Teaching English Legally vs Illegally:

     Many foreign teachers prefer to work legally (you must sign a contract with a school who will in turn apply for a work permit, Alien Resident Certificate (ARC) and a resident visa for you.) Sure you will have the application hassles and delays, you have to pay taxes, apply and pay a small fee for National health insurance, and have a contract at one or more schools for a year or longer which will ‘sponsor’ the work visa (more about transferring contracts and work visas to another school later) but in the long run you will save more money, have more benefits, have less potential hassles with immigration or police and can receive very inexpensive health care among other benefits such as cash bonuses, reimbursement of your return plane ticket, help with housing, etc...If you do the math on a teacher who is planning to stay for a year or longer vs. one who works illegally and has to make constant ‘visa runs’, you will quickly see that it pays to be legal in the long run (if you plan to stay at least a year.)

     Working “Illegally” means you will have to take frequent 'Visa Runs', where you will need to leave and re-enter Taiwan every month or two months according to the law (in order to get a new tourist or “visitor visa” to enter Taiwan.) This usually means having to pay for taxi/bus rides (if you don’t live near a major airport), pay for a return ticket out of Taiwan to a nearby country (most popular destinations are Okinawa, Japan – Bangkok, Thailand – and Hong Kong), losing a day traveling to and from Taiwan (sometimes you may lose a day of pay/work if you don’t get the visa processed in time for a variety of reasons…), and having to worry about ‘raids’ on schools from police or getting deported (with the possibility of not being allowed to return because of revoked future visas, for a year or possibly permanently…)

     However, the pluses of working illegally are that you get paid cash, you don’t have to pay taxes (or have taxes withheld from your pay) and you can take frequent sightseeing trips to nearby Asian countries for weekend getaways with friends on your 'Visa Runs', if you plan it right. Either way you have to pay the piper (we wouldn’t be writing about it if the government hadn’t already figured out a way to make money from you either way) and have to endure some hassles, but if you plan to stay a year or longer, again most teachers prefer to apply for a work visa with a school (assuming they get along with the students and staff).

Remember: it’s a teacher’s market!