My Taiwanese partner and I plan to get married in Taiwan in January. We have collected all the documents required from my home country (Italy) - including a Criminal Record Certificate, to eventually apply for my ARC since we would like to have a family in Taiwan.
We thought we checked all the boxes for applying for the ARC - but an email to BOCA and reading on this forum made us realize that we must register our marriage in Italy first. This was a surprise as we thought the mentioned Marriage Certificate was the one from TW.
While I discovered that I could register the marriage in Taiwan from the Italian Office - authenticating it from the Taipei Office in Rome will mean going back and likely spending a month redoing the whole process. My family could help, but it will inevitably take even longer.
By reading the Immigration Act - I found a few interesting parts that don’t seem to mention this requirement or the need for a resident visa.
It’s totally possible that:
I am totally misunderstanding the document
They apply different rules regardless of what’s written in the Act
So - I would love a reality check on the below - and perhaps recent experiences with a similar situation.
As a visa-exempt visitor (+60 days) and my (future) spouse being a ROC nation with Household Registration - I can apply for an ARC
Requirements
Application Form
Passport and visitor visa
Health examination certificate: we will do this in Taipei
Valid proof of her residence in Taipei: we should be able to provide this
Valid Criminal record certificate: we have this, and it is translated/authenticated at Rome TECO
Documentary proof related to reasons for application: I may be misunderstanding this - but assuming we complete the marriage’s household registration, they don’t need anything?
So, as always BOCA talks shit, as it is not even their jurisdiction to talk about marriage, that’s MOI/HHRO competence. There is no legal requirement to marry in Italy first and then register. You can perfectly marry in Taiwan first and then register (trascrivere) at the IETCPO the properly notarised marriage certificate (the HHRO can issue the certificate in English, that suffice, no need for Italian translation).
A few warnings though to get the certificate of singles status from the IETCPO, that’s a pain in the ass:
You need to apply for it with HUGE notice, they r frigging slow
If u ever lived and been resident and AIRE registered in any other country in the world, IETCPO will require you to get first a certificate of single status from that country and have it registered with the competent Italian consular post for that country. That took me a day trip to HK and costed me quite a lot for all the fees, in Italy that is just a self-declaration free of charge… Then once the certificate of single status is issued, it must be certified at BOCA before being able to submit that at the HHRO for marriage registration (the certificate itself is issued in both Italian and Chinese already, kind from them)
Once the marriage is registered and certificate issued on the spot (ask for many of them, in both Chinese and English, they’ll come very handy), u need to go to a certified public notary to notarise the certificate before submitting it to IETCPO for registration (trascrizione).
WARNING: if you wish to keep your wealth separate (regime di separazione dei beni) you must apply for it at the District Court competent for the household registration district of your wife after the wedding is registered at the HHRO. By default in Taiwan the wealth of a married couple is in common (comunione dei beni), and as such it will be registered (trascritto) at your comune di registrazione AIRE if you don’t submit such document. It will take 10 business days to be sent to your house, then you need to certify it at the authorised public notary (get a certified true copy, they issue only the original, and ask to certify also the original, don’t ask me why, I literally had a fight with the vice-consul…).
After you submit all the documents to IETCPO, then your comune will need to register it on the side of your scheda di stato civile, and that will take anywhere between a few weeks to years depending on the public official attitude. My comune, Milano, hasn’t registered mine yet even if I submitted in August.
After all of this is done, you can then apply for the spousal visa. I haven’t done that since I am here on a gold card, so never had to apply for that. But I do think you need to apply via the TECO either in Rome or Milan (depending on your comune di residenza AIRE), I don’t think you can apply at MOFA/BOCA within Taiwan, but they will for sure ask a certificate from the Italian government showing that you are married for them too, they don’t give a shit about taiwanese certificates…
As a clarification, I have obtained a Single Status Certificate in Italy and have authenticated at TECO, so I hope I am set for the marriage.
The next obstacle is the need to register, obtain, and authenticate the Marriage Certificate at the Rome TECO as a requirement to apply for an ARC - which doesn’t seem to appear as a requirement in the Document I posted above - but it is according to BOCA and various experiences in this forum
I did not have to get my marriage certificate chopped by the TECO in UK. I married in Taiwan, took the marriage cert.along with my visitor visa to NIA for my ARC to be issued.
Same here. No need to get the Taiwan marriage certificate stamped by TECO in UK and no need to have the Taiwan marriage registered in the UK, since that’s not possible.
Update: when I contacted BOCA, they requested the marriage certificate for a resident visa. Instead - NIA confirmed a visitor visa is also okay. Since there is no need for a marriage certificate to get a visitor visa, I got the visitor visa. I was able to request the ARC with a visitor visa, and I got a pickup date. I do not know if this means it’s approved, but I suppose this answers the question of whether one can apply or not without a marriage certificate to apply for an ARC.