Hello Forumosa-ers, I imagine many individuals born overseas to a Taiwanese parent are aware of the Taiwan Overseas Passport. It looks like a Taiwanese passport, but in reality it is not the same since it does not indicate your ID Card number or Household Registration number unless you have fulfilled the residency requirement or were registered by your Taiwanese parent in Taiwan before you reached the age of 20 (and therefore have an ID Card already).
There is actually a Wikipedia article (here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_ … gistration), but it seems like a large number of these passport holders are actually in the Philippines and in the border regions of Thailand and Philippines. But surely there are a large number of people holding these passports in the United States, Europe and elsewhere, and my questions are as follows:
Is this a valid travel document? My understanding is that without an ID Card number listed in the passport, holders of this passport do not enjoy visa-free access to the areas that regular Taiwan passport holders enjoy (here: upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ … ree-v2.png), including the United States, Canada, and the Schengen Area. Essentially, holding this passport without the ID Card number means you need to get a visa for every single country you want to visit (obviously in Europe you could get a multi-year Schengen visa to travel throughout the continent without requiring multiple visas).
Most countries probably aren’t familiar with Taiwan’s separate setup of “Household Registration holders” and “Nationals Without Household Registration (NWOHR)”. Does anybody know which countries that permit Taiwanese to enter visa free also allow visa-free access for NWOHR’s? I know the first answer would be to say that you should use your primary passport, American or Australian let’s say, for travel, but assume you don’t have an alternate passport and all you have is the Taiwanese passport without household registration ID number. Could you effectively travel on this and to where?
Has anybody ever heard of or met anyone with only the Taiwanese overseas passport? It’d be interesting to find out if one is able to function and travel internationally and work (open business accounts, register companies, etc) and live their life with only this overseas passport.
Ironically, the Taiwan overseas passport requires an entry permit to enter in Taiwan itself. People who have British overseas passports for example don’t have this requirement to re-enter Britain, but Taiwan has it’s archaic rules. In 2011, an article came out stating that there was some legislative motion to remove the requirement for Entry Permits to return to Taiwan (here: appledaily.com.tw/appledaily … 6/33600621). However here we are in 2013 and entry permits are still required. Any idea if this rule eliminating this requirement is still pending or has it been taken off the table?
Thanks in advance for your answers, I’m sure many of you are experts on the matter.
Just want to share that I wish there were answers to this post. My situation: Born and raised in Philippines. Taiwanese passport without ID. With Philippine residence ID / No Philippine passport. I just moved to Shanghai and have trouble opening a bank account… the bank managers (ICBC, CCB…) tell me they cannot open an account for me or that I should get a Chinese passport.
[quote=“myoungabr2”]Hello Forumosa-ers, I imagine many individuals born overseas to a Taiwanese parent are aware of the Taiwan Overseas Passport. It looks like a Taiwanese passport, but in reality it is not the same since it does not indicate your ID Card number or Household Registration number unless you have fulfilled the residency requirement or were registered by your Taiwanese parent in Taiwan before you reached the age of 20 (and therefore have an ID Card already).
There is actually a Wikipedia article (here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_ … gistration), but it seems like a large number of these passport holders are actually in the Philippines and in the border regions of Thailand and Philippines. But surely there are a large number of people holding these passports in the United States, Europe and elsewhere, and my questions are as follows:
Is this a valid travel document? My understanding is that without an ID Card number listed in the passport, holders of this passport do not enjoy visa-free access to the areas that regular Taiwan passport holders enjoy (here: upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ … ree-v2.png), including the United States, Canada, and the Schengen Area. Essentially, holding this passport without the ID Card number means you need to get a visa for every single country you want to visit (obviously in Europe you could get a multi-year Schengen visa to travel throughout the continent without requiring multiple visas).
Most countries probably aren’t familiar with Taiwan’s separate setup of “Household Registration holders” and “Nationals Without Household Registration (NWOHR)”. Does anybody know which countries that permit Taiwanese to enter visa free also allow visa-free access for NWOHR’s? I know the first answer would be to say that you should use your primary passport, American or Australian let’s say, for travel, but assume you don’t have an alternate passport and all you have is the Taiwanese passport without household registration ID number. Could you effectively travel on this and to where?
Has anybody ever heard of or met anyone with only the Taiwanese overseas passport? It’d be interesting to find out if one is able to function and travel internationally and work (open business accounts, register companies, etc) and live their life with only this overseas passport.
Ironically, the Taiwan overseas passport requires an entry permit to enter in Taiwan itself. People who have British overseas passports for example don’t have this requirement to re-enter Britain, but Taiwan has it’s archaic rules. In 2011, an article came out stating that there was some legislative motion to remove the requirement for Entry Permits to return to Taiwan (here: appledaily.com.tw/appledaily … 6/33600621). However here we are in 2013 and entry permits are still required. Any idea if this rule eliminating this requirement is still pending or has it been taken off the table?
Thanks in advance for your answers, I’m sure many of you are experts on the matter.[/quote]
Thanks, interesting questions.
I can only add for a fact that for Guam and Saipan, they require that you have a Taiwan ID to enter visa free (and also to travel directly from Taiwan).
I was let into Germany twice but denied in Spain with my NWOHR passport. When I was denied in Spain, it was no big deal to just handover my American one.
