Taiwan COVID Visa Newsletter 11/2021: Changes in Quarantine Policy and Ban on International Students Entry
Edouard Roquette • November 12, 2021
This is part of a newsletter that we edit regularly to help and inform all those that want to come to Taiwan this year and wonder if they will be able to get a visa to come into the country. Register to our COVID Taiwan Visa Newsletter if you want to be notified in your inbox whenever significant news is being announced.
Since Taiwan's first outbreak in May 2021, the situation has changed significantly. In late August the administration reopened visas for students enrolled in degree programs at Taiwanese universities and those who have received the Ministry of Foreign Affairs' Taiwan Scholarship or the MOE's Huayu Enrichment Scholarship. (this still excludes exchange students, unless your school has an agreement to obtain special entry permits).
What has also changed significantly is the speed at which the vaccination program has progressed. More recently, Minister Chen, the head of the CECC, the Central Epidemic Command Center, which is the body that governs regulation for all things epidemics in Taiwan, has been reported as giving a framework for re-opening the borders: "the current level being looked at is 70% of the population having received at least one dose and 60% of the residents having been fully vaccinated. Once these vaccination rates are reached, Chen said the country can gradually open the borders in a "layered and tiered manner.""
This is not an official announcement yet, so do expect changes to this, but this is the first time since early 2020 that we feel confident that things are soon going to evolve positively.
As of today, November the 12th 2021, the vaccination rates are 75% for 1 dose, and 39% for 2 doses. Most people getting vaccinated in Taiwan have received their doses 10 to 12 weeks apart. This essentially means that the country could start reopening its borders in less than 12 weeks.
However, this does not take into account the Chinese New Year celebrations (CNY). A large number of Taiwanese citizens have been unable to spend the CNY holidays with their families this year, and this has created significant discontentment in the population. There have also been issues with a diminishing amount of quarantine space in the country, with hotels deciding to switch back to serving the booming local market, as occupancy rates in quarantine hotels during September and October were low. The low occupancy rates were likely caused by the absence of a modern reservation system, a problem that is now going to be remediated.
This leads us to the first of two important news for you:
1. A reduction in quarantine duration for the CNY period
The CECC has announced today that it is going to reduce the quarantine duration from 14 days in hotel/government quarantine centres, to 7 days in hotel/quarantine centres and 7 days at home (official press release and an article on the topic) between December 14th and February 14th. This will go toward alleviating issues with quarantine space during the CNY and avoid a public backlash against the rules. This is important for foreigners wanting to come to Taiwan in the near future because it means that Taiwan's government is starting to acknowledge the pressure it is receiving to move away from its Zero-Covid policy and is reconsidering its quarantine policies.
2. A Ban on International Students Entry during the CNY period
This is an unfortunate consequence of the lack of quarantine capacity plaguing Taiwan at the moment: "Non-resident international students will be banned from entering Taiwan between Dec. 15 and Feb. 11, with the Ministry of Education (MOE) urging those wishing to enter for the fall semester to do so on or before Dec. 14" (Link).
This applies to international students who have not yet received an ARC. The article mentions possible exemptions, but we would suggest not to rely on those. If you are an international student and wish to enter Taiwan, you may need to do so very soon or wait.
If you are coming to Taiwan, we would like to recommend the excellent Quarantine Support in Taiwan Facebook group. It is a great source of information and clarity.
Cover Photo: An afternoon ride with the housemates along the Danshui river on Taiwan's famed Youbikes.
This is part of a newsletter that we edit regularly to help and inform all those that want to come to Taiwan this year and wonder if they will be able to get a visa to come into the country. Register to o ur COVID Taiwan Visa Newsletter if you want to be notified in your inbox whenever significant news is being announced.
