Hong Kong company formation, filings and compliance
Practical guidance on HK Company Formation, and on running and closing a Hong Kong company once it exists - the filings, the deadlines, the tax and the paperwork - with calculators for the arithmetic and a directory of licensed providers when you would rather hand it to someone else.
Written against the Companies Registry and Inland Revenue Department's own published material. Every fee and date names the source it came from, and where a figure is set annually and we cannot verify the current one, the page says so instead of guessing.
Topics
- Choosing & starting Entity structures, the minimum statutory requirements, incorporation itself, and the first ninety days of a new Hong Kong company.
- The company secretary role What the statutory role requires under Cap. 622, who may hold it, TCSP licensing, and the statutory registers a secretary must maintain.
- The forms library Every Companies Registry and Inland Revenue form at page level: purpose, deadline, fee, signatories, and the reasons filings get rejected.
- Ongoing compliance The annual cycle - annual return, business registration renewal, audit, significant controllers - plus AML duties and re-domiciliation.
- Accounting & bookkeeping Bookkeeping through to audit preparation, the HKFRS/SME-FRS decision, and what accounting support actually costs in Hong Kong.
- Tax Profits tax and the territorial source principle, offshore claims, FSIE, salaries tax, stamp duty, transfer pricing and cross-border exposure.
- Employment & payroll The Employment Ordinance, MPF, statutory entitlements, termination payments, payroll mechanics and employment visas.
- Banking & money movement Opening and keeping a Hong Kong business account, the virtual bank and fintech alternatives, and the licences money movement can require.
- Licences & permits Which industries need a licence in Hong Kong, from food and liquor to employment agencies, money lending and import-export controls.
- IP, contracts & data Trade marks, patents and designs, the contracts a Hong Kong company actually needs, and PDPO obligations for businesses handling data.
- Changes & restructuring Changing officers, address, name, capital or year end; share transfers and issues; group restructuring and selling the company.
- Closing down Deregistration, the three routes to liquidation, striking off, dormancy as an alternative, and restoring a company that was struck off.
- Foreign & cross-border Part 16 registration for non-Hong Kong companies, branch versus subsidiary, re-domiciliation into Hong Kong, and mainland structures.
- Funding & government support Government funding schemes, incubation programmes, investment entry routes and SME financing in Hong Kong.
- Blog General business commentary carried over from the previous site. Kept for its content and inbound links, and deliberately separate from the compliance clusters so it does not dilute their topical signal.
- Corporate governance Board composition and evaluation, independent non-executive directors, ESG reporting, whistleblowing and anti-bribery - governance as the board's problem rather than the filing calendar's.
- Glossary Hong Kong company administration terms, defined plainly.
- Answers Short answers to the questions people actually ask.
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