I know someone who’s interested in changing their work-based ARC into a student visa-based ARC. They want to finish the job they’ve been at for the last two years, and then study under the student visa for a year, and then reapply for the work-based visa after that (I think, though I’m not too sure about the last part). Can this be done from within Taiwan, without having to go overseas to physically change the type of visa you have? Does anyone have any ideas? Usually, it’s the other way around …
I did this a few years back, and yes, I did have to leave.
i did it a few months ago and had to leave
This question will probably be valid for me in Sep. as well. Please kindly PM or post here how it went. Sounds really strange to have to leave, but seeing it happened just a few months ago… Well I guess I should stop being surprised anymore.
YingFan
well i was worried the whole time but it all went smoothly. i went through the CLI visa machine. i only needed a student visa (yes i know its not called student visa) for a couple of months though, not sure how it would work for a year. probably quite easy i you get all the papers prepared. go and see the school as soon as possible. if anyone needs more help post questions here and ill try to remember what i did
Yes, if you could give an idea about the process involved, like how many days/weeks it took, where did you end up going for the visa itself, things like that, it would probably be very helpful.
Let me see what I can remember:
I had a work permit with a few months left on it. I quit that job so I could teach privates for lots of cash. I went to CLI to enrol for classes (because I have a strong desire to learn Chinese and get a visa). I explained what I wanted and the guy told me I’d have to leave and come back. In my opinion CLI are the people who know most about visas.
They gave me all the documents I’d need and advised me to choose Thailand instead of the stricter Hong Kong office, though the next time I went they said I should actually have gone to Malaysia. It was my first time going to Thailand so I decided to make a little holiday of it - I’d stay for 5 days.
I went to the office in Bangkok (very hard to find because I lost the paper CLI gave me with the address on it and the first search result on google was 5 years out of date - I spent a morning exploring a mostly-abandoned skyscraper) and had the usual panic attack - what if my ARC hadn’t been cancelled? what if they rejected my application? what if they asked me questions in Chinese?
But it all went smoothly - so smoothly I came back to Taiwan early (I didn’t know what to do in Bangkok). I extended the visa once or twice then got it changed to a work visa through an anxinban I got some hours at.
The most helpful thing I can say is go to CLI. It cost me 3000 a month for lessons (or something) but they do everything for you and of course learning Chinese is very useful and after all the lessons I attended I am pretty fluent.