This is part of a newsletter that we edit regularly to help and inform all those that want to come to Taiwan this year and wonder if they will be able to get a visa to come into the country. Register to our COVID Taiwan Visa Newslette r if you want to be notified in your inbox whenever significant news is being announced. The Ministry of Education (MoE) confirmed this week that 5000 language students will be allowed into the country from March 1s t . We confirmed the details of what was published online with the prestigious Chinese Language Division at the National Taiwan University (a big favorite with many of our housemates studying Mandarin Chinese, as well as the Alma Mater of some of our team members). Here is the summary of what you need to know: This applies to people who are not recipients of the scholarships. Recipients of scholarships can apply through a different visa scheme, also regulated by the MoE. Applicants must be enrolled for at least 6 months in the language school. Anything below that will not warrant a visa. Applications will only start from February 14th and will be handled by the school. Entries into Taiwan will start from March 1st. The usual regulation applies regarding quarantine and testing. Nothing has been announced regarding a possible extension of the special quarantine regime that has been put together for the Chinese New Year period. We will keep you updated if anything happens in regards to this. Our contact at the CLD mentioned keeping in mind that the application process may take time. We believe you should consider applying as soon as possible to avoid delays. There will likely be a rush of applications due to the long backlog of demand for Mandarin Studies in Taiwan. China has closed entries to most foreigners, and Taiwan itself has been closed for most visa categories since May 19th, 2021. Contact the CLD at cld222@ntu.edu.tw to get yourself registered for their upcoming semesters, and check our room availabilities on booking.rooms.taipei to make sure you have a place ready when you land in Taiwan. Cover photo: The spectacular Donggang Wang Yueh Boat Burning Ceremony, happening once every 3 years in Pingtung County.
This is part of a newsletter that we edit regularly to help and inform all those that want to come to Taiwan this year and wonder if they will be able to get a visa to come into the country. Register to our COVID Taiwan Visa Newsletter if you want to be notified in your inbox whenever significant news is being announced. Since Taiwan partially reopened its border to international students last summer, only scolarship recipients and degree-students have been allowed in. Exchange students and language students who are not recipient of a scholarship have not been allowed back in. In the last months, a group of foreign students awaiting to be allowed to enter the country has addressed a letter to the Ministry of Education (MOE) arguing that the current standard for entry did not make sense. Their plea was heard by two DPP legislators who brought their situation to the attention of the government (link in Chinese) . This has led to Minister of Education Pan Wen-chung announcing that the ministry will submit a new plan to allow 5000 non-degree, non-scholarship language students into the country after February 11th. If this concerns you, remember that the borders will be closed to all foreign students between December 14th and February 11th to allow quarantine capacity to be dedicated to ROC citizens returning home for the Chinese New Year. From the information we can gather, no student visa will be offered until February 12th. Cover Photo: Dancing with the Xinlongtuan dragon troup of Beigang a the birthday of the goddess of the sea
This is part of a newsletter that we edit regularly to help and inform all those that want to come to Taiwan this year and wonder if they will be able to get a visa to come into the country. Register to our COVID Taiwan Visa Newsletter if you want to receive these updates into your inbox whenever significant news are being announced. This is a quick update regarding COVID prevention measures in Taiwan. Unfortunately, a COVID outbreak has begun in Taiwan, and the government has enabled severe restrictions to contain it. In light of this, the Center for Disease Control (CDC) has announced the borders will be closed to non-citizens who do not hold an Alien Resident Card (ARC) until June 18th. More details here . This effectively means that all kind of visas are suspended at the moment, since you can only get an ARC after arriving Taiwan. If you would like to see more up to date news on the current restrictions, you can head to our Facebook page www.facebook.com/rooms.taipei where we share content regularly on this topic. Cover Photo: East Coast bike ride along road 11, between Hualien and Taitung.
This is part of a newsletter that we edit regularly to help and inform all those that want to come to Taiwan this year and wonder if they will be able to get a visa to come into the country. Register to our COVID Taiwan Visa Newsletter if you want to receive these updates into your inbox whenever significant news are being announced. Apologies for the long delay since the last update. It has been difficult to get exact information. Regarding visas handled by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA): Since March 1st, MOFA has reopened several categories of visa that had been closed since January 1st. Internships Family visit Conferences Religion V.I.E. (only valid for French citizens as far as we know) Entrepreneur Working holidays Job seekers Only theTaipei Representative offices in Paris confirmed in writing they would immediately apply the new regulations. It took until April to get the offices in Germany, Belgium, Ireland, and the UK to verbally confirm they would do the same. They still haven’t published any written confirmation on their websites. We are also hearing from people applying for visas in these offices that processing is currently quite slow. Regarding visas handled by the Ministry of Education (MOE): Until April 1st, only students coming to Taiwan for a degree leading to a diploma were allowed into the country. However, the MOE has since reopened visas for students who have obtained a scholarship and who are NOT coming for a degree leading to a diploma. Several categories of scholarships are concerned. Here is the MOE announcement . Here are more details on the main scholarship, the Huayu Enrichment Scholarship. There are also talks to reduce the length of the quarantine period to 7 days for people who have been vaccinated but nothing has been confirmed this far. Cover Photo: A day out with the housemates, around Wulai. This particular photo is from the mini-train going up to the Wulai waterfall.
