Having spent years inside Taiwan’s immigration system, I have come to the conclusion that there absolutely is a hierarchy of foreigners in Taiwan.
People can pretend there isn’t, but your experience of Taiwan changes enormously depending on which little piece of plastic you are carrying.
I am in the fortunate position of no longer being part of the hierarchy. I naturalised, became Taiwanese, got the passport, and then eventually left Taiwan and moved back to Australia.
So after spending years climbing the immigration ladder, I reached the point where Taiwan could no longer legally call me a foreigner.
Then I left.
Anyway, here is my ranking.
Naturalised Taiwanese citizen
Obviously I am putting myself at the top.
More importantly, I am not actually a foreigner anymore.
No ARC. No APRC. No Gold Card. No explaining why my residency is connected to a particular employer, spouse or visa category.
Taiwanese passport.
Citizenship.
Finished.
I then moved back to Australia. I spent years reaching the final level of Taiwan immigration, collected the passport, and then decided to go back to Australia.
Plum Blossom Card
The aristocracy.
Taiwan has essentially looked at you and decided that although you remain a foreign national, you deserve a noticeably fancier version of being one.
You are not merely a foreigner.
You are an important foreigner.
Probably as close as you can get to Taiwan saying, “We really like you, but not enough to call you Taiwanese. But you are welcome to apply and we’ll even waive the renunciation requirements and reduce the already low application fee of $30usd”
Employment Gold Card
The fashionable foreigner.
The government actively created a special program because it wants people like you to come to Taiwan.
Flexible employment rights, less dependence on one employer and a nice shiny card with the word GOLD written on it, which has perhaps contributed slightly to the enthusiasm with which some holders announce that they possess one.
Gold Card holders sometimes give the impression that Taiwan immigration has personally selected them from the international elite.
To be fair, it is an excellent status.
Still a foreigner though and still have to renounce to become a citizen….
Professional or work route APRC
This is probably the best genuinely permanent foreigner status.
You are no longer tied to an employer in the ordinary way, you have permanent residence, and qualifying foreign professionals receive particularly generous treatment when it comes to spending long periods outside Taiwan.
Under the foreign professional rules, you can potentially remain overseas for years without losing permanent residence, provided you do not stay outside Taiwan continuously for five years without returning.
Which means you can essentially say, “See you in a few years,” and immigration is considerably less concerned about it than it is with some other permanent residents.
This is why I would rank it above the marriage route APRC.
Marriage based APRC
Congratulations.
You have permanent residency.
Just apparently not quite the premium version of permanent residency.
This is where the claim that “an APRC is an APRC” starts becoming rather questionable.
Someone who originally qualified through certain professional routes can have much greater freedom to live outside Taiwan than someone who became a permanent resident through marriage.
Which is an interesting definition of permanent.
Apparently marrying a Taiwanese citizen can leave you with stricter ongoing residency expectations than being sufficiently professionally desirable.
Taiwan immigration does enjoy its little distinctions.
Marriage ARC
Actually much better than many people realise.
You might not have permanent residency yet, but your immigration status generally is not hanging off your relationship with a particular employer.
Hate your job?
Change it.
Want to stop working for a while?
Fine.
Your boss is simply your boss rather than your boss plus an unofficial supporting character in your immigration case.
A normal work ARC holder may technically outrank you in their own imagination, but the marriage ARC holder often has substantially more practical freedom.
Normal work ARC
The traditional Taiwan foreigner experience.
You have residency.
You have employment.
Conveniently, Taiwan has arranged for those two things to be rather closely acquainted.
Everything is wonderful while your employment situation is wonderful.
Then you lose your job, quit, change employers or decide you would simply like some time off and suddenly everybody becomes extremely interested in dates, permits and paperwork.
You are a resident.
Just a resident whose employer has an unexpectedly important supporting role in their continued presence in the country.
Student ARC
Properly resident, but with training wheels.
You live in Taiwan.
You have an ARC.
You can tell people you are not a tourist.
Taiwan simply expects you to continue doing the thing that justified your residency in the first place.
Studying.
Employment rights come with restrictions and your student status remains rather relevant to your ability to stay.
Think of it as the foreign residency package with parental controls switched on.
Migrant worker ARC
This is where the idea that Taiwan simply has “foreigners” starts looking particularly ridiculous.
Compare the treatment of a highly paid Western professional with the treatment of a Southeast Asian factory worker or caregiver.
Both are foreign workers.
Their actual experiences of employment mobility, recruitment, residency and bargaining power can be worlds apart.
Taiwan can roll out the red carpet for one category of foreign labour while applying considerably more restrictive rules to another.
Same island.
Same word, 外國人.
Very different experience.
If anyone wants to argue that there is no hierarchy of foreigners in Taiwan, this is probably the most awkward section of the hierarchy for them to explain.
Working Holiday Visa
Possibly Taiwan’s most mysterious legitimate immigration status.
You are legally there.
You are legally allowed to work.
Taiwan issued you the visa itself.
The slight problem is that an amazing number of people in Taiwan seem to have absolutely no idea what it is.
Try buying certain domestic flight tickets, ferry tickets or dealing with systems designed around the assumption that every foreigner is either an ARC holder or a tourist.
“ARC number?”
I don’t have one.
“So you’re a tourist?”
Not exactly.
“But you’re working?”
Yes.
“How?”
Ask your own government. They issued the visa.
There is something uniquely Taiwanese about possessing a completely legitimate Taiwanese immigration status and then occasionally having to explain that status to Taiwan.
Working Holiday holders occupy that wonderful administrative category of being legal, employable and occasionally incompatible with the drop-down menu.
Tourist or visa exempt
The bottom.
Yes, I know you have been coming to Taiwan for eight years.
Yes, your Chinese is excellent.
Yes, you own a scooter, know your local breakfast shop owner by name and have extremely detailed opinions about Taiwanese politics.
You are still visiting.
Perhaps very enthusiastically.
Perhaps suspiciously frequently.
But visiting.
So my ranking is:
Taiwanese citizen
Plum Blossom
Gold Card
Professional APRC
Marriage APRC
Marriage ARC
Work ARC
Student ARC
Migrant worker ARC
Working Holiday
Tourist
There are obviously other categories that could be inserted somewhere in there. Dependent ARCs, entrepreneur visas, digital nomad arrangements, religious workers and probably several obscure categories somebody on Forumosa will appear within eleven minutes to tell me I have forgotten.
But the broader point remains.
Taiwan does not really have one category called “foreigner.”
It has layers.
Some foreigners have open work rights. Some are tied closely to employers. Some can disappear overseas for years. Others have to pay careful attention to residence requirements. Some receive government programs designed to attract them. Others spend years doing essential work under considerably less favourable conditions.
And then there are Working Holiday holders trying to convince a ferry company that their visa actually exists.
What I find funniest now is remembering how enormously important these distinctions once felt to me.
ARC.
APRC.
Marriage ARC.
Special statuses.
Residency requirements.
Then I naturalised.
At that point the entire argument suddenly looked like foreigners comparing which version of the foreigner card is the most prestigious.
And then, having finally become Taiwanese, I moved back to Australia anyway.
Perhaps that is the actual final level of Taiwan immigration.
Spend years trying to stop being classified as a foreigner.
Succeed.
Get the Taiwanese passport.
Look at everyone still arguing over which ARC is superior.
Then leave Taiwan.
So what have I ranked incorrectly?
More importantly, which group have I placed far too low and is about to write several paragraphs explaining why their particular foreigner card is actually the best one?
Starting a list about different levels of foreigners, by putting non-foreigners at the top. It’s like ranking top Taiwanese cuisine and put kidney pie at the top 
