Just to give some background :
1- I am from Pakistan and have a work-based ARC in Tainan.
2- My GF is a Filipina OFW. She also has an ARC.
My GF’s employment contract is about to expire in a couple of months and then she’ll have to leave. I am hoping we could get married so I can get her a residence visa.
My question is :
1- Would it be easier for her to apply for residence visa if we are married in Taiwan vs Philippines e.g ? My assumption is immigration will not give us headache when they have to deal with locally issued marriage documents.
2- If we decide to get married in Taiwan, what order should we do this in ?
Marriage in Taiwan
Her Residence Visa Application
Marriage Registration in both Countries
Name Change for her (apparently both our countries still have ridiculous requirement where women MUST adopt their husbands names after marriage)
Are both of you are white collar workers? Or, you said she has to leave after the expiration of her contract, so, is she a blue collar worker?
In the latter case, she cannot change her resident status without leaving taiwan, anyway.
In either case, what do you mean marriage in Taiwan? Does it mean you register your marriage at MECO or a corresponding office of Pakistan in Taiwan? That is the same with resistration of your marriage to your countries.
Marriage Registration to your countries should be done before she applies for her residence visa sponsored by you.
Thanks for the quick reply. I am a white collar worker. She is a blue collar. We have never been married before. Our intention is to get married here first (legally) and register the marriage with corresponding offices of both countries afterwards.
If I understand correctly, either way, she will have to return to Philippines to apply for a residence visa.
Just one last thing, from what I have read so far, all that’s needed for two foreigners to get married in Taiwan is an “Unmarried/Single” Status Certificate from both sides. Do you know if it’ll need to be translated in Chinese ?
First of all, I confused with getting a residence visa as a spouse and changing the purpose of ARC.
Foreign blue collar workers in Taiwan cannot get a residence visa as a spouse without leaving taiwn, but changing the purpose of the current ARC might be possible. You better ask it to NIA.
Her “Unmarried/Single” Status Certificate should be authenticated by department of foreign affairs of Philippine and teco and might be by boca too, before submission. Yours is authenticated in a similar way too. If it will need to be translated in Chinese, you can do it in Taiwan.
“Marriage in Taiwan” in your case means marriage in Pakistan’s or Philippines’s representative office in Taipei if any exists. So, it is better to ask what requirements are needed over there. It is very possible that both of you would need so-called “single” certificates but I doubt it should be translated in Chinese.
Foreigners can register their marriage and get a marriage certificate at a household registration office in Taiwan. I didn’t know this.
I’m not sure whether it can be used for the residence visa/arc purpose change application, though.
My guess is, it should be submitted to a representative office of Philippine, at least, to get a marriage certificate issued by visa/arc applicant’s country.
It may be better you ask to NIA whether she can change her ARC in Taiwan and the certificate issued by HHR can be used.
Hi, I just wanted to give an update on my progress in case there are other foreigners with the same problem. We finally succeeded in getting married in Taiwan. Below is a summary of the steps :
I applied for a Single Certificate from Pakistan. a) Got it authenticated by local Ministry of Foreigner Affairs (MOFA) b) Send it to the designated TECO center to get authenticated
My girlfriend did the same. She got her Single Certificate (called CENOMAR there) a) Got it authenticated by Department of Foreign Affairs (DOFA) b) Gave it to TECO Manila to get authenticated
After receiving our fully authenticated single certificates in Taiwan. I had them translated in Chinese and then notarized by a notary public and then finally got those translations authenticated by the Taiwanese MOFA.
I took all these documents to the nearest Household District Office along with our ARCs and two witnesses. That’s all!
Two foreigners (who were never married) got married in Taiwan. We got our marriage certificate.
Next Steps after this :
a) Get the Marriage Certificate Authenticated by MOFA Taiwan
b) Take the marriage certificate to Philippines Embassy here so they can register our marriage in Philippines as well.
c) Take the same certificate to Pakistan Embassy so they can do the same.
PS : My whole reason for getting married in Taiwan (rather than Philippines or Pakistan) was so it would be easier for my wife to apply for residence permit later. TECO Manila will not deny or question a marriage certificate issued by their own country.
