I’m a NY’er planning to move to Taiwan for a spell. Yes, I fell in love with a Taiwanese woman, but I also intend to build on the 2 years I’ve been studying Chinese and enroll as a student.
Without incurring too much wrath from readers, I’ll say that I earn significant passive income from US based real estate investments. In other words, I don’t have to work while in Taiwan.
So I’m basically semi retired. Anyone have any legit advice about residency under these conditions??
IIRC you can get residency if you are a student for at least 6 months. You’ll have to enter on a visa, not visa exempt. However, student residency doesn’t count towards permanent residency.
Can someone confirm this?
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Yeah, time on a student ARC doesn’t count towards permanent residency.
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If you are planning to settle long term, you should probably get a job as an English teacher for APRC purposes (or maybe start a business to get residency). You can also study Chinese while teaching on a work permit.
Otherwise you’ll have to marry that lady and get residency through her. Though my personal opinion is that you shouldn’t be dependent on anyone for residency in case the relationship goes sour.
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And again, Forumosans are kindly requested to distinguish between visas and work permits. 
(There is such a thing as a visa that lets you work, but other than the working holiday visa that Americans can’t get anyway, it’s not a common thing.)
We had a thread about this last year, in case someone has time to dig it up…
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In addition to marriage or study, an investment would give you a residency too, which is independent and is counted for a permanent residency, if you have enough money.
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Investment? What is this? what kind of money are we talking about?
being a newbie, I don’t get the ARC or IIRC distinctions. Never hurts to remind others what these stand for…
IIRC is “if I recall correctly”
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ARC is alien residency certificate, which is a permission of residency. You can get it based on marriage, study, employment, investment, etc.
If you reside for 5 or 3 years based on proper reason with proper financial state, you can apply for a permanent residency or naturalization. Residency based on study is not included into the 5 years.
As for residency based on investment, you can check here.
Invest Taiwan
投資臺灣入口網
http://investtaiwan.nat.gov.tw/homePage?lang=en
Laws & Regulations
http://investtaiwan.nat.gov.tw/showPage?lang=eng&search=1031003
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Ah yes, IIRC, the Indian Investment Residency Certificate. A little known loophole which technically shouldn’t allow you to live in Taiwan, but a few nefarious tricksters have managed to make it work.
If I remember correctly.
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