Hi all,
Currently in Taipei going through the process. Will leave notes to help future applicants as I’ve bumped into gotchas (mostly relevant to military age males) that haven’t been noted before in this thread, nor in any other resource I’ve read online.
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At NIA, when you request the Certificate of Entry/Exit Records for your NWOHR passport, they base it off the previous day. I landed in TPE at 5AM Monday and went to NIA the same day so the Certificate showed no entry. So I had to request another Certificate of Entry/Exit when I went to pick up my Residence Certificate. Picked up the Residence Certificate at 8AM on Thursday - 3 business days (for the copy exchange)
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I took my cousin’s 戶口名簿 to his HHR office to register under his household and get my 身分證. The worker not only asked for my relation to him, but also asked to see my father’s ancient 戶口名簿 from 40 years ago…good thing I brought it. Not sure why they needed it as his HHR has been moved out since the 80s. I assume it was so she could look up how I am related to my cousin? She also asked where my parents were married but didn’t ask to see their marriage certificate.
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At OCAC, the worker brought over two other employees to check my Certificates of Entry/Exit and were combing thoroughly through my US passport and NWOHR passport. This reddit thread made it out to be seamless but its not - the employee told me they had to verify something (my Chinese vocabulary is limited so I didn’t understand what the issue was). I couldn’t pick up my Overseas Compatriot endorsement until the next day, contrary to that reddit thread saying it only takes 20 min.
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I got a call same day from the conscription agency, again contrary to that reddit thread saying they’ll call you a few days later. I explained I was waiting for my OCAC letter and they said OK, bring your passport with the Overseas Compatriot stamp to the office ASAP.
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At BOCA, I had to fill out another form after I gave them the letter from OCAC. The worker told me she had never seen the OCAC letter before which was concerning…
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I got another call from the same person conscription agency after I dropped off my passport application - told them “hey I already told you I’m waiting for my passport from BOCA, I’ll bring it to you with the Overseas Compatriot stamp as soon as I get it…” so I’d recommend all military age males to pay for expedited passport processing to stop being hassled
I am currently waiting for my passport, will update if I run into any other gotchas. Note: this whole process in Taipei will require proficiency in Mandarin. Bring someone to help if you don’t have decent Mandarin or you’ll be stressed tf out.