Taiwan passport

Cover

The current ROC (Taiwan) biometric passport has been issued since December 29, 2008, which makes Taiwan the 60th country in the world to issue biometric passports. The cover of the ordinary ROC (Taiwan) passport is dark green, with the ROC national emblem – Blue Sky with a White Sun - in the middle. On the top is the official name of the country, "REPUBLIC OF CHINA", in both Traditional Chinese characters and English. Below the national emblem the words "TAIWAN" was printed in English only and "PASSPORT" in both Traditional Chinese and English. At the bottom is the symbol of biometric passport ().

Cover of the official passport is brown and shows "OFFICIAL PASSPORT" on the cover, and diplomatic passport is dark blue with "DIPLOMATIC PASSPORT" on the cover.

Request page

The first page of the passport is the passport note page and printed the following request, with anti-counterfeiting printing shows the shape of the island of Taiwan at the top and word TAIWAN at the bottom.
In Traditional Chinese

In English

The Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of China requests all whom it may concern to permit the national of the Republic of China named herein to pass freely and in case of need to give all possible aid and protection.

Data page

Personal biodata page information for the passport holder and the machine readable zone are listed below.

The biodata page is protected by a plastic anti-counterfeiting layer with laser holograms of the country code TWN and broad-tailed swallowtail butterfly, an endemic species of Taiwan.

Inner pages

The inner pages of a Taiwan passport are in light purple. Its contents are:

Selected nature hotspots and famous sights of Taiwan are printed in the inner pages, each page also contains a transparent watermark of Jade Mountain, the highest peak of the country.

Back cover

A contactless biometric chip is embedded in the back cover page, with the warning as follows.
In Traditional Chinese:

In English:

This passport contains a sensitive electronic chip, and should be treated with great care in the same way as a portable electronic device. For best performance, please do not bend, twist, perforate or staple the passport. Neither expose it to direct sunlight, extreme temperature or humidity. Avoid electro-magnetic fields or chemical substance.

DO NOT STAMP THIS PAGE

Passport regulations for Taiwanese residents

Nationals with household registration in the Taiwan Area may apply for passports from the Bureau of Consular Affairs in Taipei or its branch offices in Kaohsiung, Hualien and Taichung with the following documents:

First time applicants are required to submit their documents in person to the Bureau of Consular Affairs.

Due to mandatory military service for men, travel restrictions are placed on male citizens from the age of 15 until they have completed their military service. When a passport is issued to a such citizen, a stamp with the following words will be shown on the remarks page, and a sticker which describes the regulation will be attached to the back cover of the passport.
In Traditional Chinese:

Before travelling, the holder needs to apply for permission to travel overseas with the National Immigration Agency or the conscription administration near his residence. Permission is granted in the form of a stamp on the remarks page, including the expiration date and the issuing authority.

Passport regulations for overseas nationals

Around 60,000 Taiwan passport holders are NWOHRs, accounting for approximately 0.5% of total valid passports. NWOHRs are overseas nationals without household registration in Taiwan, and hence do not have the right of abode in Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen, Matsu and other outlying islands.

Application

Overseas nationals can only apply passport from an embassy, consulate or Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office near their residing country with the following document.

The Republic of China nationality law adopts the jus sanguinis principle. The ancestor's nationality of a person may be a proof of that person's nationality. There are various of documents may applied, see the following eligibility paragraph.

Travel requirements and limitations

Unlike residents of Taiwan, NWOHRs do not automatically have right of abode in Taiwan. They are required to apply for an entry permit to enter Taiwan prior to their travel. The application must be submitted to the embassy, consulate or Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office of their country of residence. Once application is approved, a visa-like permit will be affixed on the visa page.

Because of the lack of right of abode, page 50 of NWOHR passports show the following words in ink.
In Traditional Chinese:

Unlike passports of Taiwanese residents, passports for NWOHRs contain a special stamp that indicates non-resident status and exempts holders from conscription.

Eligibility for Taiwan passports

The ROC was founded in 1912 governing the Mainland China. At the end of the Second World War in 1945, the Republic of China was given administrative jurisdiction over Taiwan and maintained control of it ever since. At the end of the Chinese Civil War in 1949, the ROC lost its control of Mainland China to the Chinese Communist Party, which established the People's Republic of China (PRC). Henceforth, the ROC has been able to administer only Taiwan and some islands off the Mainland's coast. Maintaining the view that it is still the legitimate government of the whole of China, the ROC does not formally recognize the legitimacy of PRC. It has also constitutionally defined all the territory under its control as the "Free Area" (or the "Taiwan Area") and the territory outside Taiwan Area as the "Mainland Area". The ROC constitution allows the ROC government to make laws for one Area of the country without affecting the other Area..

