Here's a little FAQ on how, as a foreigner, to get married in Taiwan, to a Taiwanese, without going back to your home country, how to obtain a Joining Family Resident's Visa and an Open Work Permit.
There are a lot of threads around dealing with different aspects of Taiwanese marriage. There was a huge thread on Oriented called 'Marriage in Taiwan', but it seems to have disappeared with the move to Segue. You can still see it here:
http://oriented.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb. ... 6&t=000014
ADMIN EDIT: You can find it here http://forumosa.com/taiwan/viewtopic.php?t=4212
I want to summarise my recent experience, so you can have a first hand account of what to expect now. I want to stress one major change. People keep saying "it's much better to get married in your home country". This was because of requirements to prove that your marriage was registered in your home country. It seems that MOFA are handling this differently so it might not be a problem anymore.
I am a New Zealand citizen who married a Taiwanese woman in Taipei City. If you are getting married in your home country, you'll have to do things slightly differently, so you should see Jeff's page here:
http://taiwanstuff.tripod.com/Marriage.htm
First, get ready
You'll need to prepare a few documents in advance of your wedding. The most important is the Certificate of No Impediment to Marriage (Single Certificate), without which you can not legally marry. It is to prove that you are still single. It doesn't matter how long you've lived in Taiwan (or elsewhere), the authorities here want to see that you're unmarried in your home country.
In New Zealand you can check the Registrar of Births Deaths and Marriages here:
http://www.bdm.govt.nz/diawebsite.nsf/w ... enDocument
and download a form. I faxed them the form with my credit card number. In NZ it takes at least 14 days.
You have to ask them to forward it to Taiwan's defacto embassy (trade office) in your country. In NZ, they provide this service, but charge extra. In some other countries you may have to send it back yourself or get someone there to coordinate it for you. The 'embassy' have to put their stamp on it.
You also need to provide a translation of this. I didn't have one, and when we went to the Jilong District Court (my wife is from Jilong) they told us we needed a translation. When we said we didn't have one, they said "Well you can both speak English and Chinese - translate it". So we did. That was acceptable.
As it may take some time to get this done, but the certificate is only valid for 3 months (I think), I advise applying about 2 months before your wedding.
The next thing you need to get ready is a Clean Criminal Record Document (CCRD). This is some proof that you don't have a criminal record in your home country (for the last 5 years). Again it is unimportant that you may not have been home in that time. You don't need this to get married, but you need it to apply for the Joining Family Resident Visa.
In New Zealand check the Department of Courts here
http://www.courts.govt.nz/publications/ ... 0clearance
and download their form. You need to get someone at home to fill some things out for you, so send it to them and get them to fill it out and send it on.
Some people have talked about problems with their country not being able to issue a CCRD. Notice that in NZ the Department of Courts also states clearly that in NZ no such document exists. Instead they provide a printout of your criminal record. This is acceptable in Taiwan, so they are to some extent lenient about what qualifies as a CCRD.
The important thing is to get it (the CCRD) forwarded to the Taiwanese 'embassy' in your home country, to put the stamp on. I messed this one up and had to hurriedly courier it to a friend who took it there and gave them some money to courier it back, I suggest getting someone to take it in, pick it up, and send it back to you.
Again, I recommend applying for this about 2 months before you get married (or in this case before you apply for the JFRV).
Finally you need a Health Certificate to get your JFRV. You no longer have to poo in a cup. The test is now the same as the test for a regular "teacher's" ARC. However, some hospitals may not know this, or just give the same test for everyone, so your best bet (if you live in Taipei) is to go to Ren'ai Hospital on Ren'ai Road on the corner of Da'an Road. They are all set up for it, and you have the advantage of not having to traipse around all four corners of the hospital visiting the various departments. But you still have to wait a week to pick up the certificate, and you may be pretty busy right before your wedding day, which is why I suggest doing it a month or so before your wedding.
