Taiwan Visa and Visa Extension

So, I went to Taiwan over the summer to study Chinese. I'm American and I was there for a little more than three months, which means I needed a Vistor Visa and that I needed to extend my Visa while I was there.

I live in California, San Diego. The nearest Taiwan embassy was in Los Angeles (which is about a 2 hour drive away) and I didn't have enough time to do my Visa through mail. The embassy is only open on weekdays, so I chose a day and drove through traffic to get up there. The office was not too easy to find. It's on the 4th floor of some huge building with a bank of the first floor. The visa application process itself was a lot smoother than I expected and the line moved pretty quickly. As long as you have your passport and proof of a reason to need a Visitor Visa, you're good to go. You do need Passport Photos, but you can take them once you're there. You can make free copies of documents there as well.

I expected them to have to mail the visa back to me, but it actually only takes a few hours to process. So I went out to lunch and picked up my Vistor Visa before I left LA. You have the option between a single visit and multiple visit visa. A multiple visit visa allows you to leave the country during your stay without voiding your visa. I got the single visit visa because it was faster to process and slightly cheaper. In the end, I wish I got a multiple visit visa so I could have taken weekend trips out.

The Visitor Visa is only valid for about two months, so if you're going to be there for longer than two months, it needs to be renewed from Taiwan. (Multiple Visit Visa will be renewed automatically if you leave the country and come back.) Renewal is free and I believe you can keep renewing it for about two years as long as you can prove a need for it. I think you can renew your Visa as early as a month after arriving in Taiwan, although I waited until the week before expiration. Renewing your Visa is free, the process is immediate and only takes 10 minutes or so once you make it to the front of the line. The attendants all speak enough English to get by if your Mandarin is really bad. The only problem I had was trying to renew my Visa at Taipei City's Office instead of Taipei County's Office; I didn't realize I was living in Taipei County. The Taipei City office is really easy to find. The Taipei County office is a bit more difficult to find, so leave yourself a lot of time if you have to go there.

If you have a multiple visit visa, renewal is much easier. Just leave the country and when you come back, it will be extended for you. One of my classmates extended his visa this way.