Actually you may be right as she clarified that I met #2. Yes I was born in 1985 to a Taiwanese mother and American father in the USA. But she said I still needed to go live in Taiwan for a year. Where did you find the information that I can get household registration without having to wait a year?
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It is only if you were born in Taiwan.
In Chinese
https://www.immigration.gov.tw/ct_cert.asp?xItem=1088361&ctNode=32596&mp=1
you mean #4?
I had misunderstood it that the parent(s) should reside in Taiwan now. If you were born at parent(s) with households registration, you can get a TARC. Thank you for letting me know the correct regulation.
By the way, its English translation is terrible.
“四、居住臺灣地區設有戶籍國民在國外出生之子女，年齡在二十歲以上。”
"4 Was or is born in overseas, resides in the Taiwan Area and has registered his/her permanent residence at a household registry in the area. The person is at the age of twenty (20) or up. "
Sorry i meant #2 in the chinese one and yes #4 in the English link. I don’t see where it says that for #4 that the parents must be residing there now. Just curious where you heard that? I don’t think it would make sense to make it that difficult for a passport holder to gain citizenship.
No, I’ve heard nowhere. I had just misunderstood the subparagraph.
I am in a similar position, so I wanted to confirm here that the National Immigration Agency in Taiwan did tell me that it is possible to apply under “居住臺灣地區設有戶籍國民在國外出 生之子 女,年 齡在 二十歲 以 上” (application option AF384). No current household registration is needed for the parent, but under this option my understanding is that the parent needed to have household registration at the time when the child was born overseas.
I must also say that the English translation in the government documents is bad and misleading. I may try to see if there is a way to suggest this gets changed.
Despite this, the people at TECO actually told me I could not apply (the person discussing it with me even asked their supervisor to arrive at this conclusion), so be sure to not get discouraged right away and discuss it with both them and the National Immigration Agency to arrive at the most accurate conclusion. The people at TECO first said I could not apply because I don’t have direct lineal relatives (i.e. mother or grandparents or children or siblings) residing in Taiwan. However, this is of course only one of the options for applying so I had to point that out. They hadn’t asked me which option I was applying under, so I clarified that only one of the options is needed and I was choosing the method of AF384. Then the person told me this does not apply because it refers to nationals with household registration. I had to point out that if we read the full sentence, it says “之子女” and it refers to that national’s child. Then I was told it doesn’t apply to me because my mom has no active household registration (she is deceased). So I had to point out that while I was in Taiwan I went to the National Immigration Agency and asked along with my cousin and we all confirmed that this option refers to a child born abroad to a Taiwan national with household registration who has household registration at the time of birth, regardless of not maintaining it later. This was all a discussion in Chinese and at that point they decided to go ahead and help me with the application process.
One other point to clarify if it’s helpful: I was never asked to provide a reason for applying.
Personally, I don’t want to blame the people at TECO too much, because the law truly is complicated and they might rarely process such cases. However, I want to post this story not to admonish them, but because I think it could be possible that in the past they have told people like me it is impossible to apply, and maybe those people abandoned the process based on what seems to be an inaccurate conclusion. This would be a bad outcome for a government office designed to facilitate the law, so I think it’s important to make sure we check with the relevant government offices thoroughly (i.e. immigration) before making conclusions, even if TECO or any other government office says something conflicting.
Having Chinese language skills helps a lot in these cases also. I think this can sometimes be especially true for multiracial people who might be racially, culturally, or legally misperceived by others.
My application was actually recently submitted and still pending, but I’ll try to post another update to confirm later.
All of that said, this is not a simple process and you need to prepare all kinds of documents which takes a considerable amount of time a decent chunk of cash. If you have deceased relatives or were born in a country other than the one where you reside, it can be even more challenging to get these documents. It’s certainly feasible, and people do it, but for anyone reading be prepared to face some challenges. So while I wasn’t asked for a reason, I think anyone wanting to go through this process would probably want a reason for themselves to subject themselves to this process.
