Hi!
Sorry for yet another question regarding marriage and legal status…
I checked several websites and forum conversations and I still can’t really find a clear answer to my interrogation: When getting married in Taiwan (being a foreigner and marrying a Taiwanese citizen) and applying for a Marriage ARC (in my case from another ARC but my question goes also for people marrying while under visa and applying for an ARC later on), do we need a certified translation of the marriage certificate from our country of origin?
I can understand my country of origin wants to know about the change of my marital status, but as long as I don’t live/work/pay taxes there, why should it intervenes in the recognition of my Taiwanese marriage IN Taiwan and the resident status that goes with it IN Taiwan?
I wouldn’t be so annoyed by this extra step if the recognition of my foreign marriage by my country of origin (and then by the Taiwanese office of representation abroad) didn’t involve tons of paperwork, costly translations and administrative delays…
From the messages I saw online, some people had to ask a certified translation of their marriage recognition certificate abroad to be able to get their ARC and some didn’t need to.
If you are married in Taiwan and reading this, I would really appreciate to have a short indication of how this went for you.
Of course, I can and will ask the NIA about all that, but I am afraid to have the answer I wish for when I come the first time for information only; and to get another side of the story/an employee with a different opinion on the matter when coming for real to apply for my Mariage ARC, ending up having to start all over again the *** process of translation/certification abroad. All that while having to do a visa run in HK because my ARC is gonna expire before I had time to finish the paperwork…
I hope I made my situation clear enough to be understood. Thanks in advance to the ones who will take the time to answer!
M.
Like you said it depends on what person you got in NIA. I didn’t have to register my marriage in my own country but my friend had to. I got married one month after him and we went to same NIA. I think it’s total luck
It depends on what visa you are in Taiwan right now.
I entered Taiwan on 90 days Visa exemption to marry. This was a mistake. This can not be converted to another visa even if you got married and have a legal reason to stay in Taiwan. So I could not get my ARC. I had to reenter on a visitor visa to get my marriage based ARC. NIA officer said this is a stupid regulation but he has to follow the law.
Visitor visa for joining family purposes require your marriage to be registered in the home countries of you and your partner. You need to provide a document from your home country that proves it is registered in there.
Bureaucratic nonsense in my home country gave me no choice but to return to handle it in person. No way to get it in timely manner to just do a visitor visa run to Hong Kong.
TL;DR
Before marrying make sure you are on a visa that can be changed to JFRV based on marriage based ARC.
I didn’t. We had to go through some translations but it was all done in Taiwan. I remember I had to get some paperwork back home (like proof that I wasn’t already married and criminal record), got them sent here from my dad via FedEx or TNT, then a local lawyer took care of the translation. We then provided the paperwork to the government office and it was all done.
Regarding the marriage status back in my country: they did it automatically. As soon as our wedding was registered here in Taiwan they sent notice to my country and everything was done with no involvement or expenses on my part.
When we had to go through the process we looked for information online then asked the local government office in Yilan as well as the Taiwanese “embassy” (not real embassy, but basically the same) in my country and the information where all completely different. “YOU ABSOLUTELY NEED DOCUMENT X” → “Nah, you don’t need X” → “What’s that x document you’re talking about?”. Eventually we showed up with a lot of paperwork and only needed maybe half of it.
It took some time (documents from abroad were the slowest part) but everything went smoothly for us. Every now and then I read some horror stories here, so your mileage may vary.
After paying a visit to the NIA:
Currently holding an ARC, it seems like the change of ARC is actually gonna be very easy for me as all I need is “The ROC Citizen’s Household Registration Transcript from the most recent 3 months”.
It also seems that even entering with a simple visitor visa, we foreigner actually shouldn’t have to bother with this “certified translation of our marriage recognition in our country of origin”… But then it’s weird that I saw it mentioned in several official websites I checked (from my country and from Taiwan…).
Here also lies the complex questions of the visas: Can we obtain visitor visas without having to justify a registration in a school or a family purpose… This post is not about those questions and I’ll try not to bother with them as long as I don’t have to. Good luck to the ones who do!
