Working in Hong Kong
Employment visa, Top Talent Pass and what an employer actually owes
Hong Kong issues no work permit. The visa is the authorisation to work, and it is tied — with one exception — to a named employer and a named post. That single design choice explains most of what follows: the file is short, the decision is quick, and changing employer means going back to the Immigration Department.
Four ways in, and how to tell them apart
| Route | Who it is for | Initial stay |
|---|---|---|
| General Employment Policy GEP — professionals | A person with a confirmed offer from a Hong Kong employer, for a post that cannot readily be filled locally, at market remuneration. The ordinary route for a transferred manager or a local hire. | 36 months, or the length of the contract if shorter, on employment condition |
| Top Talent Pass Scheme TTPS | A person with either a high past income or a degree from a highly ranked university. No job offer is required at the point of application. | 36 months (income route) or 24 months (degree and graduate routes), on time limitation only |
| Quality Migrant Admission Scheme QMAS | A points-tested route for people who want to settle without a sponsoring employer. Two tests: a general points test, and an achievement-based test for exceptional records. | 36 months under the general test; eight years under the achievement-based test |
| Admission Scheme for Mainland Talents and Professionals ASMTP | The equivalent of the GEP for residents of the Mainland, who are outside the GEP. | As for the GEP |
Three categories. A — annual income of HK$2.5 million or more in the year before the application: 36 months. B — a bachelor’s degree from an eligible university plus at least three years’ work experience in the past five: 24 months. C — graduation from an eligible university in the past five years, without the experience requirement, under an annual quota: 24 months. The eligible list is built from the top hundred of the Times Higher Education, QS, U.S. News and Shanghai rankings, together with leading Mainland universities. The pass is granted on time limitation only: the holder may take up employment, change employer or start a business without going back to Immigration. The extension, however, is granted on evidence of employment or of a business in Hong Kong — the freedom is real for the first term and conditional after it.
The employment visa file
Under the GEP the application is made jointly: the applicant supplies the personal half, the employer the corporate half, and the Immigration Department reads them as one file.
| Item | Produced by |
|---|---|
| Passport, photograph, degree certificates and transcripts, employment references covering the claimed experience, curriculum vitae | The applicant |
| Employment contract stating post, duties, salary and benefits; business registration certificate; certificate of incorporation; latest audited accounts or, for a young company, a business plan and evidence of funding; office lease; staff profile | The employer |
| Marriage and birth certificates for dependants | The applicant |
The five criteria are stable and worth stating plainly: no security objection and no known record of serious crime; a good education background, normally a first degree in the relevant field, or good technical qualifications and proven experience in its place; a genuine vacancy; a confirmed offer for work relevant to that background and not readily taken up locally; and remuneration broadly commensurate with the market. The policy does not apply to residents of the Mainland, nor to nationals of Afghanistan, Cuba and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
Not on the candidate — on the employer. A company incorporated a few months earlier, with no accounts, no lease and no local staff, is asked to show why the post exists at all. The answer is documentary: a funded bank account, a real tenancy, a business plan with revenue assumptions, and where possible a local hire alongside the foreign one. An employment visa filed in the same week as the incorporation is the commonest avoidable refusal we see.
Timing, extension and the seven years
The Immigration Department gives four weeks as the normal processing time for a fresh application once it holds a complete file, and two to three weeks for a straightforward extension. Those figures hold in practice; what does not hold is the assumption that the file is complete on the day it is lodged.
Extensions on the GEP follow a three-then-two-year pattern, and a professional earning HK$2 million a year or more who has already spent two years in Hong Kong may be granted a five-year extension free of the employment condition. After seven years of continuous ordinary residence the person may apply for the right of abode — the point at which the visa question disappears for good.
A spouse and unmarried children under eighteen may be sponsored, and their stay is aligned on the sponsor’s. A dependant admitted on that basis may take up employment or study without further permission. Few jurisdictions in the region allow this, and for a couple deciding between Hong Kong and a mainland posting it is frequently the deciding factor.
Being an employee in Hong Kong
The employment side is as short as the immigration side. There is no social security system in the continental sense, no payroll withholding, and no separate work authorisation to renew.
Salaries tax
Territorial: only income from an office or employment exercised in Hong Kong is taxed. The employer does not withhold — it files an annual return of remuneration and the employee is assessed directly, paying in two instalments. Tax is the lower of the progressive scale, rising through 2%, 6%, 10%, 14% to 17% on successive bands of net chargeable income after allowances, and the standard rate on net income, now two-tiered at 15% on the first HK$5 million and 16% above. There is no capital gains tax, no tax on dividends and no consumption tax.
Mandatory Provident Fund
Employer and employee each contribute 5% of relevant income, on a base capped at HK$30,000 a month — a maximum of HK$1,500 each. An employee earning under HK$7,100 a month makes no contribution, but the employer still does. Two exemptions matter here: a person who enters Hong Kong for employment for not more than thirteen months, and a person already covered by an overseas retirement scheme. Both must be documented at the outset, not claimed afterwards.
Employees’ compensation insurance is compulsory from the first employee, without exception. The Employment Ordinance sets statutory holidays, annual leave, sickness allowance, maternity and paternity leave and the rules on termination; a contract may improve on them and cannot reduce them. Since the abolition of the offsetting mechanism, employers can no longer set accrued MPF contributions against severance or long service payments, and should provide for that.
Employ someone on a visitor’s permission “while the visa is processed”. Taking employment in breach of a condition of stay is a criminal offence for the employee and for the employer, and it is enforced. If the person must be in Hong Kong before the visa issues, they are here as a visitor and doing nothing that resembles work — including for a group company abroad, where the facts would show the work was done here.
How we help
Lo On Shing prepares and lodges the employment visa alongside the incorporation, which is the order that works: the company must be able to show a lease, a bank account and a coherent business plan before the visa file is read. We assemble the corporate half, review the candidate’s degree and reference evidence for the gaps the Department asks about, and take the position on which route fits — a Top Talent Pass, where the person qualifies, is often faster and less exposed than a GEP application filed by a company that is three months old. We produce the Hong Kong evidence other jurisdictions ask for as well: certificates of incumbency, board resolutions, annual returns and signed attestations, notarised and apostilled, or attested by a China-appointed attesting officer where the destination is the Mainland.