Need a Taiwan visa for my son's Philippine passport - should I go to TECO Japan?

My son studies at TAS so needs to show a Taiwan visa to matriculate in the school this fall. Normally, Manila would be the natural place to get a Taiwan visa on a Philippine passport, but between my own challenging experiences dealing with Manila TECO over the past 30 years and my concerns over how the Philippines has handled Covid (also in this post - jump halfway down to the tips I shared in 2012), I am curious what other choices we can explore for getting my son a Taiwan visa.

The idea would be for my son to enter Japan on his ROC passport. We would bring his brand-new unused Philippine passport to the TECO office in Tokyo or Okinawa (there are 5 TECOs there, aren’t there?) to apply for his visa. I am wondering if the TECO offices there these days would raise any questions and deny the visa, since the Philippine passport would not have any visas from anywhere. I would certainly expect pushback in Manila (I’ve been challenged twice on why I chose to go to the Philippines to get my Taiwan visa – and the first time this happened, I was told the fact that my parents lived there and I grew up there were NOT valid enough reasons) and I am hoping the TECO offices in Japan are not as difficult to deal with.

If there wasn’t a pandemic, we would go to HK to take care of this, which we have done in the past. My experience of HK TECO is that it’s a busy no-nonsense place - and they ask few questions. But I prefer not to go to HK this time, so I am wondering if we should go to Japan or Palau instead, since my son should not have any trouble going there with his ROC passport.

Bit confused, so your son has an ROC and a Philippines passport, but you want him to get a Taiwan visa for his Philippine passport and then enter Taiwan on that?

I was under the impression Taiwan nationals must enter Taiwan on their Taiwan passports.

But maybe I’m wrong

No, I did not say anything about entering Taiwan. He needs to show the school a Taiwan visa on his foreign passport.

Are you sure the school won’t check that he entered on that visa by looking for the stamp?

How will enter Japan, is he a resident? (no tourist now)

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Try Singapore?

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I don’t think Japan is open to nonresidents now.

As suggested above, Singapore might make more sense.

Guy

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Thank you. I hadn’t thought about Singapore - and if we run into problems there, we could still drop by Manila on the way back to Taiwan to try there.

I am still curious about Guam and Palau, especially since Palau has a full Taiwan embassy.

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What I’m curious about is how any Taiwan rep office/embassy is going to give your son a Taiwan visa in his foreign passport when they know he is an ROC citizen. And unless things have changed since I last applied for a visa, they will know, because they ask if you have any other citizenships other than the one you are applying with. Unless you plan to lie…

Also, what visa are you planning to apply for? A student one? If so, make sure that TAS doesn’t require him to have a visa/ARC valid for the entirety of the academic year, because if he doesn’t enter on that student visa, he can’t get an ARC based on it, and the visa itself will not be valid for the whole year.

Also, applying for a student visa, and telling them the purpose is to use it to enter Taiwan to study, even though you know full well that you aren’t going to use it to enter Taiwan to study could be seen as applying for the visa on false pretenses. So you should check.

It would have to be for residency, not a student visa

I do not recall ever being asked by a TECO office if I had any other citizenships than whatever I presented to them. But then I’ve only been living and visiting Taiwan since 1993. YMMV

In addition to this, on the visa form don’t you have to specify all the places you’ve been in the last X amount of time because of COVID?

When he says he has been in Taiwan recently but his passport doesn’t have any history of that and their system won’t have any history of his passport entering Taiwan, surely it will raise red flags that he was either in Taiwan illegally, or he in fact has Taiwanese citizenship.

I feel like this whole plan of getting him a visa in a foreign passport despite being a Taiwanese citizen already is a hot legal mess, and you should probably consult an immigration lawyer before potentially breaking the law.