Getting Married
Getting married (from a legal point of view) is actually pretty easy. I got married in a restaurant and you don't have to do anything then. I didn't do anything "official" until ten days later. Then we got our two marriage certificates (our wedding shop gave them to us, but as Rian has pointed out you can buy them in a 7-11 or stationery store), went to my wife's father's house and got three of her family to fill in the form and sign it. We had to sign too of course. We filled in the date of our ceremony ten days earlier, and the place as the restaurant we were married in. We could have just as easily written that date and her Dad's dining room.
We then took my wife's household registration book along with her father's and mother's books, and all of their name chops to get the marriage registered. We first went to the District Court (becuase my wife is registered in Jilong we went to the Jilong district court) and got my Single Certificate notarised by them. Then we took everything to the Jilong Household Registration Office. At this point you probably need a Chinese name and a chop. Your Chinese name becomes "official" and you can't change it without going through the legal process after that, so make sure you have one you like. You get registered and your spouse gets a new (or updated) ID card with your name on the back.
Getting a JFRV and ARC
Keep the marriage certificates, household registration transcript copies and copies of the marriage record from the Household Registration Office with you and go to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA), which in Taipei is on Zhi Nan Road, near the NTU Tai-Da hospital. You can now get the Joining Family Resident's Visa (JFRV) which is a visa based on your marriage rather than work, or studies etc.
Give them the CCRD, Health Certificate, your current ARC and Passport (with photocopies), and all the household registration stuff.
Then you are supposed to provide either a certificate of marriage from your home country or proof that your marriage is registered in your home country. In the past this seemed to cause huge problems becuase countries such as NZ have no way of registering your marriage (in NZ you can only register an overseas marriage if it is witnessed by staff from a local embassy and NZ has no embassy in Taiwan, and they wouldn't budge on that rule when I made enquiries). However, now it shouldn't be a problem. The new requirement asks for:
The original and a copy of the certificate of marriage registration issued by the applicant's government and authenticated by an ROC mission abroad. (For applicants from a country that does not have a marriage registration system, the certificate of marriage shall be submitted.)
Note the bit in brackets. So I stress: my Taiwanese Marriage Certificate was fine. Also I believe that the women behind the counter probably don't have a wide knowledge of which countries have registration systems and which don't.
Wait a week (or perhaps just over) and come back and pick up your passport with a new visa stamp in it.
You now have to take your passport to the Police Station (in Taipei on the corner of Zhong Hua Rd and Wuchang St) to get your marriage-based ARC and re-entry stamp. This is very important and the MOFA in Taipei now give you a slip of paper to remind you, and draw your attention to it. If you don't do it quickly (within 15 days), you may end up getting sent back to your home-country for 18 months. The police update the back of your ARC and put a re-entry stamp in your passport. The new expiry date for your ARC will be for 1 year, but the next time you renew it you should get 3 years.
Getting an Open Work Permit
As of early 2002, if you have a JFRV you can also get an Open Work Permit (OWP) also known as an "Article 51 Work Permit" or "Personal Work Permit", which means you can do any job that a Taiwanese can do basically, and work for more than one employer, which is pretty handy.
Take all your papers down to the Council of Labor Affairs in Taipei at No. 83 Yanping North Road, Sec. 2. They told me I needed my chop or my wife's chop or both, but seeing as I didn't have them they said they'd "try anyway" and it wasn't a problem. (In the worst case scenario, you can use a thumbprint.) Fill in a form and a week later you can pick up your OWP (or have it mailed to you) and you're sorted! Make some copies and give one to your boss so he/she can apply for your health insurance.
More discussion of the OWP here http://segue.com.tw/viewtopic.php?t=3710
I got married on July 27 and picked up my work permit on Sep 10, so the whole thing took about 7 weeks, but if I'd been in more of a hurry and been a little more organised, I think I could have done it in 3-4 weeks.
Any feedback, corrections to this FAQ welcome and I'll try and edit it later when I have time.
Brian
poo in a cup.