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Thank you, multipass, for sharing your experiences here (and in the other topic). Please tell us more about the result of your application when it’s over!
I’m currently preparing my documents as well, and one thing I would like to avoid is being “refused” by the TECO because of some misunderstanding, just like you explained. For your application, did you ultimately hand it over to the TECO or did you already go to the National Immigration Agency for your application?
My idea was that I could simply prepare all of my documents, then go to the NIA directly and begin the process, but do you know whether the TECO has to approve your application first in some way or another?
As far as I know, you can theoretically do all of your application overseas by submitting your application to the TECO. After this, you will get a carbon copy of your TARC and an entry permit to Taiwan, which you should use to enter Taiwan and get your real TARC.
If this is what you did, could you tell me how you did a conforming health examination overseas? Can the hospital provide their own certificate which you hand over, or did they have to fill out an ROC-issued examination report?
On the other hand, if you submitted your application in Taiwan, was the TECO involved in one way or another? Did you need to apply for a new Entry Permit and if yes, is there anything important I need to keep in mind for the Entry Permit?
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Hi Lain, sorry for the late reply. I didn’t get any notification that there was a new comment here.
If you get “refused,” I encourage you to just talk through it with them, and ask them directly if they’re saying the law should not be applied this way, even though the National Immigration Agency has been telling people it should be applied this way. I think it would be a huge headache for TECO if they are blamed publicly for turning away people and at the same time other people successfully applied under this law. They probably would want to avoid that kind of controversy (I would hope).
For my application, I did hand it over to TECO. It takes much longer, but I did this because:
- I plan to move several months later (be careful though, I think there may be some expiration to use the TARC like it must be used within 6 months or something like that if I recall correctly – I can’t say this is 100% accurate, so if you have concerns, please check this part too)
- I prefer to prepare the paperwork ahead of time in the U.S. where I’m currently residing, because TECO can at least tell me if I’m missing anything and I can go get it (i.e. at first I didn’t realize I needed to get the FBI background check authenticated by the Washington D.C. TECRO office). If you live in another country like Germany, I would think the national/federal level TECRO would need to authenticate that criminal background check document also. For me that means TECRO in D.C., the capital of the U.S. I could have worked these things out in Taiwan instead, but I just prefer to know I can have the TARC in hand before I plan to move my entire life to Taiwan. Imagine if someone like us moves to Taiwan and gets rejected – that would be pretty uncomfortable.
That said, your plan to go to NIA directly could have benefits. As far as I know, you do not need to go through TECO (except to authenticate the criminal background check with the national-level TECRO) other than for the passport, which I think needs to go through them. If you have papers from outside of Taiwan like birth certificate, parents marriage certificate, hospital check outside of Taiwan, etc., I think those things need to be authenticated by a TECO (I had to send my birth certificate to the Sydney TECO to get authenticated in the past, even though I live in California). In fact, TECO would probably prefer you just go to the NIA so they don’t have to deal with the complexity of this kind of case (I think they just didn’t want to deal with my case, or they were being prejudicial, or both). Going directly to the NIA would be easier because you cut out the middle man and deal directly with them. They also know the law far more clearly, it seems, because they specialize in this area of the law. Finally, the wait time is far shorter if you go directly to the NIA, so you would in theory get the TARC much much faster.
As far as I know, you can theoretically do all of your application overseas by submitting your application to the TECO. After this, you will get a carbon copy of your TARC and an entry permit to Taiwan, which you should use to enter Taiwan and get your real TARC.
This is what I have read from other forum posts and I think is true. I can’t remember if I saw this described in official papers anywhere. They leave details like this out all the time.
