Hey so, I’m quite confused about the term “student visa” that I hear thrown around a lot. I’ve heard you can’t legally work on a student visa - in that, you won’t be eligible for a work permit even if you apply.
Anyways, I have an extendable visitor’s visa, which was issued to me because I was accepted to study at Shi-Da starting this March. On the visa Remarks section, it says “FR” and that I am here to study Mandarin at Shi-Da. The visa type is clearly VISITOR, not student. Nevertheless, it was issued to me for the purpose of study. Is this the so-called “student visa” everyone talks about, or are you all referring to the study ARC that I could get after four months of study in Taiwan?
I would like to avoid a visa run to HK if necessary, because I definitely want to work while living in Taiwan.
Thanks!
You can’t work with that visa, legally. You will have to get a job and leave and re-enter on a visitor visa that has that has ‘work’ as your purpose for visit. You’ll need docs from your employer for this.
On a related issue, I would be interested to know can I be a student whilst on visa exempt entry, in particular the 90-day extendable to 180-day entry that UK people get?
I have no intention of working in Taiwan, but was thinking of signing up to a short intensive Chinese course.
Even if it’s not an issue for immigration, would the lack of a student visa be an issue for a college?
London boy, yes, you can. The college won’t mind - but you can’t work at all. Those on visitor visas usually only get those as their nationality’s visa-free period is only one month.
You can’t open a bank account though.
one_too, on a visitor visa you can’t apply for an ARC or open a bank account. You’ll need to change your visa to a ‘resident’ visa. Now the work/study thing comes under the ‘type’ section - so you have a Visitor Student Visa.
You can go to the immigration department and change to a Resident Student Visa, but as for working legally, you first need to have been studying for one year, have an excellent academic record and then need to prove financial need. You need a Work Permit to work legally, and those are the requirements to apply for one (I think you need to apply through your school for a student work permit or something…? )
Private tutoring and on-campus work is legal without one, however.
Or you can just risk it and work on the sly like half the other students do.
Are you sure about this?
A former manager from Berlitz said that it was legal for people “student visas” (resident visa with study as purpose, not a visitor visa that gets extended to 6 months at a time) to work part time, IE less than 14 hours/week. I never verified that, but as a manager with a fairly reputable establishment, I would believe he would know what he was talking about.
Berlitz is not reputable - it’s world-famous in EFL for being one of the ninth circles of hell. 
In Britain, they pay £10 an hour for English teachers, £9 for European languages, £8 for ‘other’. If you can get them to pay you. Utterly hilarious shysters. I actually started giggling at my interview with them in the UK. But that’s a tale for another day.
Anyway. Off topic. It was certainly the case when I lived in Taiwan, but it may not be now. You need permission from your school, which may be granted after a year of study. You can do ten hours, but it’s supposed to be connected with your studies. I’m sure people get round it and ignore it, though.
When I was a student, I stopped bothering with visas at all for a while, just landing visas. Then I got a job and applied for a work permit. I did have a WP application turned down because I had ‘study’ as my purpose for entry on my Landing card, when I had a 60 day visitor visa.
I may be wrong, however.
Ok, ‘reputable’ is probably not the best word to describe them. My point was that I would expect them to know and follow the law so as not to risk their business in Taiwan.
And, now that you mention it, I do reall that the limit was 10 hours/week. He didn’t say anything about it needing to be related to your studies, but as you say, that is probably easily circumvented.