Hi everyone, this seems like a really helpful forum. I saw this topic and saw it got lots of responses, so I hope that I can get some answers for my own similar situation.
My father was born and raised in Taiwan, so he must have had HHR at the time. He went to the U.S. in 1993 and didn’t return for over 20 years. I was born in 1995, so it’s possible his HHR had already expired by the time of my birth. My mother isn’t and has never been an ROC citizen.
I recently saw my father’s hukou, the actual paper – it’s dated to 2018, although he was just there in 2023. Does this mean that he hasn’t renewed his registration since 2018?
I’m somewhat confident that I’m at least eligible for an NWOHR passport, so assuming I get it: my father is still living and his father, whose address is the one on my father’s hukou, still lives in Taiwan. In claiming my national ID per “the new law” (the one saying that older adults can join their parents’ households – I believe this is the relevant one?), do I need to get my father to come with me and renew his registration first? Am I not actually eligible for the HHR-without-a-year’s-residence if my father was not registered in 1995? Would there be a record of my father’s lifetime registration periods, separate from the piece of paper he has?
An additional snaggle is that while I was born in the U.S. and my parents still live there, I actually reside in Canada now. (I still have a U.S. passport.) To apply for the NWOHR, do I apply to my local TECO or to the U.S. TECO that covers my region? When I emailed my local TECO it actually linked me to the passport application instructions for the U.S. one, but it might be because the different websites have different pages.
Worst case your father’s household registration is “moved out” but it can’t expire or be cancelled unless he surrenders his ROC nationality or gets mainland China household registration. If he had the actual HHR paper in 2018, and was in Taiwan in 2023, it probably isn’t even moved out. Even if it is “moved out”, all he needs to do is register it to a new address.
Would I be able to get a TARC on the basis of my father’s “moved out” HHR? Would I be able to avoid getting a TARC in the first place (I think paragraph 10 here is actually the relevant one), if his HHR is/becomes active again?
Under new law this year you can get Taiwan passport and ID card and Hukou if you had one parent with HHR when you were born. You wont need a TARC anymore. If male do remind you of military service requirement.
In my understanding, since your father was born in Taiwan and had HHR, he was and shall always be a “有戶籍國民” because he has a 戶籍, regardless of whether or not its status is “moved out” or not (unless he specifically renounced his ROC citizenship).
As a whole, my interpretation of 為居住臺灣地區設有戶籍國民 is that the parent has to be in the status of possessing a Taiwanese (i.e. “居住臺灣地區設”) household registration (“有戶籍”). I suppose this is to distinguish from some other hypothetical kind of 戶籍 that might be registered somewhere other than Taiwan, and to distinguish from NWOHRs (無戶籍國民) who do not have any 戶籍 at all. I do not think that the intention of this is to require that the 戶籍 was in “moved in (currently living in Taiwan)” status at the time of your birth.
Furthermore, if you read the page at 入出國及移民法-全國法規資料庫, it even defines the term 居住臺灣地區設有戶籍國民 as follows:
It is explicitly stated that this means people who have a Taiwanese household registration, and who are currently (現在) or were previously (原在) living in Taiwan.
Please do let us know how it works out for you if you proceed with the application process under the new law.
@hairpin Yea, about that, I had a long back and forth with TECO, each TECO deals only with documents issued in that country (notarisation). So for me, my bro and I may need to run 3 TECOs to get this sorted. (Birth and where we each stay now)
Be prepared that you need to have your Canadian documents notarised in Canada and US documents notarised in the US unless all the documents you need are in the US then you probably just need to deal with US TECO.
But on the bright side, as everyone says, you don’t have to worry about whether your father’s hukou is in a “moved out” state when you were born. He is still a NWHR and you should qualify for direct HHR.
