A friend is willing to take me into their household register once I complete my required stay here in Taiwan and become eligible to apply for HHR.
Is there any tax implications on my friend’s part if they add me in their HHR? (Or any implications at all?) I just want to be sure that I won’t be causing them any trouble.
As long as you’re not paying rent, then there are no tax obligations on anybody’s part.
The only implication is that he would be falsifying information to the government, and the lizhang (head neighborhood snitch) might physically go visit your friend just to make sure you are actually living there.
None. I have my wifes relatives on our HHR and I am head of household.
Some related questions:
Later, to make changes in HHR registration, can you do that yourself, or do you need any signature from the friend (from the old HHR)?
Assuming one has secured some address at which to register HHR, then is it legal and possible in practice to apply for HHR for the first time, wait until all paperwork is complete (I guess a few weeks?), then after that immediately apply for HHR “move out” registration and move overseas outside of Taiwan? The purpose of this would be to permanently change one’s status from 無戶籍國民 to 有戶籍國民, in order to secure future rights to living in Taiwan permanently, but then still to live for several years outside of Taiwan, before later moving to Taiwan. In practice, I wonder if the HHR office might raise some objection like, “you just established your first HHR two weeks ago, and now you want to move out already? You can’t do that!”
Are the HHR move-out registration procedures documented online? I’ve been doing some web searching in English but couldn’t find a clear description yet. What is the “move-out” procedure called in Chinese?
When you apply for “move-out” HHR registration, does the HHR office keep a record of your overseas address in order to be able to contact you for important matters like mandatory payments for some government services that you may have forgotten about (pension, NHI, other taxes, etc…)?
That’s the issue.
If you search for anything related to Taiwan government policies or procedures in English, you pretty much will only get search results that bring you to Forumosa.
https://tth.taitung.gov.tw/files/11-1000-150-1.php
Chinese English comparison table of household registration cases
Thanks for your link. Strangely, though, I can’t open it. Maybe the web page is geographically restricted to Taiwan-only.
I did find this other page though:
https://service.gov.taipei/Case/ApplyWay/202112270006
It describes “出境遷出登記” which seems to be the HHR “move-out” registration, correct?
About the original question regarding implications of having the friend register someone else in his HHR:
From reading some of the application forms, it seems that there might be a minor implication that if the only people on the HHR are you and your friend, and your friend later moves to a new address (either within Taiwan, or overseas), then you might become the “head of household” of the old address, unless you also move your HHR to a new address.
On a slightly different topic, following up with tentative answers to my other questions posed above:
The page I linked above (https://service.gov.taipei/Case/ApplyWay/202112270006), describing HHR move-out registration, says: “持我國護照或外國護照出境2年以上應辦理遷出登記；出境未滿2年，亦得依當事人出境之事實辦理遷出登記。”, which Google translates as: “If you have been out of the country with a Chinese passport or a foreign passport for more than 2 years, you must apply for move-out registration; if you have been out of the country for less than 2 years, you may also apply for move-out registration based on the fact that the person has left the country.”
This implies that you might need to actually leave Taiwan for some time – in order to establish the 出境 status of leaving Taiwan – and only then are you allowed to apply for move-out registration for your HHR. It seems it should be possible to do the move-out registration online, without needing to return to Taiwan, at this site: 中華民國 內政部戶政司 全球資訊網 - 線上申辦出境遷出登記). (Maybe a TECO overseas office could also help, though I couldn’t find specific evidence to support this idea.)
As for the other issue about whether or not the HHR office keeps track of your foreign address after moving out:
It seems that the application forms for the HHR move-out registration – both online and paper forms – only ask for your phone number, and possibly email address (when applying online). There seems to be no way for you to report what your overseas address is, implying the HHR office, and other Taiwan government offices, don’t know and don’t care about your overseas address, so when living overseas, you would need to be proactive and reach out to the various Taiwanese government offices to check if there’s anything you need to do for or pay to the Taiwanese government.
At some point I’d like to make a wiki post here on the forum about all of the various obligations that are incurred when you first establish HHR. Items I’m aware of are national pension payments, NHI payments after qualifying for NHI after 6 months, and 31-day tax residency rules when you have HHR – but I guess there may be other obligations to be aware of also.
A few minutes only.
I wonder if you think too much. They have no care where you live either in Taiwan or overseas.
OK, the paperwork itself may take only a few minutes to submit, but I think you have to wait a while until you receive some documents like your 定居證, according to for example this page, which details the NWOHR HHR registration procedure for minors with a Taiwanese parent (which should be similar to the new procedure for non-minor NWOHRs with a Taiwanese parent applying for HHR under the new proposed law):
https://www.immigration.gov.tw/5385/7244/7250/7281/定居/36430/
Also, I guess there may be a delay before you actually receive your national ID card (身分證)?
