Hi everyone,
I’m planning to move to Taiwan and I have some questions about the best approach regarding visas.
I’m currently working for a company here in Australia and want to transfer over to the company’s Taipei office in August this year, indefinitely, but for at least two years. (My partner is planning to come to Taiwan too and he will be studying Chinese. His term would start in August which is why that’s the target date.) The company is keen for me to move, but for some business reasons they won’t be ready for me to become hired as a local employee immediately. So my plan is to go to Taiwan initially on a business trip and to remain employed by the Australian office until the Taipei folks are in a position to hire me locally. During that time I’ll be working out of the Taipei office. It seems like it’s probable they can hire me locally within three months of me arriving, but there is a chance it might take longer. So I am wondering what’s the best option for visas while I am on my extended business trip before the permanent move.
I think there are two options:
[ol]
[li]Arrive using the 90 day visa free option and hope I can be hired locally before that expires. If they’re not ready yet, do a run to HK and back on a weekend to get a second 90 day visa free entry. (This assumes that Australians can still get 90 day visa free entry. It’s still a trial, set to expire at the end of June, after which it’ll revert to 30 day visa free. But it has already been extended once so maybe it will be again…)[/li]
[li]Apply for a visitor visa, which I believe can be extended up to 180 days.[/li][/ol]
Any opinion on which is the better option? A few things I wonder about:
[ul]
[li]If I have to get a second 90 day visa free entry, is there any chance it’ll be denied? How often can you get visa free entries back to back before they won’t let you in? I already visited once for a week earlier this year, using visa free entry.[/li]
[li]I see that visitor visas can be approved but stamped with “no extensions”. In what circumstances do they do this? Is there any chance they will deny an extension if I apply for one in time and I wasn’t stamped with “no extensions”?[/li]
[li]If, for some reason, I need to get a second visitor visa after the first, fully extended 180 day one, will that be difficult?[/li]
[li]What’s the longest initial stay you can get with a visitor visa? (I assume you can’t just apply for the 180 days initially?)[/li]
[li]When eventually I want to transfer onto a resident visa, will that be easier from a visitor visa than being in on a visa free entry?[/li]
[li]I’ll probably need to do some other travelling out of the country during the extended business trip time. Is that fine, with a multiple-entry visitor visa?[/li][/ul]
Thanks for your help!