For the hospital part, I used the official form that is supposed to be used for the application – it should be on the NIA website. It has both English and Chinese. The tricky part is they have crazy requirements. For example, the TECO office worker told me that I needed to go back to the hospital and get a ‘stamp’ on the form. I asked, “what if they don’t have an official stamp…?” She said that even a mailing address stamp is okay, so that’s what I got from the Kaiser Permanente hospital system in California. The form also wants you to get signatures from a chief medical technician, hospital chief executive (or whatever the title is called), and finally the doctor/physician filling out the form. It’s really overkill and in my opinion insane to think people can just get the signature of the chief executive of the entire hospital system. The people at the hospital looked at me like I was absurd, so eventually I just got the closest signatures I could and I’m hoping that will fly. If it doesn’t, I guess maybe I’ll need to just go to a hospital in Taiwan, but I’m not sure that will really be so much easier. I really hope I don’t need to, but if that’s what it takes to get past the absurdity, I guess I’ll do it. Anyway, TECO accepted it, and they’re supposed to be experts on the foreign country side, right?
I don’t think you need to apply for the Entry Permit if you already have the Taiwan passport with the Entry Permit. That should be taped in your passport already, unless you didn’t have that part done when you did the passport for some reason (I guess technically they could be done separately, but I think that’s not normal). In fact, the TECO person said that the entry permit will get cancelled after I receive the TARC (assuming I receive it), because it’s not really necessary and you should use the TARC to enter the country so they’re keeping a record that you entered with the TARC. If you haven’t done the passport yet, I would suggest doing that first – I think that you actually would need to do that in your current foreign country of residence, if I recall correctly (double check this if you need to – I’m going off of memory for this part, and because my aunt recently had to re-do her passport but was rejected when she entered Taiwan on a U.S. passport so she had to come back and apply in the U.S. to get the Taiwan passport). You probably won’t need to apply for an entry permit if you’re doing both at the same time at TECO. If you’re doing the passport at TECO then want to enter Taiwan to apply for the TARC at NIA, you may actually need to apply for the Entry Permit to get in on that Taiwan passport and apply at NIA (don’t enter on a foreign passport or else you can’t apply for Taiwan paperwork as a Taiwanese person because you’ll have entered the country as a foreigner).
Let me know if that all makes sense or if you need any other info.
It’s been a few weeks already, but I think once TECO accepted my application the worker said it would take something like 4 to 6 weeks to hear back from them. Again, who knows if that’s accurate – I thought I read in the official NIA documentation that if applying abroad, it can take up to 3 months to process. I’m not planning to move for another 4 or 5 months so I’m not in a hurry.
If I hear back from TECO about the application, I’ll definitely post an update on these threads.
I just checked with TECO today and they said my application was approved by the NIA just last week, so hopefully they will receive the approved documents this week.
Overall 7 weeks have passed since I applied, which isn’t far off from what I think they told me it would take (Taiwan is also experiencing a lot of flooding right now – probably wouldn’t affect this, but I guess it doesn’t hurt to cut them some slack). Keep in mind that it is much faster to apply in Taiwan directly, if you’re in a hurry and if you can get all of your documents together in Taiwan relatively easily.
I was looking at the original application instructions again and I should clarify some of the stuff I was saying based on memory earlier:
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The process shouldn’t take 3 months if applying from TECO. I was remembering incorrectly. It’s best to ask TECO how long they expect it will take. I think the 3 month period I was thinking of refers to the time you have to correct mistakes flagged to you by the NIA if applying overseas (although now I’m going on memory again, so…)
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It is correct that they issue you a copy of the TARC visa which you need to then exchange in Taiwan for the original TARC visa. So if I remember from looking at the instructions last night, I believe you need to exchange it at NIA within a certain number of days after you enter Taiwan on an entry permit that they issue (I think this is a different entry permit from the standard NWOHR entry permit that is for multiple entries over many years of validity). I believe this permit is specifically for this process of getting in to exchange the copy of the TARC for the original TARC. I’ll try to confirm this as I go further in the process.
So hopefully this is good news for everyone in this same situation. Feel free to let me know if you have any questions or if you need any help.
Update: today I went to TECO and picked up the document sent by NIA for the TARC.