This is part of a newsletter that we edit regularly to help and inform all those that want to come to Taiwan in 2020 and wonder if they will be able to get a visa to come into the country. Register to our COVID Taiwan Visa Newsletter if you want to receive these updates in your inbox whenever significant news are being announced. With the emergence of new COVID strains, the Taiwanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) has applied new restrictions to certain categories of visa since January 1st. In effect, they cancelled the visas that had been reopened since July 1st (Working Holidays, Internship…). Yesterday, the CDC (Center for Disease Control) announced that MOFA is about to reopen some these visas from March 1st. We expect that Working Holiday and internship visas from certain countries will be available again. We will let you know more once we can get the Taipei Representative Offices to confirm exact details. As you can see, the visa situation in Taiwan has had a lot of back and forth in the past year. You are probably wondering what is going to be the mid-to-long term situation if you do not have a specific reason to come to Taiwan. Will you be able to come study mandarin? To do an exchange at a local university? To look for work? We recently had the chance to discuss about this in a public forum, and the following is an extract of our mid-term prognostic: While MOFA has shown willingness to reopen certain categories of visa, the Ministry of Education (MOE) is much more conservative (Student visas are handled by the MOE. Currently, only graduating students are allowed in. Language and exchange students are not allowed in). This tells you that attitudes in the government are split about reopening the borders. Importantly, the government has shown no intention to increase in any meaningful way the overall quarantine capacity. This is going to be the main bottleneck for any of the more accessible visas, in spite of the economical and political boost an influx of talented people could bring to the country. Current vaccines are not yet proven to prevent transmission to other people (and they may never prevent it altogether). Due to its stellar early success in handling the pandemic, and how much of a political boost this has been, the government will take no risk with admitting newcomers to Taiwan. The media and political climate in Taiwan is such, that should even one senior citizen die from COVID due to an early reopening of the border, it would be a major scandal. Vaccination passports are a mess at the moment, and a mess that will need to be solved administratively and politically. This is a much slower process than solving problems with science. The current 20M doses of AstraZenecca vaccines ordered by Taiwan are being delayed by production and political issues in the Swedish factory and will not be delivered by March. Our conclusion is that Taiwan will not reopen any of the general categories of visa (tourist, sightseeing, language and exchange students) before an overwhelmingly large majority of the Taiwanese population is vaccinated. We do not see this happening before early to mid-2022. This prognostic does not take into account any potential new strain resisting vaccination. As a reminder, you can find our previous updates on our blog . Cover photo: Bike ride on road 11, 45km north of Taitung. This event was organized in 2020.
This is part of a newsletter that we edit regularly to help and inform all those that want to come to Taiwan in 2020 and wonder if they will be able to get a visa to come into the country. Register to our COVID Taiwan Visa Newsletter if you want to receive these updates into your inbox whenever significant news are being announced. What we are about to discuss is a typical example of the difficulties that foreigners face when trying to move to Taiwan: News, information, and rules are often inconsistent, poorly communicated, and not widely distributed. This is one of the main reasons why we started Rooms.Taipei: To make sense of our wonderful island for others without you having to spend years trying to figure it out on your own. In this particular case our partner, the Taipei branch of the Internship Placement Agency Pagoda Project , has figured through weekly phone calls with several Taipei Representative Offices around the world that the rules of Working Holiday Visas have changed since June 29th. This was announced officially only by the Paris office last month , and the other offices have apparently only slowly realised the change in rules. We have been able to find official confirmation on the website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, but strangely enough this is only confirmed in the Q&A section (at Question No.1): Link . Should you want to come to Taiwan on a Working Holiday Visa, we suggest that you call your Representative Office and be ready for some back and forth with their representatives since not all offices seem to be informed of the change in regulation. Pagoda has been able to confirm by phone with the offices from Australia, Canada, and the UK. We are also publishing another update today regarding international students. You can find it here . As a reminder, you can find our previous updates on our blog . Cover Photo: A stop at Dadaocheng on the Danshui river in the middle of our sunset bike ride. This is one of the monthly events we organise for our tenants.
