How to get around 30-day limit for visa-free entry into ROC?

If I arrive at TPE and enter visa-free with a US passport(or any other eligible foreign passport),
then I must exit TPE within 30 days. Is this correct?

If so, can I get around this by making a short TPE-HKG-TPE trip on the 29th day? For example,
I fly from TPE to HKG, clear HK immigration and come right back to TPE on the next available
flight. Do I get another 30 days upon the second entry? Would the passport checkers give
me a hard time about having left TPE three hours ago?

Thanks!

[quote=“creamypanda”]If I arrive at TPE and enter visa-free with a US passport(or any other eligible foreign passport),
then I must exit TPE within 30 days. Is this correct?

If so, can I get around this by making a short TPE-HKG-TPE trip on the 29th day? For example,
I fly from TPE to HKG, clear HK immigration and come right back to TPE on the next available
flight. Do I get another 30 days upon the second entry? Would the passport checkers give
me a hard time about having left TPE three hours ago?

[/quote]

You are more then likely going to run into a problem here. Taiwan grants a U.S. passport holder a visa free 30 day stay if that person has a confirmed return ticket or onward ticket. So, when you enter Taiwan, they will be checking to see when your return flight is. If you are in Taiwan now and do not take the return flight you stated you had when you entered Taiwan, this will be a problem. However, you have a more problematic problem. If you fly from TPE to HKG as you state, when you try to re-enter Taiwan, you will have no return or onward flight to show the authorities as your ticket to HK was a round trip ticket from TPE to HKG. Therefore, you do not qualify for a visa free 30 day stay based on a round trip flight from TPE to HKG. If you are U.S. passport holder, you might want to take a look at this site: travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_t … _1036.html

do they actually ask to see return tickets? I’ve never once been asked for my ticket when
entering Taiwan…(at least not since 1990)…

[quote=“creamypanda”]do they actually ask to see return tickets? I’ve never once been asked for my ticket when
entering Taiwan…(at least not since 1990)…[/quote]

You provide that information on the landing form, a copy of which is attached to your passport when you are granted entry to Taiwan. They can verify that information with the airlines if they wish.

One thing to note, your passport is electronically scanned everytime you enter Taiwan. They can pull up a complete record of your entries and exits at the push of a button.

Yes, you are allowed 30 days per entry. Yes, you can hop over to Hong Kong and come right back. Ga-Ma is correct that you need a ticket out of the country each time you enter, but that’s an easy requirement to fulfill. I’ve talked to people who bounce in and out of the country on 30 day landing visas and never heard of a problem with it unless there was some other issue such as overstay or illegal work.

I’ve never heard of anyone being checked for the “ticket out” requirement.

Same here; haven’t seen that in 12 years here.

You can go to your local TECO office in US and obtain a 60-day tourist visa. We did that last year because we were in between jobs and didn’t have our ARC yet. It costs $50-100.

Yes, provided you have an onward ticket. (You probably won’t be asked to show one, but you might be. Better safe than sorry.) You do NOT have to go through immigration in Hong Kong. The only requirement is for you to emigrate from Taiwan. You can check in for outward and return flights in Taibei, transfer to your return flight in Hong Kong Airport and come straight back. I have done it several times. Apart from speed, another advantage is that the airline will not ask to see a return or onward ticket - but immigration might want to see one when you get back to Taiwan (see below).

This is completely wrong. You can put down any return or onward flight on your disembarkation form (obviously it should match the details on your return or onward flight ticket in the unlikely event you are asked to show it). You can then leave Taiwan by any airline (or shipping line), to any destination, on any date within 30 days of your arrival. You can arrive at Chiang Kai-Shek airport and leave from Gaoxiong or Jilong. The authorities just want you out of here within 30 days - they don’t care where you go or how you get there - as long as you exit through immigration at an international port of entry before your 30 days are up.

[quote=“creamypanda”]Do they actually ask to see return tickets? I’ve never once been asked for my ticket when
entering Taiwan…(at least not since 1990)…[/quote][quote=“Dragonbones”][quote=“Chris”]I’ve never heard of anyone being checked for the “ticket out” requirement.[/quote]
Same here; haven’t seen that in 12 years here.[/quote]
You would have seen it if you were standing behind me on Sunday morning when my luck ran out. The lady immigration official wanted to make me get a landing visa (NT$2,000). Her supervisor wanted me to buy an outward ticket before letting me through - I had over NT$10,000 cash on me in case of this very eventuality - but eventually he decided to let me through “just this time” when I mentioned having had an ARC in the past, being currently out of a job and needing to go home and feed my adopted stray dogs.