The title of the document is 中華民國臺灣地區入出境許可證 and is 1 page single-sided.
Under the Permit Type field, it is classified as 入境證及居留證副本.
Just to be certain, I asked to confirm it is just 1 piece of paper, and they confirmed this is all that is needed. The next step is when I go to Taiwan, I need to have 海關 stamp it (according to TECO), then I take that to NIA to exchange for the actual TARC original document.
So for anyone in this similar situation, this should confirm it is possible to apply successfully for the TARC as long as you can provide the correct documentation and proof.
For anyone applying overseas via TECO, hopefully these details are also helpful for understanding the process more clearly.
I’ll post another update when I get the actual TARC, but it may be a couple of months before I go to Taiwan.
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@multipass - Sooo thankful for your post on this topic! I’ve been googling this for hours, because your situation sounds like exactly mine. I am 29 Taiwan citizen with no household registration, born in the U.S. and living there now, and my mother recently passed (Taiwanese national with household registration), no other “lineal” relatives (never met my grandparents on mom’s side, died young), & my father is a foreigner. I was told by the NIA foreigner’s overseas hotline, that since my mother passed & I am over 20 with no other lineal relatives (only aunts left there), that I was out of luck to get a TARC… You gave me hope. I actually spent a lot of years in Taiwan and always wanted to go back but thought I had no pathway back. Thank you immensely for describing in such great detail the bureaucratic paperwork you went through!!
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Good luck. My mom also passed and though I was under 20, it was still extremely difficult to get the taiwan ID. I did end up succeeding though, so there is certainly hope.
Unfortunately what was most helpful was a pretty high up official who felt bad for me and personally took on my case when the idiots at the desk refused because they didn’t know how. Just get all your documents straight and wish for the best. Be stubborn if need be.
That being said… I’m not sure it was worth the effort I put into it. If you’re not planning on living in taiwan long term I’d reconsider why you’re doing this. It’s not an easy process.
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@paperclip: Thank you, it’s encouraging to know so many of us are out there… determined to make it work. I do have to think about what I want long term, but I am glad to hear it is even a possibility!
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@Audrey No problem! Of course I really want to help people in our situation. You actually made my day by posting that it was helpful to you – it’s personally very meaningful to me.
To be honest, I got really exhausted by people telling me I had no chance, and those people typically were completely unqualified to make such statements and never checked into it at all. At the same time, even the people answering the phone at NIA seem to not always give accurate advice. It’s really unsettling for me to know that there are likely people who are legally qualified to apply but who do not apply due to bad advice or prejudice. If you need any help at all don’t hesitate to ask and I’ll do my best to provide any information I can.
If you’re not male, maybe one positive difference in our cases would be that military service would not be compulsory.
I think @paperclip if I recall correctly your case had some different aspects from ours based on date of birth or age. I would need to look through it again to be sure. Was it different for people under a certain age?
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Yes, it’s different for applicants under 20. They don’t need to spend a year until they can obtain household registration.
Thank you for posting your updates. I will find out more about my situation (older than 20, TW parent alive, but not a citizen anymore) this week because I’ve since arrived in Taiwan.
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I would send a mail to them asking if “居住臺灣地區設有戶籍國民在國外出 生之子 女,年 齡在 二十歲 以 上” (application option AF384) is applicable. If they say yes, you could show the mail to a front person at TECO.
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I’m not sure the people answering the mail are any better than people answering the phone. I think I tried email at one point and people were not helpful. I just got generic copy-paste responses. I highly recommend going in person to the counters with experts (not the main entrance desk people who also probably have no idea) and asking them in Chinese if possible (or Taiwanese I suppose 
).
Or just call me and put me on the phone with them
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Yes, I did not need to get a TARC first because minors do not have to reside in taiwan for a period of time before getting ID.
I can definitely relate to the frustration of working with uninformed people at my local TECO and even in Taiwan though. Such cases are so rare they’ve likely never seen it before and don’t want the risk of doing something wrong and being scolded by superiors.
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