Some questions about marriage, visas and JFRV

Legal Legal - Marriage
1

I’m an English guy with a Taiwanese girlfriend and we’re currently in the UK at the moment. We’re going to Taiwan in August and I would like to get a JFRV (after marrying of course). But I’m not sure what visa I should arrive on in Taiwan to get this? Can I still get a JFRV if I go to Taiwan visa-free (visa-exempt entry - the 30 day non-extendable one)? Or will I need to arrive on at least a visitor visa to get one? Or even resident visa?

Also about the JFRV, they require me to give them my subject access record (think its called CCRD everywhere else but UK). Do I have to get this notarised/authenticated in the UK when I receive it? Where should I do this? And do I have to do it at more than one place? And cost?

I will really appreciate it if someone can help me find the best course of action. Thanks.

2

Most documents for official use should be notarised/authenticated.
Preferably translated into Chinese, not necessary i think when English is used.

In Belgium it’s a pain, you have to get it translated by a legal translator, then stamped by our justice department to authenticate the translators signature, than it needs to be legalized to authenticate the justice departments stamp by the ministery of interior affairs, than it needs to be authenticated by the taiwan office in Belgium. And… in Taiwan you need to go to the MOFA to authenticate the Taiwan office stamp.

A lot of money and time, run around etc…

I guess the taiwan office accepts English in UK, so probably no translation necessary.

Things you need are: CCR (clean criminal record), proof you are not married (single, divorced etc…), health check documents (HIV, malaria, hepatitis, worms etc…) and in your case probably a parental approval?

But you better inform with the UK Taiwan office.

Ohyeah, I guess the best thing to come on is a visitor visa, 60 multiple entry, landing visa (visa free entry) can not be changed to others.

3

I see thank you. Do you know what I should I put on my visitor visa form to get it accepted easily? I see Tourism, Business, Transit, Study, Employment and Joining Family and “other”. I plan to stay in Taiwan living and working, but is it best to tell them this? Can I use joining family reason if I’m not married? Or is joining family only for resident visas applications? If I’m married can I get a resident visa before going to TW? And then turn it into a JFRV in TW? Or should I just put something like tourism for the visitor visa thing? Would they accept something like “staying with friends/girlfriend” or “getting married to Taiwanese” in the “other” section? Not sure which is the best option. Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks!

4

Well, you’re going to get married and you’re going to have them all these documents authenticated, so the best thing to write is “other” and explain, don’t you think?

Getting all organised in Taiwan will take you some time. They’ll understand and 'll give you a 60 day visitor visa. Why shouldn’t day, they don’t have a foreigner fobia yet.

But the best is to check the forum and ask them what you really need for documents, I just can tell what I have done.

5

There are at least 10 different threads on getting a JFRV, some of them very short, some very old, some only concerning unimportant countries like New Zealand and Canada ( :wink: ), so I’d appreciate a confirmation if this sounds like a correct summary of the basic procedure:

Marriage Certificates. Not only do you need your Taiwan cert (if you were married here) but you also need to register your marriage in your home country and obtain proof of that registration, unless your country (such as NZ) doesn’t have a procedure for registering marriages. But in all countries that do have such a procedure, you will be required to register the marriage there and obtain proof of it.

Certificate of Clean Criminal Record. You’ll need to get this from the appropriate law enforcement agency in your home country. In the US it would probably be obtained from the County Sheriff or State law enforcement but may not be available from local police offices. To get this you will need to submit fingerprints to those authorities. It is only necessary that you have no criminal record in the past 5 years; earlier offenses should not be a problem (theoretically).

Take all of the above items (Taiwan marriage cert, foreign marriage registration, Criminal Record Cert) to the TECO office in your home country and get them legalized. There’s been debate on this forum over whether notarization is also required, so to play it safe you should probably do both. Then make translations of those documents into Chinese.

Household Registration Cert. Get this from your spouse who will get it from her/his home town in Taiwan.

Health Certificate. Go to Renai Hospital for this. You no longer have to poo in a cup, as in the old days. You’ll have to wait about a week before going back to pick up the cert.

Take all of the above documents to the Police Dept (in Taipei at Zhong Hua Rd and Wu Chang Rd) along with your passport, ARC card, and a few passport size photos of yourself, to get your marriage-based ARC and re-entry stamp.

Then take all of the above papers to the Council of Labor Affairs (83 YenPing N. Rd, Sec 2, Taipei) to apply for an Open Work Permit (also known as an Article 51 Work Permit), which will allow you to work any job you want in Taiwan and multiple jobs.

Does that sound correct?

