I would just call National Immigration Agency and ask in your case. In my experience people are helpful when I call
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@chasing_light, I would strongly recommend calling Mrs Chien to explain your situation. Donât assume that just because you attached a letter from your employer, it will be read. Based on my experience, I think sometimes reviewers will look first for your tax statement (because that is what they are most used to reviewing), open it, see that your annual income < (160k * 12), and mark you as âinsufficient documentation,â without reviewing all the documentation you submitted. This may have cost me a couple of weeks in the application process.
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@DunderMifflin, there are a number of posts from the last few weeks further up in this thread that should be helpful to you.
Yes. I just did it, and several others have, too. A print-out of the Resident Authorization certificate PDF is equivalent to the physical Gold Card for border-crossing purposes.
I am not sure exactly where you are seeing this, but it is incorrect. Many people have verified their passports in their home country, then picked up their cards in Taiwan.
No. The authorization PDF is equivalent to an ARC for border-crossing purposes. It actually says âć€ćć± çèâ (ARC) on it. Those with ARC do not need a Covid test. See the PDF Regulations of Citizens/Non-Citizens Entering Taiwan.
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thanks for the tips @twobro, helpful! I will call again after my application is sent to them. I submitted my application yesterday, and itâs on ćŸ äș毩 today (second review). I called the office today and got connected to an officer who sounded quite kind and helpful. He said that they have not gotten the application yet (which I assume they will only receive it in the next stage). I asked if I can submit additional letter from employer now and he said not right now because they dont have it yet. But he said if they require additional documents, they will mark it as such later and I will have a chance to submit it then. That will probably cause a delay in the process.
Iâll call them again once the status of my application progresses to the next stage (which presumably is when their office receives the application).
Thanks @twobro. I applied from the SF overseas mission. If I get my passport verified in SF, my understanding is that they will automatically send my card to the SF TECO. Check out the image below:
Did you have to call them to tell them to not send your Gold Card to the home country? How were you able to do this?
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I think t/e red lettering applies if you elect to collect the card overseas at a TECO. So you canât have your passport check in SF and collect the ID in Atlanta. But if you click on the drop down menu, collecting in Taiwan should)d be an option iirc. I did my passport check at LA TECO but will pick up the actual card in Taiwan.
@krrk How were you able to get your passport verified so quickly at the SF TECO? I have a flight on 9/17, but they told me that theyâve been closed for three months and that they can only accept passport by mail, and this process might take at least two weeksâŠ
Submit your passport and the Passport Submission Notice (download and print from the application site) to the SF TECO ASAP. When you submit to the TECO, Iâd recommend arriving at 8:45 AM and asking the person sitting at the desk in the back of the ground floor lobby (by the elevators) to help you flag down the TECO staff when they arrive (at around 9:05 AM), or try to identify them and stop them yourself when they arrive. If you do not do this, it is difficult to get in contact with the TECO staff. This is because they do not allow visitors up to the 5th floor (to help contain COVID), and although they have a procedure in place where you are supposed to call them and they will come down to the lobby to help you, in practice they donât seem to pick up the phone. They are quite overloaded right now because of traffic spilling over from the (temporarily closed) LA TECO.
Once you have submitted your passport, wait 2 Taiwan business days, and if you have not received an email saying the Resident Authorization is available for download, call the NIA at +886 2 2388 9393 extension 3123 and explain your situation to them (you must call during Taiwan business hours, but the person will speak English).
You do not need the physical Gold Card to enter Taiwan, only a printed copy of the Resident Authorization. My girlfriend and I are already in Taiwan and we entered with just the printed Resident Authorization. (Will post more later about our process).
Our full story for more context:
My girlfriend and I went through the passport check at different times. I did it first and I was able to catch the SF TECO staff when they entered the lobby at ~9:07 AM. There was an older Taiwanese American couple waiting that the staff noticed and started talking to, and afterwards I was able to ask them for help but otherwise they probably wouldnât have helped me because Iâm white and wasnât obviously waiting for them. I received the Resident Authorization less then 24 hours later.
My girlfriend went on a later date (only 1 week before our flight), and she was unable to catch the TECO staff when they arrived. Instead she ended up waiting over an hour and apparently this Taiwanese American man who was also waiting stopped one of the staff members when they arrived at 10:00 AM, and after that my girlfriend was able to get help from them. After that we waited 24 hours and hadnât received her Resident Authorization so we called the NIA that evening through the above number to ask what was up. The staff who answered said that their supervisor needed to approve the application but said supervisor was away on a business trip for an unknown period of time. We stressed that we needed it processed ASAP but it seemed there was little she could do. We ended up getting the Resident Authorization notice the next evening just before we were about to call them again (so around 60 hours after submission).
