I’m in the process of naturalising in Taiwan under the high-level professional category, and I’m trying to work out whether I can travel during the process. My case has not yet gone to the MOI review committee. It will likely be reviewed in December, as the September agenda is already closed.
If I’m outside Taiwan when it’s approved, what happens? I currently hold an APRC. Is it cancelled at the moment of approval, leaving me unable to re-enter? Or can I still enter on it and continue the process from inside Taiwan?
I’ve had conflicting answers - phone calls to three people at MOI and one at NIA, none certain. I have to travel for work and my current passport doesn’t get visa-free entry to Taiwan, so reaching out to see if anyone here has any thoughts.
From my understanding, the ARC/APRC will only be cancelled at the time you apply for a TARC. At that point, NIA will also place a “cancelled” stamp in your passport next to the last entry stamp (if they placed one during entry). Otherwise, you’d be left without a valid residence certificate. I’d strongly advise against leaving/entering Taiwan between application/issuance of a TARC and a TW passport.
The other thing you should pay attention to is that once your certificate of Naturalization has been issued, you subsequently should not leave Taiwan on a foreign passport. That means you might need to apply for a TARC and TW passport on short notice if you have travel planned. (I am also not sure if this is just recommended or enforced).
To my knowledge, there’s no similar requirement to enter Taiwan only on a TW passport after the Naturalization Certificate has been issued. But I could be mistaken.
When in doubt, ask NIA for a written response on this. When asking them in person / over the phone, their employees tend to give conflicting information on these topics…
You know, I am really getting tired of this lack of clarity regarding basic important parts of the process. I’ve been a fan of Taiwan for quite some time, but this murkiness has really made me rethink the basis of my positivity, especially concerning government services here.
None of that happens until you arrive at the household registration office to physically collect your Taiwan ID and at that point it is registered and your APRC is invalidated.
This is a fair point. A certain administration is currently rolling up its sleeves to enact and trumpet denationalization of naturalized citizens as an administrative priority. Viewed comparatively, murkiness and ignorance may indeed be better than such direct hostility. But it’s still not great.
Congratulations on getting this far in the process
I actually got a phone call from the HHRO officer processing my case, asking whether I wanted NIA to take care of the TARC conversion (involving cancellation of current ARC), or whether I wanted to do it myself. She was pretty excellent, though - not sure that’s standard.
Also keep in mind: during the TARC conversion, NIA could ask for another police check from your passport country if you’ve left Taiwan since the one you submitted was issued.
Technicality here - it’s kinda an invisible step. There will never be a TARC “card” as such, but the status you’re on between getting approved but before going to the HHRO to get your ID is NWOHR/TARC. NIA typically does the step to stop you being a foreign national directly as part of the process, rather than you having to apply for it.
So very true It’s quite funny that the default assumption is that foreign nationals just immediately commit crimes once they go overseas Very glad to hear you’ve found a reasonable person!
It’s not such a big surprise, really. The program, which has been around for about 10 years, has approved about 300 people. So that’s an average of only about 30 per year. Keep in mind that those applications are spread out over a dozen or so different ministries, with some getting more applications than others. So plenty of those ministries deal with fewer than 3 successful applications in an entire year. That’s not a level of familiarity that breeds great expertise.
Now consider that those people who handle the applications are not highly trained specialists in this, fully versed in all of the latest intricacies of the law and how it might apply to previously unanticipated circumstances. Nor, I strongly suspect, are they in regular contact with their peers handling the same matters in other agencies. No, they’re mainly just government workers whose jobs deal primarily with matters completely unrelated to citizenship applications and who got stuck being the person in their ministry who has to take on this additional work burden.
I’m not saying foreign applicants should be grateful for what they have. But all things considered, things could be a lot worse than they are for foreigners undergoing the process.
