Mine has been for a month now, under which regulation did you apply?
Hey appellant108 - I have been on hold for over a month myself (applied early march) with the status as “Professional Review by Workforce Development Agency.” - and if I do a “Case Status Check” I get the no Data myself also - Did anyone see something different on their page? It seems like most of the updates go through via simple gmail accounts - the whole things feels poorly put together. Still - People seem to get approved: Keep us informed please!
Going through this thread the review length is variable: some people were able to get by within a month while a few unlucky had to hold off for two to three months. I recall at least one person who obtained his after two months. I’d probably lose hope after 3 months myself… Unfortunately that is the bureaucracy in Taipei, you have to roll the dice.
I tried calling the number on the page to ask them about it but the person on the other side only spoke chinese to we weren’t able to proceed. Fingers crossed - hoping to get back to Taiwan soon 
Still in the same boat here - although my application got a request for additional info (since I applied under economy), and I decided to re-apply under Science and Technology. Applied on 1/14 but still waiting 
Every single website I read claimed that economy/minimum salary was by far the easiest to apply under, so that’s what I chose. It looks like that may have been a mistake now.
I’m a lawyer, but I heard the law category is almost impossible to be qualified for…
Thanks, that’s good to know. I’ll remember to check my junk mail just in case they reach out from a Gmail account and it ends up being flagged as spam.
I’ll definitely post an update if anything happens.
Good for you. I would have to re-apply under law, and when I looked at the requirements for that category, they don’t make any sense. So hopefully if it comes to that, they can clarify what I need to do.
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I think that used to be the case, but not anymore 
too many people applying recently it seems (I made the same mistake too, not knowing that I probably should’ve applied under economy)
I wonder if the gold card office reaches out to our places of employment to verify certain details and if that could be the reason for the hold up? My company hr dept does not have the best track record.
I’m still waiting as well. Applied 1/30 under economy, reapplied 3/22 under Culture Arts as they suggested.
I’ve been checking this thread for a while so I’ll share my experience so far too:
I submitted my initial application on 01/27 under the Science and Technology category. On 03/17 I received a response that my application needed more information. Specifically, they wanted documents proving my employment at a technology company with my manager’s signature on company letterhead. A Taiwanese friend of mine called them about my case and they said that it would take 2 weeks after resubmitting to hear back. It’s now 4-5 weeks later and I’ve not heard anything back.
Interestingly enough, I got the impression that as of 03/17 my application had not made it to the ministry of science and technology for review and that the extra info request was due to some kind of prechecking. If that’s the case, then it means that we’re looking at about a 60 day delay to even have an application reviewed by the relevant ministry.
I submitted all of my documents in English, I qualify on economic conditions for the last 3 years, and have worked at tech startups in the SF bay area as a software engineer for the last 3 years – I believe I qualify on multiple science and technology conditions.
I’m considering applying for the entrepreneur visa instead at this point. I was intending to start a business when I got there but I thought the gold card would be simpler and more flexible. Does anyone have experience with the entrepreneur visa here?
There appear to be a wide variety of purposes for which you can get a visa (Bureau of Consular Affairs, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Republic of China(Taiwan)), but only a few of these became allowed again.
I explored applying for the “visiting relatives” purpose - and posted about it in a different thread - but it’s almost impossible to prove your relationship unless you’re visiting a parent or someone else whose name would appear on your birth certificate or Household Registration.
Hopefully this isn’t too off topic, but do we know what another purpose might be relatively easy to get a visa for? For example, what’s required to get an “entrepreneur visa”?
Yeah that was the case until February, then everything got flipped upside down, if you will.
You would be our first “law” applicant/guinea pig in this thread! Blaze a trail!
I believe it’s quite easy to get by all accounts. The issue is that it only lasts one year initially and depending who you talk to, the renewal may not be easy. If you are setting up a real business that is related to your legal profession, I imagine you’ll have no trouble renewing.
There’s a few threads on formosa for this. Here’s one: Getting Taiwan's Entrepreneur Visa in 2020
By the way, you might see that the entrepreneur visa was suspended at the beginning of the year, but I was told it was back open again last month
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One of the requirements for law is that the applicant have a Taiwan (ROC) attorney license already (in foreign legal affairs).
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I got a feedback this morning!
As expected, I didn’t provide enough documents. They are asking for a certificate of employment. More precisely:
Please provide more documentary proof of domestic or foreign work experience in a relevant field for three or more years. (verifying documents must consist of proof of service or proof of resignation made out by the employing organization) Documents should include the stamp, seal or signature of (the representative of) the entity by which the paper was issued.
Hopefully this is not just a pre-check and they already came to a decision under the condition that I provide this document. 
For reference, the details of what I provided on the 16th of March: The Employment Gold Card Super-Thread - #2389 by sgu.
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Yeah that’s the part that made absolutely no sense.
Thank you for all that helpful information. I checked out the thread on the Entrepreneur Visa and went to the breakdown on the process.
I also checked out the Futureward co-working space they recommended to use and the Visa form.
Outside of my day job as an in-house counsel, I have my own side business where I do legal gigs independently. It would be great to open up something in Taiwan but I will have to see how hard it is to satisfy the requirements of the Entrepreneur Visa when it’s just a one-person operation (at least for now).
I’ll explore it and report back if I have any updates…
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I think that the set up /year one should not be a problem. It is beyond that, that seems to be an issue.
The one work around I have seen is that if you pay yourself a working wage, it is considered an “expense” on the business accounting sheet, and for renewing the entrepreneur visa, as long as the company’s expenses are over a certain amount, apparently you are good for renewal.
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Provision of legal services is tightly regulated in Taiwan. You would need to register as a foreign lawyer. Nobody has applied under the Legal heading for ahold card so far.
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Allow two months seems average.
You guys!! I got approved! 
I was totally expecting a rejection, especially as more and more time passed. I mean in hindsight, my application was kind of a joke. It was 4 letters of recommendation, a CV, and a cover letter. All written in English. I did a piss poor job of presenting my case and as time passed I kept thinking oh, I should have included this, I should have included that. So ultimately one of two things happened…either they took the time to translate all of my letters and really understand that I have a pretty strong background (which would explain why it took so long) OR they figured somebody who’s so ballsy to submit something so short and simple must be legit.
Anyway here’s my timeline so far:
Category: Arts
Applied: Feb 14
Passport Submission: Apr 20
As we plan to come over in October at the earliest, I may drag my feet a little on the passport submission phase.
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Congratulations
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