My partner has obtained his Gold Card but I am still in the process of looking for a job in Taiwan. He is French and I am British, we are not married but we will get a PACS (Civil Solidarity Pact), i.e. a civil partnership, in France over the next few months. This civil partnership is very popular in France but I am not sure whether this is recognised for the purpose of the visa.
Q. Does the Gold Card consider such civil partnerships the same way as marriages and therefore, offer partners the same benefits as spouses?
Hi Deni, you should contact your local Taiwanese Embassy or Taiwan Office that is going to process the entry visa or residence permit for you. In your case, it sounds like it might be the one in Paris https://www.roc-taiwan.org/fr_fr/index.html
In regards of marriage or other kinds of civil partnership, I just recently applied for an entry permit from the Netherlands and they definitely required a marriage certificate.
Any other kind of partnership document was not accepted, since in Taiwan you can only be a āspouseā if you are married.
Again, make sure to check personally with the Taiwan embassy who will issue you the permits.
Thanks fonserbc for all the info! As Iām still currently based in the UK, I have been trying to get in touch with the embassy here but canāt say Iāve had much luck getting a response unfortunately.
Are you aware of any other visas that would be applicable to me, given my situation?
I am not sure there is currently any way for you to enter Taiwan other than a a spouse visa or a gold-card yourself, because of the restrictions on visa issuing and entering Taiwan due to covid.
Regarding the spouse visa, it might be very complicated, but it is not impossible. Again, contact your local embassy/office from Taiwan for detailed guidelines, because you have to do anything and everything they require from you.
Just to give you a heads up of the complexity: I was Spanish national, married in the Netherlands, applying for a spouse visa through the Taiwan office in the Netherlands, but yet this office required a Spanish marriage certificate legalized by the foreign affairs bureau of Spain, and legalized again by the Taiwan office in Spain.
The whole process of obtaining the visa took over 4 months for me because of all the required documents.