I don’t know what they did in the past, but now they aren’t issuing stickers in passports for Gold Cards. The resident authorization certificate you print from online is a single-use entry visa. It specifically says on the document that it is used for entering Taiwan and it includes your ARC number.
I (finally!) arrived two weeks ago with nothing but the printed resident authorization document (and obviously passport+PCR test+hotel booking). Showed it to the airline staff in London and to the immigration officer in Taoyuan airport.
So, it turns out that the issue causing my payment to be rejected was not, as I suspected, because I was using a debit card instead of a credit card, but because of a simple bug on their end. I’ve now paid and I’m hoping all goes smoothly. The removal of the economics “loophole” has me worried that I might have missed the boat on this opportunity, but I’ve satisfied all of the requirements they list on their website for science and technology, so hopefully that’s enough…
New data point. My mom applied for the gold card through education (holding a PhD from a top 500 university). She applied on 5/5 and was moved to passport submission today, 5/13. So 8 days. This is the way to go if you qualify lol
that anyone earning a 160k NT salary per month could qualify.
@FatKaz is probably referring to the fact that applying for GC under Economy until mid last year (or somewhere around that) only considered the applicant’s salary and not the field of specialty.
If it is not clear enough from all of our responses, to spell it out:
Previously, anyone making 160k/month in salary could qualify under economy, whether you worked as a writer at a newspaper or a driver at a tour company. They actively funneled all applicants to the “economy” category who didn’t fit under one of the other categories. Finally they closed that loophole, requiring people to apply only if they fit one of those fields, including economy (which was defined as specific industries that are important to Taiwan’s economy)
So, I received an email from the Gold Card office saying I must provide additional information. The email itself doesn’t tell me what the additional information is, but the application has the following comment in Chinese that I don’t understand (and which Google Translate isn’t being very helpful with):
之前有ARC 把統一證號輸入
If it’s asking me to provide my old ARC number (and I’m not sure why it would), there doesn’t appear to be anywhere to provide this information.
Also, the “Method of Collection” can’t be changed from “In person (in Taiwan)” and I’m only able to select a “Location of Collection” in Taiwan. I assume there should be an option to collect it from a local representative office?
I guess it’s just part of the process flow. Your application materials were received and vetted by WDA and now have been transferred to the authority in charge of determining whether your background is good enough to be granted a GC in the Science category. All the best
