AboutLotta Danielsson-Murphy Expertise I can answer questions about trading with and doing business with Taiwan. I can also answer questions about traveling to Taiwan, particularly about traveling to Taipei, as well as general questions about history, language, culture, etc.
Experience
Relevant Experience I am the Vice President of the US-Taiwan Business Council, a non-profit organization dedicated to US-Taiwan trade/business. I speak Mandarin Chinese, lived in Taipei for nine months, and worked in Beijing for almost a year.
Education/Credentials International MBA (a.k.a. MIBS)-Chinese Track
University of South Carolina
Question Dear Lotta,
I saw your answer on a previous question about overstaying a visa and was hoping you could help me with my mine.
The question is that IF you overstay your visa, do they stamp anything in your passport that shows that you have overstayed and can this cause problems going through immigration in other countries or applying for visas for other countries?
Unfortunately I've been misinformed by one of the employees of the Immigration Office that I could extend my visa (a 60 day tourist visa on which I can also do a short term study) for a full month. They only wanted to extend my visa to the exact last day of my studies which is already on June 29. The plan was to leave on the 18th of July to go to Hong Kong, so I could actually see a bit of the island as well after 4 months of studying... I have to go to school for the full week so there will be no time to fly out and fly back in again to get a landing visa. Or to leave the country before my visa expires on the 29th. so I was wondering what the consequences would be if I overstayed 19 days for my further travels to China, Nepal and India later on.
I hope you can help me.
Kind regards,
Cat
Answer Hi Cat.
I'm afraid that I don't really have any first-hand experience with overstaying a visa in Taiwan, so I can't tell you with 100% accuracy what will happen. I can tell you that you will likely have some issues leaving, as I said in my past answer. You will probably have to pay a fine of NT$3,000 when you leave, and you will have an issue with re-entering Taiwan on a landing visa or on a visa-exempt entry in the future. (See http://iff.immigration.gov.tw/enfront/life.php?id=213&tr_id=2) Since the overstay is less than 30 days, however, I would imagine that you will be one among a lot of others with the same issue...
It's very likely that the Taiwan officials will make some sort of notation in your passport, but I personally do not think that it will affect you all that much when traveling on to other countries. It's possible that they might ask you more questions because you overstayed in Taiwan, but the worst case scenario (not letting you enter) seems a pretty remote possibility.
Like I said, though, I'm afraid I can't really answer this question definitively. You might be better off contacting the immigration entities/visa issuers in the countries that you want to visit, and ask this exact question. You have a very reasonable explanation for the (very few, in the great scheme of things) 19 days of overstaying, so I'm thinking it would not be a huge deal for you.
Sorry I couldn't be of more specific help. Good luck.