Congratulations and thank you for posting this! It’s very helpful to me and my fiancé (we’re both Filipino migrant workers in Taiwan), we’re planning to get married here instead of waiting for our working contract to end and go back to PH before getting married. Just want to ask, if your wife was able to report the marriage to MECO and if they are the ones who registered the marriage to Philippine Statistics Office. We we’re told by MECO that since we’re both Filipinos we should get married in PH coz we don’t have household registration here so how come Dept of HHR will let us register our marriage and that MECO is not an embassy, there’s no Philippine Embassy in Taiwan due to one-China policy they told me. MECO are not sure if the marriage here can be registered in PH and told me to ask directly the Philippine Statistics Office. So I am curious what happened with the registration of marriage of your wife in PH.
Sorry for the late response and congratulations to you both. Just an update on where we are today :
Registration of Taiwanese Marriage at MECO Kaoshuing :
We were able to successfully register our Taiwanese marriage at MECO Kaohsiung. It was quite straight forward and easy :
We went there just a week after we got married in Taiwan. We filled a form and signed it in presence of an officer. They gave us a couple of copies and kept one, which was to be sent to MECO Taipei. [Were we told foreign marriage registration in Philippines could take between 3 to 6 months.]
Registration of Foreign Marriage in Philippines
In March, 2018 (3 months later) my wife inquired about our marriage registration from PSA (Philippine Statistics Authority) in Manila but they hadn’t heard anything.
In April (4th month) I visited MECO Kaoshuing to make sure they had sent our papers. They instead referred us to MECO Taipei.
MECO Taipei gave us a reference number and date of shipment (they had sent our document in Feb, 2018). They told us they had sent our documents to DFA (Department of Foreign Affairs) and not PSA.
On 20th April my wife took that reference number + date to DFA in Manila. They were able to find it. They gave her a paper slip and asked her to visit PSA Santa Mesa.
In PSA Santa Mesa my wife applied for two copies for marriage certificate. They told her she would get it on 30th April.
On 30th April it was wasn’t done and gave her another paper slip and referred her to PSA in Quezon City , which accordingly to them handled foreign marriage cases. She visited them and they gave her another slip, telling her to come back on May 7th.
Yesterday my wife was finally able to get marriage certificate from PSA. Since our marriage in Taiwan 5 months ago my wife was still considered legally single in Philippines. Thankfully that’s finally been fixed and our marriage is finally registered in Philippines.
Note : When I first went to MECO Kaohsiung with our Taiwanese marriage certificate they were honestly quite surprised. Apparently, this was the first Taiwanese marriage certificate they had seen between a foreigner and a Filipino. They asked me to write down the steps for them so they could help other Filipinos wanting to get married to non-Taiwanese in Taiwan.
Just attaching all files below for your reference :
I am a new here. I need some information about the procedure married in taiwan. Both of us not Taiwanese. I am working in here with Arc but my fiance currently not in Taiwan, no ARC, but we have plan to married in here and he have mind to stay in taiwan also. What kind document that should we prepared?
You may need to register your marriage to your home country(ies). Whether you need this step and what you need for it depend on your nationality.
Resident Visas for Foreign Spouses of R.O.C.(Taiwan) Citizens Without Household Registration, Foreigners, Hong Kong Resiednts, Macau Residents, or Mainland Chinese Citizens https://www.boca.gov.tw/cp-166-281-b948e-2.html
he needs to enter Taiwan on a visitor visa to get the resident visa without leaving taiwan after the marriage.
This was the Household registration office told us too when we asked for requirements. But apparently, TECO Philippines’ procedure is different. They don’t authenticate single certificate but instead they are forcing us to get married in the Philippines.
They said that it’s required by Taiwan government. It seems that they only authenticate the marriage certificate so we can register it here in Taiwan. We are Filipino and Taiwanese by the way. Sorry for being a little off topic from the title.
It’s very helpful to me and my fiancé (we’re both Filipino migrant workers in Taiwan), we’re planning to get married here instead of waiting for our working contract to end and go back to PH before getting married. Just want to ask, if your wife was able to report the marriage to MECO and if they are the ones who registered the marriage to Philippine Statistics Office. We we’re told by MECO that since we’re both Filipinos we should get married in PH coz we don’t have household registration here so how come Dept of HHR will let us register our marriage and that MECO is not an embassy, there’s no Philippine Embassy in Taiwan due to one-China policy they told me. MECO are not sure if the marriage here can be registered in PH and told me to ask directly the Philippine Statistics Office. So I am curious what happened with the registration of marriage of your wife in PH.
