Blockquote
Mr. B, a foreign national, entered Taiwan through a visa-waiver program on MAR 17. He was allowed to stay for 90 days, meaning he was supposed to depart by JUN 15. Adding 3 MOFA automatic 30-day extensions (90 days), Mr. B’s total duration of stay reaches 180 days (according to MOFA, foreigners cannot stay for more than 180 days in Taiwan), which qualifies him for the current automatic extension policy by NIA. Factoring in this latest extension, Mr. B’s legal period of stay was going to expire on SEP 13 (180 days), now it is extended to OCT 13 (210 days).
I arrived late January. phoned immigration today. my visa is valid until end of October currently. They said check out NIA mid-september as they will continue to issue extensions around that time going forward
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This looks like it will go on forever.
The way it is painted, the virus will never die. Many of the people running things abroad are in no hurry to return things to normal anytime soon.
Taiwan has no options really.
I am off this week, but I would have liked to have seen how this will go while in Taiwan. This is the longest I have ever been on the ground in Taiwan in almost 20 years of being here.
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Hope it goes on forever, free forever is great !!
Also i hope they change visa runs to change visa status… in normal times its ok to ask now its crazy to even step on an airplane
Yeah hopefully.
I’m not too sure about the figures but I imagine the majority of the visa free runners are benefiting Taiwan more than being an inconvenience.
Tread carefully, saying something like that could get you lynched in these parts!
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Interesting that they have allowed people to stay indefinitely. Guess that will lead to a slump in gold card applications.
They also spend grips of money in Taiwan
Haha
There is absolutely no indication that this is the case.
It’s pretty obvious that they are responding to the situation, and reevaluating it every month or so.
I’ve said it before on multiple threads and I’ll say it again here, the Way that they’ve handled the pandemic from basically any angle you can look at it is absolutely both exemplary and commendable.
It’s also pretty obvious based on the announcements that The last thing they want is a bunch of people being forced to leave either all at once or in a few very close waves - may be in the thousands, maybe in the tens of thousands, who knows - and the spotlight then being on them for a pretty dumb move like that, just releasing/forcing out this population of thousands of people who otherwise were not wanting to put themselves at risk. Then on top of that, they will be flying with others, and all it takes is one or two or five of those easily hundreds of planes that would be required to eventually come in contact with coronavirus somewhere, even if it wasn’t traceable back to Taiwan - something that is guaranteed to happen - and that fact the previous stay here would not be missed as a pattern, and the dumbass Media might give Taiwan unwarranted negative media coverage to otherwise taint what has been a stellar run during these times.
Is my personal belief (based on both the numbers and the way I feel here in the sense of how affected the day-to-day life has been, which for me has been basically not at all compared to prior) that during coronavirus, Taiwan somehow, and I will say it: miraculously given its proximity to the source, is a safe haven.
It’s those two factors - not wanting to be falsely blamed for a situation that isn’t the case here, and precisely that case of how good it is here relative to the rest of the world, which make no mistake are very much related in terms of the underlying mindsets behind both the reactionary and proactive decisions that are going on here – that has led them to a both compassionate and pragmatic response to this in the particular form of the visa free extensions that we’re talking about here. As they make it clear in those announcements, and which I believe, that they are making the decision on a monthly basis based on the evaluation of the global situation. One of the reasons this is obviously the case is because they are releasing them on a monthly basis rather than just saying “OK, you guys can stay forever,” as is what you are literally saying that they are saying, which they are not.
And to the point of reducing applications for whatever, I actually feel like this whole situation might in the long run cause more foreigners to want to immigrate here or spend longer time periods as they get comfortable and find out how much they enjoy it or otherwise how good it is here comparatively, and I think a big point, in the leader ship department as well (If for no other reason than the way that the leader ship is treating them really well during these times, and not adding undue duress).
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Is visa exempt returning?
I just came across this article from BOCA, dated 2020-10-14.
It describes visa exempt entry exactly the way it was before covid. I had to check the date three times!
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Very much doubt it. There hasn’t been any announcement of the lifting of restrictions on foreign nationals entering Taiwan, and there are no signs that Taiwan is opening to tourism anytime soon. It has the most to lose of just about any country.
It’s probably just that someone updated the page in the website CMS and it got a new pubdate.
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Visa free is back for all categories other than visitors. Has been since the summer.
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I’ve pretty much conceded to the fact that I won’t be able to fly to TW until mid-late 2021. I really hope that when July-Sept in 2021 swing around that borders will be more open.
In the meantime the “Working Holiday” visa has caught my attention since it appears that this is a viable option in the near future. I still have lots of research to do and my end goal is to become a resident of Taiwan on a full time basis.
As for the digital nomads becoming extinct, it won’t always be 2020, but the era of cheap travel may have certainly ended(?)
What do you mean? Wasn’t visa free only for visitors?
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I mean visa free entry is only forbidden for tourism purposes.
How else can you visa free entry?
Visa free entry is just for tourism, no?
Many ways, like business, attend conferences, short term study.
Don’t you need a visa for all of those? Visa free by definition means no visa needed 
your fortunate you are in the age bracket for that.
anyone know the visa is called when setting up a branch of a foreign business in Taiwan?
A return to normalcy?
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