Obtaining Alien Resident Status

First off, I would like to apologize for a minor error on my part in terms of information I have been relaying to you all. ARC, I previously said, stood for Alien Registration Certificate--it actually stands for Alien Resident Certificate and I was getting it confused with the ARC in South Korea which does stand for Alien Registration Card. I have fixed it on my old posts, so all mentions of ARC should now refer to it as Alien Resident Certificate.

As I mentioned previously, if you have a resident visa (whether from arrival or from changing your visitor visa) you will need to apply for an ARC at the National Immigration Agency within 15 days (from your arrival or from your change of a visitor to resident visa).

Now I intended on going last Saturday since classes had just started and so I had plenty of free time. However, as the nifty little guidebook I got at orientation told me, the agency was only open from Mondays to Fridays, which meant that I had figure out the best time to go during the week, since my classes are all over the place. Now I didn't know how long it would take at the agency or how busy it would be, so I decided it would probably be best to go earlier in the day. Luckily for me, the National Immigration Agency was only about half an hour away by subway and my sole Friday class didn't start until 2:20 pm, so I had some six hours, hence I decided to go yesterday.

Before you go, you need to fill out an application which you can download from the National Immigration Agency website.

It's a pretty self-explanatory application: you just check what you want to apply for, fill out all the required information, and sign, so I won't go into too much detail about how to fill it out. I will say though, that in addition to applying for an ARC, you'll also want to to apply for a Re-entry permit so you should check that box (number 3) as well. Also note that for any other businesses such as extending your ARC or visitor visa, changing your information, and such, you can also use this application.

Also, you're going to need the name, number, and ID number of a relative or friend residing in Taiwan. I asked my student volunteer, who asked that I delete her information (we had been conversing via text) after I was done. I guess the ID number is akin to the Social Security number we have in the States, so please don't go around giving out or carrying your or anyone else's ID number.

This can be found on the second page of the application pdf file

Supplementary Documents

Remember when I said to make copies of your passport, visa, Taiwan acceptance letter, and basically any official documents? This is where that'll come in handy. In addition to the application form, you will also need a recent (within the last year) passport photo (in color with a white background, 4.5cm x 3.5cm, from the top of the head to the chin, no head-gear/anything covering the eyes/any part of your face), your passport and resident visa (copy and original of both), and for purpose of study, proof of registration (copy and original). For me, I used my acceptance letter and my student ID card which they accepted. And of course, because nothing is ever free, you will also need to pay a fee (NT$1000 for a 1-year term, NT$2000 for a 2-year term, NT$3000 for a 3-year term, NT$500 for overseas Chinese students (this requires some sort of official validation), and NT$500 for damaging or losing your ARC).

Getting to the National Immigration Agency

The address of the National Immigration is

内政部入出國及移民署

臺北市廣州街15號

(National Immigration Agency

No. 15, GuangZhou Street, Taipei)

Their office hours are: Monday - Friday, 8am - 5pm

I've circled and drawn an arrow to the stop in black, which you can sort of see if you look

To get to there, you can either take the subway (called MRT here) or the bus--I think the bus will drop you off a little closer, but it's not really that far from the subway station, plus I've always preferred subways to buses.

The stop you want to be looking for is on line 3, the 松山新店 (Songshan-Xindian) line in dark green. The stop is called 小南門 (Xiaonanmen in English), which hopefully you can see circled on the map up there.

From the station, you'll want to exit through Exit 2 and go straight until you reach the end of the street, where you should find a sign pointing to 愛國西路 (AiGuo W. Rd)

Follow that sign and turn left. From there, go down to the end of the (very short) street and go right this time. You should come across a pair of signs: one saying 廣州街8巷 (GuangZhou St. Ln. 8) pointing to the left and the other saying 廣州街 10 | 15 (GuangZhou St. 10 | 15) pointing straight ahead.

Sorry about the dim lighting in this picture

Now, as the immigration agency is No. 15 GuangZhou Street, you'll want to follow the sign that says 廣州街 10 | 15 (GuangZhou St. 10 | 15) and go straight; the building is just a little beyond the sign. And if you look at the photo above, I've drawn a red arrow pointing at the building.

This is what the front of the building will look like

Once You're There

Once you get to the immigration agency, it's a very simple affair. Out by the door, there's a diagram of the layout of the building, which is actually pretty straightforward. When you go in, there will be a little ticket machine to the right, just grab a number, go in to where the seats are and wait for your number to be called. I was number 311 and when I looked up to the counters, the latest was 310, so I didn't have much of a wait. Perhaps about 10 or 15 minutes at most (and there was iTaiwan wi-fi there by the way). Maybe it was because I went early but there wasn't really that much people in there. 

Once my number was called, I went up to the designated counter and told the woman that I was there to apply for my ARC and gave her my documents. It was a very simple procedure actually, with the woman checking over my documents and all I had to do was wait. I would say that overall, the whole process took no more than half an hour.

At the end of it, the woman asked me if I planned on opening a bank account before my ARC was ready to which I told her I was and she printed out a paper for me to use as a pseudo-ARC to present to the bank tellers.

So there you have it, the quite simple process of obtaining your Alien Resident Card. She told me that I could pick it up on the 20th of March, so two-weeks after applying for it.

Everyday Chinese

• 内政部入出國及移民署 (Nèizhèng bù rù chūguó jí yímín shǔ) - National Immigration Agency
• 居留證 (Jūliú zhèng) - Alien Resident Certificate
• 重入國 (Zhòng rù guó) - Re-entry permit
• 證號 (Zhèng hào) - ID Number