However, permanent residents in the Mainland Area, Hong Kong or Macau are not generally eligible to obtain a ROC passport [Passport Act, Article 6]. Furthermore, Overseas Chinese applicants normally must submit one of the following forms of proof of ROC nationality [Passport Act Enforcement Rules, Article 4]:

As the first ROC nationality law, in effect from 5 February 1929 to 9 February 2000, only permitted ROC national fathers to pass nationality down to the descendants, any person who was born on or before 9 February 1980 to an ROC national mother and a foreign father is not a ROC national, regardless of place of birth.

There are certain exceptions to this in certain cases for first and second generation emigrants, but in general an applicant will be unable to obtain a ROC passport unless he already holds ROC-issued nationality documentation for himself or an ancestor.

Therefore, for a person to obtain a ROC passport, one of the following must normally apply:

The interior is in traditional Chinese characters and English. Until the mid-1990s, the passport also contained an entry for provincial ancestry (籍貫), stating the Chinese province and county of one's ancestral home, but this field has been eliminated. However, the Chinese province or county of birth is still listed in the birthplace entry if the passport holder was born in either Mainland China or Taiwan.

Limitation in usage

Even though Taiwan maintains official relations with only 21 countries, the ROC passport is still accepted as a valid travel document in most countries of the world. Although Taiwanese enjoy visa-free status in 137 countries, some countries, pursuant to their positions on Taiwan's political status, refuse to visé or stamp ROC passports, and instead issue visas on a separate travel document or a separate piece of paper to Taiwanese travelers to avoid conveying any kind of recognition to the ROC, or to Taiwan as a polity distinct from the PRC. The chart below only lists countries or territories which explicitly state that ROC passports are not accepted, while also requiring a visa or entry permit for ROC nationals prior to arrival.

"Republic of Taiwan" sticker controversies

In 2015, a pro-independence activist, Denis Chen, designed the Taiwan Passport Sticker (ROT sticker), which are to be placed on the front cover of ROC passports. The stickers can re-brand the country's name as "台灣國" (lit. State of Taiwan) and "Republic of Taiwan" (ROT), as well as replace the country's emblem with the cartoons of either Jade Mountain, Formosan black bear, or pro-democracy activist Cheng Nan-jung.

Although applauded by pro-independence supporters, this move caused controversies of Taiwan's neighboring countries and regions, as well as the United States, since the altercation of passport covers might be a violation of immigration laws in other countries or regions and eventually cause the refusal of entry holders of such passports. Singapore was the first country in Asia to deny entry to holders of altered passports on 29 November 2015, and deported three ROC nationals for "altering their travel documents". Among the three, two immediately removed the ROT stickers upon the further inquiries by the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (ICA) officers, but were eventually deported by Singapore to Taiwan. Another person had refused to remove such stickers and instead requested diplomatic representatives of Taiwan for consular protection, but was also deported in the end by ICA. The two Special Administrative Regions of China, Hong Kong and Macau, soon followed suit and refused to accept holders of such passports for entry. A spokesperson of Hong Kong Immigration Department said that any person who "altered the travel document without lawful authority, or, who possess or use altered travel document", is a violation of Immigration Ordinance and can be sentenced for up to 14 years in prison.

The American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) had, through diplomatic channels, notified the Taiwanese MOFA and confirmed that holders of such altered passports may be extensively questioned by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers and be removed from the United States, and on March 2016, two travelers from Taiwan voluntarily removed ROT stickers because of the extensive questioning by CBP officers. The two travelers were eventually admitted into the U.S., while a CBP spokesperson warned that alterations of travel documents made by any person who is not authorized by the government of a country can render it invalid and will result the holder's refusal of admission to the U.S., and placing ROT stickers on passports is deemed to have altered the travel documents. Similar incident also occurred in Japan when a holder of altered passport was taken to secondary inspection. After being told that he would be deported, the man finally removed the ROT stickers and placed them on his t-shirt and was allowed into Japan.

Supporters of the stickers claimed that passports with ROT stickers were accepted in United Arab Emirates and in Japan. In the latter case, the person who placed ROT sticker claimed that he was simply trying to block the word "China" from his passport. Holders of such passports were also allowed entry in Philippines, although a Bureau of Immigration (BI) spokesperson claimed that the passenger would normally be thoroughly inspected and called the incident "a serious matter", while also said that the government would launch an investigation.

According to the Bureau of Consular Affairs of Taiwan, a total of 21 people had been denied entry by Singapore, Macau and Hong Kong since the end of 2015. Also incidents were reported in Japan and U.S. for the use of ROT stickers. The Taiwanese MOFA called travelers to not alter the cover of their travel documents so that they would not be denied entry.