, where another staff person looked at my TARC and asked if I was a “依親” case. I wasn’t sure how to respond so I said yes (maybe this was incorrect and we don’t count as 依親), but my mother passed away already, and then they said “well then what are you going to change the address to?” and I explained that I recently bought a home and they asked to see the ownership papers, which I provided them with. So based on this recent experience, my understanding is that the address is just where you officially live, but if you have a living relative that you’re using for the TARC as a relative you’re depending on, then you’re supposed to use that address. Note that in practice, everyone knows that an HHR address is not necessarily where someone actually sleeps day-to-day (after all, during elections people often travel back to their HHR address to vote in their local district), so I assume if you’re using a relative to depend on for your TARC, they probably want you to use the same address but realize you might not be there every day/night.
I think this might relate to what Lain wrote about the blog post:
For him (the author) this was not possible, because the address of his father’s HHR was not updated when he moved elsewhere and later passed away, so he couldn’t live there anymore
The blog post says:
在申請居留證時，填寫的居住地址一定要與你的直系血親的身分證/戶籍謄本上的地址一致。這麼一來，雖然對方已過世，從法律的觀點還是可以證明你與父/母親曾經同居過(縱使沒同居)，工作許可證即便會被核准。
To put it less technically, this sounds like office worker bull**** to me. What I mean is, it sounds like what the government office told him was possibly not correct. How would that prove that you lived with the deceased relative if you used their former place of residence for your TARC as your current address of residence after they died? What if we lived together in a foreign country? Just to rant more, specifically this:
從法律的觀點還是可以證明你與父/母親曾經同居過
So I left my mom’s body at birth and then we just never lived together? That’s pretty rare. So if your mom dies in childbirth, the government says you deserve no related rights? This all just smells a little off to me. It smells like an office worker just made up their own interpretation. I’m speculating, but it wouldn’t be the first time this happened.
This way, when I ask at the TECO office, “can I get an NWOHR passport and a TARC?”, and when the TECO office sees the case file with all application forms completed and all supporting documents (even if some are placeholders) present, that will reduce their work to almost zero and enable them to just focus on what, if anything, is missing.
Yes, definitely do this, but beware that it doesn’t mean the TECO office knows how the AF384 workflow works. You may still need to explain it to them, and if they tell you otherwise, tell them they need to talk to the immigration office in Taiwan. One specific TECO office worker gave me such bull**** reasons why I could not apply (i.e. they didn’t finish reading a sentence???) and seemed to only believe me when I told them point blank that the NIA in Taiwan told me I could apply and under what rationale they explained to me. The entire conversation was in Chinese, also. I had to explain to them in Chinese how the law they are supposed to facilitate works. Not all TECO experiences are like this, but be prepared for this type of person.
@tando :
iiuc, permanent residency means HHR for nationals.
I don’t think so, at least in this case. The law Lain was referring to is about work permits and the section is specifically about foreign people engaging in work, and nationals with HHR need not apply for a work permit, so it wouldn’t make sense to include them here I think. I think in this context, this most likely is specifically about a 永久居留證 holder and therefore 永久居留者.
Example of just one type of 永久居留者, presumably without HHR and under another nationality:
Here are more items for the 定居 process:
Note this:
九、載有正確設籍地址之證明文件：指戶口名簿、國民身分證、房屋所有權狀、近期房屋稅單或租賃契約正、影本（五者擇一，正本驗畢退還）。但設籍地址與依親對象相同且已檢附其國民身分證（或戶口名簿）者，免附。
Again, for setting up the HHR you have options. You can use 1 of 5 options. One of the options is lease contract (i.e. rental agreement). Make sure you get that from your landlord if you’re renting and not planning to use one of the other 4 options.
Also, here we see again some differentiation for people who are using the status of 依親
And for getting the HHR and ID card:
