Went through this exact process earlier this year and found myself in a similar situation to you – everyone kept telling me that I needed it to be “registered” in the US but the US does not have a central marriage registration system and all “abroad” marriages are automatically valid in the US, so this is not possible.
I just skimmed this thread so I’m not sure if you’re currently in Taiwan on a tourist visa (ie 90-day-visa-exempt) or if you’re in Taiwan on a work visa? The following is if you’re in Taiwan on a visa-exempt status (I think a work visa is slightly different in that you don’t need to leave the country and can just head down to NIA):
- Taiwan doesn’t let you change to a JFRV visa if you’re in Taiwan on a visa-exempt status. This means that you’ll have to plan a trip to HK or Macau. I believe you have two paths here:
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- You can try to apply for a JFRV visa directly in HK/Macau. This was my original plan, but the lady at the Macau TECRO office kept stating that I needed prove that the marriage was “registered” in the US and that people had produced a document before stating as such. I believe that this document was just another affidavit stating that the marriage is valid in the US , but since I was already in Macau I couldn’t get this.
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- So instead, I applied for a “Tourist Visa for Visiting Relatives” in Macau and entered Taiwan on that. I then went down to the NIA office and was able to convert that to an ARC without any issues (and without the affidavit).
I wrote more information on the process here: American having issues with getting ARC after extensive research
Let me know if you still have any questions – I’d plan for a 4 day trip in Macau, or 3 day in HK