Has anyone recently changed their ARC purpose of resident from study (就學) to joining family (依親) after getting married to a Taiwanese national?
A little about me:
I came to Taiwan last year to study Chinese. Since I came as a HES student and I am an ARC holder. My longterm Taiwanese boyfriend and I are planning to get married this year.
As far as I understand, I do not need to leave Taiwan in order to apply for the “joining family” resident visa since I already am an ARC holder.
The plan is:
getting married in Taiwan (at the Household Registration Office of my city)
getting the marriage recognised and registered in my home country (my home country allows me to do that without having to go back)
getting the marriage certificate (my country calls this a “civil status certificate”)
Going to the immigration office and changing the purpose of residency on my ARC before its expire date
I understand that depending on where you are from the whole “getting the marriage recognised by your country” process is different.
Still, if someone has been through a similar process, please let me know how long did it take until you got your new ARC, did you have to an interview with the immigration, etc.
Hi! I just did this whole procedure some weeks ago. You don’t need to get your marriage recognized in your home country in order to change your visa status.
After you get married, you should take your marriage certificate to the NIA office. In my case, it was this one, but it should be the one in your city. Then, you have to go to the office and submit a copy of your passport, your rental contract, your spouse’s ID, and your current ARC. You and your spouse should go to the office together, because they will make both of you sign some forms. Then, they will charge you around 1000 NTD and you can choose to either pick up or have your new ARC delivered home.
So, basically, you just need these steps:
Getting married in Taiwan (at the Household Registration Office of my city)
Going to the immigration office and changing the purpose of residency on my ARC before its expire date
If you have any more questions, I’m happy to help.
Unless your from Britain you need Certificate of no Impediment
in order to marry in Taiwan, a British national will need to obtain a Certificate of No Impediment (CNI) from the UK. This document must be obtained from the UK
I am not from the UK but I understand that all foreign nationals need a document to proof they are indeed single. I can get this document from the “embassy” of my home country located here in Taiwan.
Unfortunately I can’t get an English version so I need to figure out how to get it translated.
In my case the the single certificate needed the stamp from my home country TECO, plus criminal record with stamp and i don’t remember if nything else.
My wife did the translation to Chinese. I translated to english to her. They don’t really care, they just want the stamps.
Isn’t the criminal record needed when applying for a resident visa?
In my case I already have an ARC, and I understand that I do not need to reapply for a new resident visa, just changing the purpose of residence from student to joining family(for marriage)
Wow really! That’s so Taiwanese of them to only care about the stamps lol.
Thank you! For the certificate of non-impediment: I asked my parents to get it in my country, and it got legalized by TECO there. When the document arrived here, I had to translate it to Chinese and legalize it at a notary (I went to a translation office that did both at the same time).
BTW, they only accept the Chinese version. My country’s TECO told me it was fine with an English copy, but when we went to check our documents at the Household Registration office, we were told that we needed to translate it (they even printed the part of the law in which it says that the certificate has to be in Chinese). I can’t remember the translation office, but I think my wife still has their contact. Let me ask her
Thank you for the additional info! I also heard they also accept the Chinese version but thought it also had to be already translated before being legalised by the TECO.
Glad to hear it’s ok to have it translated here.
Thank you! If your wife finds the name of the office, it’d be very nice of you to share it with me!
This is the office in which I translated my “singleness statement” from English to Chinese and legalized it. We contacted them through LINE first, and they asked us to send them a digital copy of the document first to give us a quote.