This is part of a newsletter that we edit regularly to help and inform all those that want to come to Taiwan in 2020 and wonder if they will be able to get a visa to come into the country. Register to our COVID Taiwan Visa Newsletter if you want to receive these updates into your inbox whenever significant news are being announced. The Taiwanese Ministry of Education has just announced yesterday ( 1 and 2 ) some significant changes for foreign students. There has been a lot of confusion about the announcement in conversation online since the reports on the topic were not all too clear. Here is what we have pieced together for you, after confirming this with our university partners: International degree students (and only degree students) from all countries, except 1st year students and except students from China, are allowed back into Taiwan This only applies to degree students This does not apply to Mandarin language students or exchange students The usual quarantine requirement applies We were not able to confirm whether or not a negative PCR test will be required The MOE has been very gradual in its announcements (June 17th, July 22nd, August 5th) and the next announcement will likely allow 1st year degree students to come back. After that we can expect a relaxation of the rules for exchange and mandarin students. This is however likely to happen too late for people starting classes in September. We recommend that you look at the other types of visa available if you intend to come to Taiwan this fall. We are about to send out another update regarding Working Holiday visas, but for the sake of clarity we will keep these two updates separate. We are also publishing another update today regarding Working Holiday Visas. You can find it here . As a reminder, you can find our previous updates on our blog . Cover photo: The Tigermen troup at the Chaotian Temple in Beigang gives homage to the Mazu, the Goddess of the Sea, for her birthday celebration. This is one of several events we organise every year.
This is part of a regular newsletter that we edit regularly to help and inform all those that want to come to Taiwan in 2020 and wonder if they will be able to get a visa to come into the country. Register to our COVID Taiwan Visa Newsletter if you want to receive this into your inbox whenever significant news are being announced. This post is a quick update to keep you informed of a recent development: The Ministry of Education has announced that Degree Students (students enrolled at a Taiwanese university for a complete degree) in their last year are now allowed to return Taiwan with immediate effect. See the article . This does not apply to exchange students and mandarin language students. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has in the meantime reopened several of the less commonly used visas for French citizens.
This is part of a newsletter that we edit regularly to help and inform all those who want to come to Taiwan in 2020 and wonder if they will be able to get a visa to come into the country. Register to our COVID Taiwan Visa Newsletter if you want to receive this into your inbox whenever significant news are being announced. A lot has changed in the last days. Taiwan has essentially announced that it is gradually reopening the country to foreigners . We are now part of a conversation between the foreign community and the Ministry of Health and Welfare and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to figure out the implications of the decisions that have been taken, along with the internship placement agency Pagoda Project (we strongly recommend them for internships in Taipei). Here is what we can tell you with a degree of certitude: The decision to reopen will be on a country by country basis and will be following standards set by the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) It will take the form of special permits that you can apply for at your local Taipei Representation Office (what functions as a Taiwanese embassy in the vast majority of countries) Certain countries will have certain classes of visa reinstated, such as France for the Working Holiday visa The countries that are the most likely to have their visa reinstated are New Zealand, South Korea, and Japan This announcement does not concern people applying for students visa, since this particular case will be handled by the Ministry of Education Travellers to Taiwan will have to comply with certain requirements, the most important of which will be to present a negative COVID19 test taken within 3 days of the flight to Taiwan and to submit to a 14 days quarantine upon arrival Working holiday visas are immediately reinstated for French citizens. This means that those of you who hold a French passport and want to come to Taiwan for an exchange in Taiwan next year (we know there are a lot of you in this mailing list ;-) ) have the possibility to apply for a WH visa to enter Taiwan (French Citizens: contactez nous directement si vous avez du mal a comprendre l'application de la decision en Anglais) If you have specific questions regarding your visa application, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has been very responsive in the comments of its Facebook announcement This is in effect great news for anyone looking to come to Taiwan in the next months as it augurs a lot of possibilities in the near future and the possibility to apply for special permits with you local embassy. We suggest that you keep a close eyes to the news in the next weeks for announcement. For French exchange students, this offer the possibility to actually come to Taiwan to do your exchange next year although the total number of Working Holiday Visa is limited at 500 for French each year. Have a great weekend, The RT Team