I made the mistake of staying in the transit lounge overnight because my flight arrived around 2 am in the morning. When I arrived in the immigration lobby just before 9 am there was not a single other passenger there and all the normal desks were closed so I had to go through the diplomatic channel. Therefore all the bureaucratic attention was focused on me alone and they gave me the full monty. I am sure if I had gone through straight after my arrival, or later in the morning when there were other passengers arriving, they would not have done the return/onward ticket check. Well…you live and learn.

Slight correction - you can go to TECO anywhere and apply for a visitor visa (no such thing as a tourist visa) - but the don’t have to give you one. They can give you an unextendable 60-day visa, or a 30-day one, or a 15-day one, or no visa at all. They are bureaucrats, they have the power.

Visa-exempt entry has the advantage of not costing anything.

Last April, my initial visit to Taiwan from the US on an entry permit, I was not asked to show an onward or return ticket. I was only asked to write my departing flight number on my Embarkation Card that they give you while on the plane.

Last September I did the same thing. This time the customs officer at the airport wanted to see my actual ticket for an onward or return flight. I did not have one. Remaining cool and calm I said “Its an E-Ticket, I will receive it when I depart”. He looked at my Embarkation Card and at the flight number I wrote in, and waved me into the country.

Last month, when I arrived in May, the scenario for April happened again. They did NOT ask to see an actual ticket.

I just got back from Bangkok Friday, doing a visa run. I now have a 60 day visitor visa extendable. I forgot to write in my onward / return flight number on my embarkation card. AFTER he stamped my passport allowing entry and waved me in, he called me back to the counter before I could get too far. Apologized and said he forgot to ask my departing flight number. I have a return flight to the US for the end of October, which is 2 months past the deadline of my Visa. I gave him that flight number. He wrote it down and waved me in…no other questions asked.

So, what does all this mean?

1.) You do not need to show a physical ticket. This seems to be only done from your place of departure if US. They usually wont let you leave your country and get on the plane without showing the ticketing agent at leat a confirmed return or onward itinerary. If, in the odd chance you are asked to show an onward ticket at the customs counter, simply say its an E-Ticket.

2.) It is all the luck of the draw. Whether you will be asked depends on which customs officer you end up talking to. There is no set order, rhyme, or reason to almost anything here. So be prepared and have a flight number handy and a good smile. Dress decent too, yes it does make a difference.

** By the way, doing a “visa run” is not “getting around” a 30 day entry. You are simply doing it the legal and legitimate way. There is NO WAY to “get around” a 30 day entry unless you are deathly ill and hospitalized and cant make your flight. In which case they may even decide to pack up your hospital bed onto a cargo 747, strap you to the bulkhead, and send you on your merry little way home.

It means that if the space for return flight information on your embarkation card is left blank, that customs agent’s supervisor is going to give him a hassle. :wink:

I got my stamp though :bouncy:

and it was not :banned:

Of course I would encourage others not to “forget” to write that important little number down on their embarkation card :wink:

Which leads me to wonder…had that agent not called me back and gotten my flight number, would they have tracked me down in taipei? I doubt it. He probably would have just received a tongue lashing from his supervisor. :raspberry:

No way man, he’d just write down the return flight number for whatever flight you’d come in on.

[quote=“jlick”]
No way man, he’d just write down the return flight number for whatever flight you’d come in on.[/quote]

Now there’s a man that understands Chinese culture! :bravo: :wink:

You are quite right except we are talking about immigration officers here, not customs.

Spot on. I was going to say that myself. I call it a “non-visa run” because there is actually no visa involved.

…Or there is some kind of disaster like an outbreak of infectious disease e.g. SARS. There is another way - guanxi (connections). Last year I got a new visa issued in Taiwan at the request of a legislator’s office (I asked for an extension but what I actually got was an entirely new visa). However, the circumstances were exceptional and this option will not be available to most people.

I was asked about a return ticket once and I didnt have one. The customs guy got on the phone and called up someone. Then a woman came to talk to me and asked if I had a return ticket. I said no and she left. I was getting worried they were going to kick me out but then she returned with a computer printout that said I was booked on a flight out in 30 days. I didn’t need to buy the ticket or give anyone money. The customs guy just took the reservation, photocopied that for their records and let me through. I never did buy the ticket.

The immigration guy. Customs officers are the ones who look inside your bags.

Or in my case, the guys who never look inside my bags. I usually write something trivial down and ask, all doe-eyed, whether I have to declare it. They fall for it every time. :laughing:
But we’re off topic now. Back to “how to get around 30-day limit for visa-free entry into ROC?”…