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An update on my process:
My girlfriend and I were able to enter Taiwan on our Aug 31 flight and are now quarantining at an AirBnB! Here are some notes:
- We were able to enter using our printed Resident Authorization documents. We do not have physical Gold Cards but we will go to BOCA as soon as we are out of quarantine to get them issued. Iâm not sure if copies of the Gold Cards are already being sent to San Francisco, but based on my understanding it doesnât really matter; Gold Cards can be re-issued if âlostâ for a small (500 NT) fee.
- We were asked for a COVID-19 test taken in the 3 days before our flight. Based on my understanding, this is not required for ARC holders. But my girlfriend and I got tested anyway (using the free testing service at https://sf.gov/gettested) and so we just presented those results to the airline staff when checking in. Iâm not sure what would have happened if did not get tested. I would recommend getting tested for your own peace of mind and to help prevent the spread of COVID to Taiwan.
- Things mostly went smoothly. There was some COVID-related overhead, especially upon arrival at Taoyuan, where we waited around 25 minutes to get Taiwanese SIM cards and then another 10 minutes re-doing the online questionnaire because my confirmation link didnât get sent properly when I did it stateside.
- We rented an AirBnB for 1 month that has 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms (to satisfy the 1-bathroom-per-person rule) and are doing the quarantine here. We werenât questioned in person about our accommodations; we just ticked the box on the online questionnaire saying we were staying at our own apartment and had separate bedrooms/bathrooms for each of us.
- We are ordering food and groceries using Uber Eats and Foodpanda. We only tried Foodpanda once and the experience was slightly worse (2 grocery items were omitted and we didnât get refunded until we contacted support). Uber Eats can be used for both restaurant delivery and grocery delivery.
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Thanks a lot @krrk for this detailed explanation. I had a follow up: For passport verification, both you and your girlfriend handed them the passport in person (using the âprocedureâ to catch them before they get on the elevator in the morning), and they returned it back to you within minutes, correct?
The problem with mailing the passport is that it might take two weeks for them to process and for me to get it back. And then there might be additional days to receive the travel authorization PDF. Officially (I called them an hour ago), they are only allowing passport submission by mail.
Yes, we handed the passport and Passport Submission Notice to the TECO staff in person, and they took the documents upstairs and then returned them to us about 20 minutes later. My girlfriend went through this process on Aug 24. Itâs possible theyâve changed the official process since then, but Iâm guessing if you try to catch them in person it will still work, and it makes sense to try given your timeline.
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I think the official process earlier was also to mail-in (we were told on the phone today that the process has been the same for the last three months), so hats off to you for making this work. Thanks a lot @krrk! Hope you have a nice rest of quarantine 
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Haha, I wasnât even aware that the official process was to mail in the passport. Maybe they would have told us if they ever picked up the phone when we tried calling 
Can someone send me an email contact at NIA in the gold card department?
I see what you mean, @DunderMifflin. If you can change the Method of Collection to âIn person (in Taiwan)â (which is what I selected on my application), then good; if not, see @krrkâs very helpful post:
I agree with @TroubleWithTribblesâs interpretation of the red text in your screenshot (the SF versus Atlanta example).
Another minor update: I just got an email saying that my Gold Card is available for pick up in San Francisco. So it sounds like I will be paying that NT 500 fee. Will let yâall know how it goes in ~2 weeks. I guess I missed the option where you could inspect passport abroad but collect Gold Card in Taiwan (?)
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Good luck with everything and thanks for your helpful information! We are in the process of getting ours, hopefully it will get approved soon. While waiting for it, we were just looking around to see what type of Airbnbs were available to quarantine and stay for a couple of months while we look for a long term place. Most places immediately had said âno quarantineâ and etc, it seems like I have to really explain that we arenât sick but just doing the mandated quarantine and will stay for a couple of months. May I ask which Airbnb you inquired and where is it? It sounds pretty good. Was it expensive? Convenient to order Carrefour to be delivered or food from restaurants? If youâd rather keep the listing detail private, please do feel free to PM me. But donât worry, if you donât feel comfortable with sharing it, totally understand and on need to feel pressured into sharing it. Thanks so much! èŹèŹ
Food Panda delivers my groceries. Since I went into quarantine before I could set up a bank account, I was a little nervous. I was able to use my US credit card on the app with no problems.
I messaged several landlords about trash removal and door delivery. Most shot me down, but I did find one that had turned out to be a perfect fit.
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Thanks for the information! Thatâs good someone turn up to help you. Also good news that US credit works on food delivery - I didnât have any problems using it when was in Taiwan last year too.
Oh so true, trash removal is needed - good point! The place you found, is it a comfortable stay with well equipped kitchen and even an outside space to sit? It seems like having a balcony even in modern flats is not so common. Thank you!
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Well done on overcoming the difficulties and making the step. I remember earlier in the year that you were doubting whether to come at all⊠welcome!