Visa Confusion

As a US citizen there are basically three visas you can use to enter Taiwan. There is a 30 day non-renewable 'fee exempt' visa you can get when you arrive at the airport. Longer stays involve getting a Visitor Visa which allows you to stay for 60 days with the possibility of two 60 day extensions before you have to leave the country. As a US citizen you have to pay $140 per passport (ouch!) for this visa.  Finally, there is a Resident Visa which also costs $140, requires a lot more documentation, and is typically used to enter the country in order to obtain an Alien Resident Certificate (kind of like a 'green card').

Luckily, my work is taking care of my visa so there were no worries there. (They applied for a work permit on my behalf and will be arranging for the resident visa / ARC.  What is odd is that they told me to enter using the 30 day 'fee exempt' visa which you are not suppose to convert to other visas. After much research there appears to be a loophole for 'white collar' workers.)  I then ran into a dilemma for Tina and the kids. According to my work contacts, they could enter on a 'fee exempt' visa as well but we would need to get our marriage license and the kid's birth certificates 'authenticated' by TECO (the de facto Taiwan embassy).  Unfortunately, our marriage certificate and son's birth certificate are both from Northern California which meant authentication for these docs have to be done up in TECO San Francisco office while our daughter's birth certificate (born in Southern California) has to be authenticated in the Los Angeles office. 

We decided to go with the visitor visa route which meant travelling up to LA, filling out the application, and shelling over $140 per passport and two passport pics per person.  The TECO office is a busy place! We drove up on a Monday and got there around 11am.  After taking a number we had to wait almost two hours before our number was called for us to drop off the forms.  Then came another wrinkle. As US citizens, the visitor visa can only be used for a single entry! (This is NOT documented on the website.)  As it turns out, I have dual citizenship and had my Taiwanese passport with me as well as our various certificates. This allowed Tina and the kids to get a multiple entry visitor visa that is good for five years.  Unfortunately, I forgot to bring my daughter's birth certificate which meant I had to come back and bring it when picking up the passports.  

On the plus side, I was impressed by how nice and helpful the people were at the TECO office.  Also, making two trips to LA in one week meant we got to have some interesting lunches ('Kyochon' Korean style fried chicken and some nice ramen a Daikokuya in Little Tokyo.)  We also went ahead and authenticated our documents; I'm not sure if we'll actually use them but you never know ...

My advice if you need to do this ... Read all you can on the TECO and Ministry of Foreign Affairs website.  Call at least TWO different TECO offices to make sure you have the right forms and process.  Bring all the documentation you need (and then some) to the office.  If want to avoid a line, try going to the office 30 minutes before they open in the morning. Alternatively around lunch time when the line is a lot shorter!

--- Steve