Taiwan Visa Requirements for Filipinos

My trip to Taiwan with three good old folks from college almost a month ago would’ve been my second overseas trip for the year had I also been granted a Japan visa. Getting rejected on my very first visa application turned out traumatizing that I had to read multiple blogs and consolidate all the requirements for the application. My pessimism worsened when my friends started getting Australia, US, and Schengen visas. Ultimately, I was granted a Taiwan visa and below were the requirements I prepared. You can only guess which ones made the cut.

Documents

• Authorization letter
  One of us has an Australia visa (let’s call him Aussie) while another has a US visa, making them exempts. They only needed to present a printout. The remaining two of us decided to apply together in hopes of increasing our chances. Aussie applied on our behalf since he’s available during the day and it turned out that no such letter is necessary.
• ✔ Taiwan visa application form
• ✔ Two recent 1.5″x2″ photos with white background and signed at the back
• ✔ Passport valid for at least six months
  I included my old passport and photocopies of the bio page and all stamped pages of both passports. They were not deemed necessary though.
• ✔ PSA (NSO) birth certificate
  Like the requirement for a Japan visa, it was stated that it should be a copy issued within the year. You can easily request for one at e-Census. (Honestly, though, I didn’t find any indication on the copies that they were newly issued.)
• ✔ Bank certificate
  And it’s the dreaded show money. As a rule of thumb, the amount should be enough to cover your expenses throughout your stay overseas. I’d say it doesn’t necessarily have to be six digits.
• ✔ Certificate of employment
  I had my income (hourly rate, in my case) and purpose indicated on it.
• Payslips/invoices for the last six months
• BIR Form 2316
  Since I’m on a consultancy setup, the forms I submitted were my 2307’s (Certificate of Creditable Tax Withheld at Source) for the last four quarters. I even included my 1901 (Application for Registration) and 2303 (Certificate of Registration) forms. All of them happily stayed in my brown envelope.
• Airline tickets
• ✔ Accommodation booking
  There are places you can book and cancel up to a particular date in Booking.com absolutely for free.
• Photocopy of company ID
• ✔ Proof of leave approval
  We don’t have any HRIS to log and track leaves at work so what I submitted was just an e-mail approval.

All original documents had their corresponding photocopies but only that of the PSA birth certificate was received, making a total of nine requirements submitted. It may have been a bit of an overkill with the number of documents I prepared but I was simply too terrified of another rejection. After all, requirements can vary from one applicant to another and it never hurts to come with more than just your war paint.

Embassy Location

Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in the Philippines
41F, Tower 1, RCBC Plaza, 6819 Ayala Avenue, Makati City, 1200 Metro Manila
(02) 887-6688
Filing time: 08:45–11:45
Processing in 3 working days for ₱2,400 (they also expedite for only a day)
Releasing time: 13:45–16:30

Update

November 2017: Starting this month until July 2018 further notice, Taiwan will be visa-free for Filipinos.