Hello,
I’m a U.S. citizen, I got married to my husband in Taiwan last year on my visa exempt status. My husband is Taiwanese. So I’m trying to apply for my residence visa but the TECRO here said that I need to have a marriage certificate here in the U.S. to be able to issue my residence visa. Since the US doesn’t have a marriage registration system, the local government here told me that my Taiwanese marriage certificate is my legal and proof that I’m married in the US also, so they cannot issue any documents on their end. Then, TECRO told me that I’m only allowed to apply for a visitor visa for visiting relatives, but the visa will have a TS annotation and have a stamp saying “no change to residence visa”. They told me that I can try and ask the NIA in Taiwan and see what they can do. But for now, that’s all they can offer me in terms of visa application. Me and my husband have been separated for months because of COVID, now this happens to our visa application process, which was very stressful and disappointing. I really hope to reunite with my husband in Taiwan soon. Not sure if anyone has the same problem and what was your solution to this? Thanks!
Sounds like you need the type of Visa that @bojack got after his getting caught outside Taiwan on a Visa Run when the doors suddenly closed. There is a huge thread on that escapade from about 15 months ago, which ended happily I think.
EDIT - This thread. Bojack Comes Back
Thanks for your input! The border is open now for spouse of Taiwanese citizens, but since we got married in Taiwan and therefore our marriage certificate is issued by Taiwan government, we don’t have a U.S. version of that certificate since the government here said whatever marriage certificate I have is valid in the U.S. too. The most I can do is maybe get a visitor visa and go to AIT to ask them to authenticate the document saying that the U.S. government also recognizes this marriage. But TECO here said they will issue a visitor visa for visiting family with a “no change on status” for me. Not sure if that will affect my process of applying for my resident visa once I get to Taiwan?
Will having your TW marriage certificate notarized by a US notary suffice? That could be done now before entry to TW.
I thought of that. They seem to insist on having a marriage certificate issued by the U.S. government, which is impossible unless me and my husband re-register our marriage here. I’m kinda lost here, not sure what to do.
@yen Hello yen, I’m also having the same problem, I saw some americans here saying that they managed to change their visitor visa for visiting relatives to arc, but BOCA told me that I can’t change that kind of visa to arc, and as I see, it’s the same for you 
did you manage to solve your problem ?