A. Came in on a landing visa (30 day, non-extendable)
B. I’ve been hired by a school. I’ve already received all the government documents needed for a work permit and ARC.
Question:
Do I still need to leave the country (HK), change my visa status there, and THEN come back to the Foreign Affairs Police Station on Yanping St.?
Rumor has it that the landing visa can be changed to work/resident visa here in Taipei, at the Ministry of Immigration on Jinan Rd., if you have all the government paperwork.
True or not true? Or do you still have to swing through HK?
Why do think I’m asking you? I’ve gotten different stories on it—from that same office and from the police and from the school. Girfriend called for me and got different stories as well—key point being whether or not they change a landing visa.
Maybe I’m missing something. But if you have the docs, why not just go to the office to change the landing visa to a work permit and ARC? If they say no, then buy your HK ticket.
I commend your effort to do the right preparation work. But Dragonbones advice is sound. Taiwan legalities and paperwork can be a total crap shoot. You might just hit lotto when you go down in person and tell them your SOB story. Then again, it’s highly unlikely. The rules are you can’t. But there are many examples in which lightning has struck the same ground many times. An unnecessary trip to the gov’t office may save you a 8-10K NTD visa run.
Coming in on a landing Visa makes for more paperwork, and you’ll probably end up running out of time before your stuff is processed. Don’t even waste one day, you have alot of running around to do in a very short time.
Speaking as a Moderator of this Forum, I can tell you that this sort of situation is exactly the type of problem which we run into in regard to TRYING TO ORGANIZE all the information on the Legal Matters Forums of forumosa.com into useful Q&A for the foreign community.
The simple fact is that –
Inquiries with different offices in Taiwan will get you different versions of what the rules/regulations/laws etc. are, and how they are interpreted.
Is there a solution? ( I am still thinking about the answer to this question. If you have any suggestions, please let me know.)
If you are asking whether there is a solution to this particular problem—whether a landing visa can be changed into a visitor and or resident visa if the applicant has all of his paperwork completed and in hand—the answer is a solid “No” from the Ministry of Love (Immigration). I decided to enlist twelve or so students to politely saturate the diffferent offices of the Foreign Police and Immigration at various and multiple times throughout the day with the same question.
N-O G-O.
If you have a landing visa you have to:
A Swing out of Taiwan, pay roughly one hundred US in Hk (or wherever) to get a proper visitor’s visa
B. Come back in to Taipei, go to Immigration on Jinan St., hand over your passport, pay NT4, 100, and wait up to seven days
C. Get your passport back, take it the Foreign Affairs Police on Yanping St., pay them NT1000, wait a day.
D. Pick up ARC
All for a grand total (including airfare and transportation) of NT15,000 or so.
The police who stamp your visa are reliable. Best of luck, mate!