The above page also says (again, for NWOHR minors applying for HHR for the first time) that if, after registering HHR for the first time, you want to travel abroad, then you apparently need to apply for a new passport – with national ID number – before you can leave the country.
I would guess that also will take some time to process before you can receive the new passport and be allowed to leave.
So it seems that the fastest procedure for establishing first-time HHR then moving out might be:
Then later, when you want to live in Taiwan again, having already established the first HHR, you simply reactivate (I guess it’s called “move-in”) your existing HHR.
this is a kind of permission to establish your HHR. After you get the permission, you go to HHR office to establish your HHR and ID card. maybe it (HHR and ID card) takes about 1 hr at most.
Thanks. I’m starting to research the 定居證. Do you have any idea yet how this will work with the new proposed law where NWOHRs (with Taiwanese parent who has/had HHR) can apply for HHR without the 1-year TARC residency? Will the 定居證 still be needed? What are the conditions for receiving a 定居證?
If I’m understanding the above page correctly (https://www.immigration.gov.tw/5385/7244/7250/7281/定居/36430/), it seems that when you apply for HHR by providing the documents they require, then the HHR office will first give you the 定居證 (which takes 7-10 days), then you use that to further apply for HHR and the ID card (which takes about 1 hour). In other words, it seems like the 定居證 does not need to be applied for separately, but can be applied for at the same time as part of the application for the initial HHR registration. Please correct me if I misunderstood!
→ NIA issues the 定居證, see post below.
you apply for 定居證 at NIA, then establish your HHR with the 定居證 at HHR office.
Minor (Anyone with parents with HHR under the new law)
Instructions for Application to Register Permanent Residence as a Taiwan National Without Household Registration by Minors (Born Overseas)
Adult
Instructions on Document Submission in Applications for Residence or Extension of Residence or Change of Reason for Residence in the Taiwan Area by R.O.C. (Taiwan) Nationals Without Household Registration in the Taiwan Area
Instructions for applying for Registered Permanent Residence as a Taiwan National without household registration who has met the required period of residence/continuous residence
Please note that for TAIWANESE citizens, it is quite common for the HHR and actual residence to be different. One reason why train/bus tickets gets sold out on election day is because they must go to their HHR district to vote, and so people travel to vote.
I do not know how enforcement is different for NWOHR gaining HHR. Just that lizhang looking to see if you live at your HHR never happens, but again, this is for TW citizens.
Also, your HHR is “lost” when you stay out of Taiwan for more than 2 years. Citizenship do not get lost, however HHR does. All it really does is cancels your NHI, or whatever other government benefit you have. It means you don’t get NHI back until you have stayed in Taiwan for more than 6 months.
Reason many Taiwanese come back every year is because they have more than their NHI that gets lost if their HHR gets lost.
HHR is not lost, just recorded as you are in overseas.
If you return within 2 years since your NHI is canceled, so 4 years in total since you leave, you don’t need to wait for 6 months.
Yea, I had that happen to me. When I went back to the states I was ready to sever all ties to the ROC once I was able to, so didn’t care to come back and maintain that HHR.
A couple of questions on severing ties to the ROC while living overseas:
Did you manually apply for move-out registration for your HHR, or did you wait (for 2 years) for the HHR office to automatically move you out?
In case you waited for 2 years for the HHR office to move you out automatically, did the HHR office contact you overseas to inform you that they would move you out of your HHR? This government page says that they will contact you, but how do they contact you when you are overseas? Do they send postal mail to your overseas address? “After receiving notice from immigration authority for a concerned party depart from the country for more than two years, household registration office shall notice the concerned party to apply for Move-out Registration in a certain period of time. In case the concerned party doesn’t apply for Move-out Registration in the certain time limit, household registration office may proceed with the Moving-out Registration at its discretion pursuant to the Article 42 of this Act, and then notify the concerned party.”
In case you applied by yourself for move-out registration before waiting 2 years, then where and when did you apply for move-out registration? Before you left Taiwan, or after? If after you left Taiwan, then where did you complete the application – online? At a TECO office overseas? Or did you have to come back to Taiwan to do the move-out registration?
you can do 出境遷出登記 online or ask to someone with your power of attorney. or
單身戶或全戶人口即將出境，如國內無人可委託或授權辦理遷 出國外登記，戶政所得依當事人或戶長出境前提出之書面申 請，於其出境後代查詢出境資料並辦理遷出登記。
when you come back, you need an address again to move your hhr in.
they send a letter to the address of your hhr, where you are supposed to reside.
I didn’t do anything, all I did was cancel nhi before departure.
The move out occurs automatically once you’re out for more than 2 years.
By sever I mean to renounce ROC citizenship once I got a US one.
But now that I think about it keeping it is a good idea. Taiwan doesn’t care and having roc citizenship means easy immigration to china should that become attractive.
I know a nwohr who got hhr just so he could go to china.