Hoping someone can give me more info or tell me of their experience traveling to Taiwan from the U.S. I called the Taiwan embassy here and they could not give me a direct answer. My husband and I are moving to Taiwan (my parents live there), and the plan is to find jobs. We are entering visa exempt, and if we do not have our ARC within 90 days we have to leave the country for at least a day. I read that when traveling to Taiwan visa exempt, you must have an airline ticket showing that you will also plan to leave within the 90 days before you can enter Taiwan. However, I’ve also heard that they don’t check that. I need to know if we need to go ahead and reserve tickets leaving Taiwan to show at immigration/customs.
The embassy never mentioned having to have this ticket to prove we will be leaving Taiwan within the 3 months and when I asked specifically she just said I could reserve a ticket, even though I don’t have to leave if I get my ARC. However she also made it sound like this isn’t necessary although she did say she could not say 100% that this isn’t necessary.
Immigration almost never (basically never) asks for an onward ticket but airlines are more commonly asking for onward tickets and won’t let you board the plane until you have purchased an onward ticket. I expect several people to say they have never had problems without an onward ticket but it happens and nobody wants to be booking a ticket while attempting to check in at the airport and potentially missing their flight to Taiwan.
Some have successfully shown a flight itinerary that was never booked. My advice would be to buy a ticket to Hong Kong, Japan or the Philippines (or any other cheap destination) and take the trip. You can get round trip airfare for 150-200 USD for numerous cities. Some airlines even offer refundable tickets (some flights to Hong Kong for example).
EDIT: Didn’t realize I was resurrecting the thread – sorry
I have yet to be asked a single question at immigration, much less about an onward ticket.
I have, however, been asked by several airlines for proof of an onward ticket. The times that I did not have it, I was allowed to just sign a piece of paper that said the airlines would not be responsible if I was denied entry. What the airlines are really worried about is that they’ll have to pay for a return ticket back for you if you get denied entry.
I’ve seen a few services before that let you “buy” an onward ticket for $10-$15 (they register you name under plane ticket and then right before the flight remove you) but know that there are quite a few scam ones out there too – so be careful if you go that route.
Otherwise if you’re really in a pinch, I believe all flights to / from the US purchased from Expedia are refundable for 24hrs… but that maybe quite a sum to have on your credit cards while you wait for the refund.