TECO Seattle told me this on 4/7 when the closure started:
“We can accept your passport verification. Please make a photo copy of your entire US passport and the copy has to be notarized. You can mail it to our office, and make a note” Employment gold card application" on the envelope. Please also be aware that our office currently is closed, and we couldn’t take care your case on daily basis. It will take us 1-2 weeks to to process your verification once we receive it. Thank you for your patience."
Sent them last Friday 5/1 because the governor extended the stay at home order. Emailed TECO back on Monday 5/4 and they emailed me right back that they have received it:
“We received your mail today, and please allow us 3-5 business days to verify your information.”
My status went from “Passport Submission…” to “Under Inspection”.
I just got email confirmation that the application has been approved!
Status changed to IC Card in Process. Also able to download the Resident Authorization.
Are you waiting to pick up your passport or the gold card?
Hey all, hope everyone is safe these days. I’m wondering about getting NHI as a self-employed gold card holder. I haven’t opened up a branch here yet so I’m not able to get an employer based health card yet.
I read through the forums and saw a lot of people mentioning a 6 month wait, even with the gold card rules saying otherwise. I’ve had my card for about 3 months now. Any advice? Thanks as always!
That sucks. I almost got smacked by a car the other day while crossing legally so I’m hoping to get it sooner than later haha. Maybe someone else in our situation had better luck?
I am being advised to leave the country, apply for a Special Entry Permit, then re-enter the country to then apply for a resident visa.
It’s awful and would require 2x quarantine. Also, many TECOs in Asia are not issuing certain visas, so I more than likely need to fly back to Canada to sort this out.
As for your gold card, it might be worth double checking if the NIA would just forfeit your application if it cannot be completed in Taiwan. Seems like a lot of people in this thread are applying from out of country, so worst case for you is that you need to restart the application outside of Taiwan…
I’m going to be emailing BOCA to respectfully ask them to consider removing the restriction on the 180 day extended visas as it puts all parties involved in danger if we have to leave only to be able to come back soon after! Feel free to do the same, could maybe make a difference if they see a lot of people requesting the same.
Thanks for your response. I emailed HK TECO two weeks ago about the entrepreneur visa and they said they will support the application. Worth checking with them again.
Re flying back to Canada, we checked that option and right now the Vancouver office is closed for now. Not sure this is where you will be applying from but thought I’d mention.
I went to BOCA and we called the minister of foreign affairs. You were right. They will not process the visa here because of the 180 days with no extension visas we have.
They did not seem to want to forfeit it. They just said they will move the dossier to another TECO location.
We decided to apply from here as we think it’ll go faster than from Canada. Once at the BOCA/ARC stage we will ask for the dossier to be sent to HK. Hopefully, they can process it from there. Plan is subject to change like everything else.
Please keep in touch if you have any updates and good luck!
Sharing my experience, as reading through other’s experiences in this extensive post has helped me along the way.
I received my Gold Card last month. It took 4 months from my initial application. I had to submit some additional documents and I would get a response exactly 30 days after resubmitting. Once the application moved past the initial review, and was dealing with the local offices, things moved quickly.
I received my Gold Card while in Taiwan and on 90 day visa exempt status from USA.
My next step is getting ARC for wife and kids. They are already in Taiwan on visa exempt status. I’m still verifying this, but I was told at my local immigration office that they must be here on some sort of visa in order to convert to an ARC
You can try but don’t count on it. Most countries do not make exception even in these times. Even IRCC in Canada has stopped accepting applications and people must leave Canada and apply from outside unless they have PR.
Latest stats. Still no lawyers or sportspeople that have made it through.
From February 8, 2018 to April 30, 2020, “720” cards were approved.
Economy: 412
Science & Technology: 118
Culture and Arts: 74
Finance: 64
Education: 47
Architectural Design: 5