6

[quote=“Mother Theresa”]Health Certificate. Go to Ren’ai Hospital for this. You no longer have to poo in a cup, as in the old days. You’ll have to wait about a week before going back to pick up the cert.
[/quote]
Beg to differ here. I have my own thread :smiley: on JFRV going below but wanted to chime in here. I went to Ren Ai Hospital (replete with new facade) just last week and told them my medical was for resident visa/marriange purposes (not work purposes) and they still test your stool for parasites. I think it’s “form B” as opposed to “form A”. They do not test your urine however.

Plus, the info from MOFA I have in front of me (they claim its current) says things like “???”, which roughly translates to intestinal parasites. So best to get checked for them I reckon.

edit: this site can’t display Big5 text unforturtunately, but take my word for it.

7

Personally I get married in the UK first and have your documents notarized and translated there before you come over. Or have somebody who can help you do it.

Go to the TECO Office or call them and see what they need from you.

Then come to Taiwan on a 60 day visitor visa. :smiley: :smiley: :smiley: :smiley:

But you could yourself get a stat dec or notary statement of your being single and free to marry, get it translated by teco and stamped by them and get married in Taiwan. Don’t forget to invite all the forum memebrs so that we can balance up the foreigner locals at your wedding banquet… :smiley: :smiley: :smiley:

8

You have to take them to MOFA first for the visa, then police for the ARC.

Unnecessary, and I don’t know if they do it for foreign spouses, You don’t need a work permit.

I would guess that most countries don’t need proof of registration, and even that MOFA might not know which ones do.

Brian

9

Don’t know where this one came from…

Australia doesn’t do it either, or the US or the UK and Europe… if you want to register a marriage you do it by getting married in that country imho,…

I know of many foreigners who are married locally, they never registered their marriges in their home country.

10

Well it’s there. About 5 years ago the rule was that your marriage had to be reigstered in your home country. This was causing some people who married in Taiwan problems, becuase their home ocuntries had no needm and no method of registering their marriage in their home country. So MOFA amended it so that if there was no registration system in your home country then you didn’t need to do so.

Brian

11

Don’t know where this one came from…

Australia doesn’t do it either, or the US or the UK and Europe… if you want to register a marriage you do it by getting married in that country imho,…

I know of many foreigners who are married locally, they never registered their marriges in their home country.[/quote]

Including me (married in Taiwan but never registered in the US). Here’s what others have said on the subject:

[quote]I’ve almost completed the process of getting my JFRV now. Something that really delayed everything is a document that is not mentioned in any discussions on Forumosa.

Before getting married we both had to get single certificates from our country’s respective population registers. Fair enough. Knew about that. However, after marriage I also had to show a document from the Norwegian population registry that we were married! The marriage certificate was not enough! The office admitted that if my country didn’t have a central population register. It wouldn’t be required. So I guess the need for this depends on your nationality.

Of course, I didn’t know about that before I had left the country, so it took me about 3 weeks to get it fixed[/quote]
[Forumosa - Taiwan's largest and most active Taiwan-oriented global online community in English … age#103877](Another marriage/visa question - #11 by lysfjord

[quote][quote]Hartzell wrote:
I would be interested in confirmation from other knowledgeable individuals that “proof that the marriage is registered in the foreigner’s home country” is no longer required as of September, 2002. [/quote]

Hi Richard,

I too can confirm not needing proof of marriage in my home country (England), got my JFRV this week . I’m not sure if being British made any difference, as I am not sure if whether we can register it there.

We were also told that as long as the marriage/Taiwan marriage license is performed in the court (ie: rather than going to the local 7-11 or your own living room) it is acceptable as legal.[/quote]
[Forumosa - Taiwan's largest and most active Taiwan-oriented global online community in English … iage#38147](Getting Married in Taiwan - #15 by tpetourist

And even the illustrious Sir Donald Bradman once posted the following:

[quote]Getting a JFRV and ARC

. . . Then you are supposed to provide either a certificate of marriage from your home country or proof that your marriage is registered in your home country. In the past this seemed to cause huge problems becuase countries such as NZ have no way of registering your marriage (in NZ you can only register an overseas marriage if it is witnessed by staff from a local embassy and NZ has no embassy in Taiwan, and they wouldn’t budge on that rule when I made enquiries). However, now it shouldn’t be a problem. The new requirement asks for:

The original and a copy of the certificate of marriage registration issued by the applicant’s government and authenticated by an ROC mission abroad. (For applicants from a country that does not have a marriage registration system, the certificate of marriage shall be submitted.)

