However, constitutional reforms in the 1990s and 2000s greatly reduced the ease by which further grants of nationality were made to overseas Chinese and Mongolian, and restricted citizenship rights only to those with household registration in Taiwan.

[11][12] The cover of the ordinary Republic of China (Taiwan) passport is dark green, with the ROC national emblem – Blue Sky with a White Sun – in the middle.

In Traditional Chinese: 中華民國外交部部長茲請各國有關機關對持用本護照之中華民國國民允予自由通行，並請必要時儘量予以協助及保護。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.XXXX, XXXX-XXXX 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.

[15] It was originally scheduled to be rolled out on 25 December 2017,[16] however the rollout was suspended a day later and did not resume until 5 February 2018 due to the Dulles Airport image controversy.

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

The primary usage in practice of this stamp is that it allows male NWHRs to indefinitely defer military service, so long as they do not return to Taiwan to take residence, which invalidates the Overseas Chinese status.

[27] 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.

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.

Although Taiwanese enjoy visa-free status in 148 countries, some countries, pursuant to their policies on Taiwan's political status, refuse to endorse 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 diplomatic recognition to the ROC.

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.

[36] The two Special Administrative Regions of China, Hong Kong and Macau, soon followed suit and refused to accept holders of such passports for entry.

After being told that he would be deported, the man finally removed the Republic of Taiwan stickers and placed them on his T-shirt and was allowed into Japan.

In the latter case, the person who placed Republic of Taiwan sticker claimed that he was simply trying to block the word "China" from his passport.

[44] Holders of such passports were also allowed entry in the 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.

[46] From 2020, such problems have largely ceased to exist after the Taiwanese government issued new versions of passports that have reduced "Republic of China" to small texts surrounding the national emblem, and highlighted "Taiwan" instead.

Page 5 of the redesigned second generation biometric passport, originally scheduled to roll out on 25 December 2017, was to feature an image of the iconic terminal 1 of Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport, a project of Chinese-American architect Tung-Yen Lin completed in 1979.

[54] The second generation biometric passport with stickers on page 5 was officially rolled out on 5 February 2018, more than a month behind the original schedule, to ameliorate the controversy.

MOFA confirmed that it had notified immigration authorities of foreign countries so that holders of passports with the sticker would not encounter difficulties when travelling.

[57][58] This was added after an original proposal to add "Issued in Taiwan" was shelved after strong criticism from the mainland Chinese government the previous year.

[59][60] On 22 July 2020, the Legislative Yuan passed two resolutions put forth by the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) that ask the executive branch of government to highlight "Taiwan" on passports and China Airlines' (CAL) aircraft.

The resolutions require the Executive Yuan to work out measures to emphasize the word for "Taiwan" written in Chinese (臺灣) and in English on the passport cover.

[62] The Kuomintang (KMT; Nationalist Party of China) has accused the DPP of revisionism and criticized President Tsai Ing-wen's administration for missing an opportunity to advertise the nation to the world due to its focus on its own ideological and political considerations.