Got mine approved! Had a few insufficient documentations, and moved to Korea in the meantime, but I got there in the end. Here’s my full timeline if anyone is interested:
27th November 2020: First Application Date
18th December 2020: Request for additional documents (I had a partial, 8 month tax document rather than the full 12 months)
Around Christmas: Called the ministry of labour and they told me to get a letter from my company confirming starting dates
29th December 2020: Sent through all additional documents (some over e-mail)
30th December 2020: Called to check that all the documents were ready and get an estimate. ~2 weeks to hear back
17th January 2021: Called again to check, backlogged, will take another couple of weeks
17th February 2021: documentation is insufficient … company is financial, not economic (investment bank). advised to change to financial and provide proof of SEC registration of my company
17th February 2021: sent through extra documents. At this point, my tax documentation disappeared from the application, but it wasn’t an issue as they had apparently already verified my salary
— I moved to Korea (short-term) at the start of February, and used the online form to change my application to the mission in Korea. This seemed to work fine, Note that I did this before the passport submission notice was given. There was no additional cost for this. —
26th February 2021: passport submission notice !! Called mission in Seoul to confirm passport submission. They were a little confused at first since I’m not Korean, but they recognised the gold card process. They were also able to speak some english
2nd March 2021: Handed in passport submission notice and passport at Seoul Taipei Mission. They didn’t keep my passport, and gave it right back to me after making a copy. Quick and efficient!
4th March 2021: Received confirmation of official approval email. Moved into “Certification stage”
5th March 2021: Received final confirmation email that certification is complete. I can now download my resident authorisation form from the portal to enter Taiwan.
Took a bit longer than I expected, due to a few issues:
- Incomplete tax form covering only 8 months instead of 12. This was resolved after providing a signed letter from my company confirming current salary and starting dates, along with an explanation of the tax form by me.
- Incorrect application type. Like others, I fell into the trap of applying to Economic when I should have applied for Financial. It seems like they are starting to reinforce the difference between the card types lately, so be sure to choose the right one. It was approved quite quickly after changing the type.
- General backlogs. This process got really popular lately so there were probably extra delays from this
All in all, it was around 3.5 months from application to confirmation.
It also seems like calling is no longer advised, and instead they prefer you to e-mail. I got a very quick response from e-mailing, so it looks like they are checking and responding to e-mails more quickly now. I couldn’t get through on any of the phone numbers I previously used.