Note the bit in brackets. So I stress: my Taiwanese Marriage Certificate was fine. Also I believe that the women behind the counter probably don’t have a wide knowledge of which countries have registration systems and which don’t.[/quote]
[Forumosa - Taiwan's largest and most active Taiwan-oriented global online community in English … iage#38147](Getting Married in Taiwan - #15 by tpetourist

In two days I fly to the US for a short stay and upon return to Taiwan will apply for the JFRV (unsure whether I’ll stay in Taiwan or move back to the US at this point, but finally taking care of this just in case). I’m almost certain one can register marriages with the County Clerk in most states in the US, but I guess I’ll take my chances and not bother doing so now. I’m starting to believe with regard to JFRV applications, a legalized proof of such foreign registration was either (a) only required in the past or (b) only required if one got married in the foreign country, and not in Taiwan.

12

A word of caution regarding this topic and other related to Taiwan visas, stay, issues etc. Taiwan, despite published documents (English and Chinese), has differing “standards” on what documents will be needed. While there are general rules to affect maybe a majority of persons, there are key differences among countries that are not readily apparent from reading the rules and regulations. There are also differences depending on how helpful the government clerk is on the day in question. Lots of variables.

What we have trouble, problems when advising our clients is that each case is unique and that one should not necessarily use what another friend’s case to say, “Oh I can do it that way too, or why can’t I do it that way?”

The government is trying to standardize but it will be a case of YMMV for quite some time.

13

I remember years ago (1989) being asked to get my home country ID card and household registation notarized and my proof of being single before getting married in the law court here. I politely told the clerk that we don’t have them where I came from. :smiley: :smiley: :smiley:

I had to explain what a Satutory Declaration was, and it would be used to show I was single.

She was horrified… But how do you prove who you are? :astonished: :astonished: I replied in that truly free countries you don’t need to… Again a look of shock. :slight_smile: :slight_smile:

She told me I’d have to check with my own country’s foreign office first. So I asked her to look at my employment certificates…but you work in your country’s Department of Foreign Affairs. :blush: :blush:

She then accepted that we didnt have Household Registration or ID cards, not even a social security number ( I told her that’s in the USA not Australia )

Sometimes the government here make up rules because they assume everybody has the same documents abroad. :loco: :loco:

And if you assume that because a document is not on a list so you don’t supply it when asked, your application will be refused. I know, I refused visa and passport applications when I worked in the Australian government.

14

[quote=“jake on that site”][quote=“Mother Theresa”]Health Certificate. Go to Ren’ai Hospital for this. You no longer have to poo in a cup, as in the old days. You’ll have to wait about a week before going back to pick up the cert.
[/quote]
Beg to differ here. I have my own thread :smiley: on JFRV going below but wanted to chime in here. I went to Ren’ai Hospital (replete with new facade) just last week and told them my medical was for resident visa/marriange purposes (not work purposes) and they still test your stool for parasites. I think it’s “form B” as opposed to “form A”. They do not test your urine however.

Plus, the info from MOFA I have in front of me (they claim its current) says things like “???”, which roughly translates to intestinal parasites. So best to get checked for them I reckon.

edit: this site can’t display Big5 text unforturtunately, but take my word for it.[/quote]

I too can verify this - poop is needed

15

Yeppers. Me too. Just went for my check today and poop is on the list.

Also, I got my exam done at Cardinal Tien Hospital here in Xindian, but the fee was $1500. I thought it was only gonna be around $1000. . . Hmm. Anyone paid this much before in a different hospital for a marriage health check?

16

Yeppers. Me too. Just went for my check today and poop is on the list.[/quote]

Yes, I now know that. I’m fortunate that my employer is getting a JFRV for me, but I still had to go get the health test, including poop in a cup.

As for the other matters, the criminal record check’s not as hard as I thought it would be. Because I’ve been here over 5 years don’t have to get that from the states. In fact I didn’t have to get it at all. Just signed the application and the HR person went somewhere to get it.

As for the marriage cert from my home country (I was married in Taiwan and have an English marriage cert from Taiwan), they made me go to the AIT with my marriage cert, swear that it’s true, and they gave me a notarized US doc confirming my marriage.

Except for the two above items, HR is taking care of everything else and I expect to have the JFRV shortly. :slight_smile:

17

Regarding the marriage certificate:

Was yours issued by the court or was it from your church or something? We were married in our church and were issued an offical cert with Chinese on one side, English on the other. I’m curious, who told you to go to AIT and get yours authenticated? I’m curious because I’m about to go and get my JFRV and thought that my CHI-ENG marriage cert was enough. . .

I’m reeling at the prospect of an additional step. . . :astonished:

18

It should be fine without another authentication/chop.

19

Thanks YC.

That gives me warm feelings all over again :sunglasses:

20

Let us know if it was sufficient. My wife told me we had to go to the AIT for that. I believe she was told that by my HR girl, with whom she’s been communicating. But perhaps it was overkill.