Hong Kong
The gateway into China, with its own law, a low tax and no VAT
Hong Kong is a special administrative region of China with its own legal system on English common law, its own currency and its own customs territory. For a European company it is where trade with China gets structured and where a contract can be enforced in a familiar environment. The market itself is small — about seven and a half million people — and there is no free-trade agreement with the Union.
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Setting up a company
Setting up a company and tax are the part of the profile you cannot assemble elsewhere in an afternoon. The rest of the page is open.
- ·Legal forms
- ·Minimum capital
- ·How long registration takes
- ·Director and residence
- ·Bank account
- ·What to watch for
Taxes
Setting up a company and tax are the part of the profile you cannot assemble elsewhere in an afternoon. The rest of the page is open.
- ·Corporate income tax
- ·VAT
- ·Tax year and return
- ·Withholding tax — dividends
- ·Tax reliefs
- ·Double taxation treaty
- ·Payroll contributions
What it makes and needs
Mostly re-export: electronics, precious metals and jewellery, watches, telecommunications equipment. Domestic manufacturing is marginal.
Money and payments
The Hong Kong dollar is pegged to the US dollar in a band around 7.80 HKD per USD. Against the euro you therefore carry euro/dollar risk rather than Hong Kong risk — an important distinction when pricing.
Importing into their market
Hong Kong is a free port — no customs duty at all, apart from excise on four commodities (liquor, tobacco, hydrocarbon oils, methyl alcohol). A declaration is still filed, and controlled goods require licences.
Although no duty is charged, an import and export declaration must be filed electronically within 14 days; late filing carries penalties. A declaration charge is levied on the declared value — small, but compulsory.
Hong Kong has no extensive certification system of its own — most goods enter without approval. The exceptions are medicines and medical devices, food subject to registration, toys and children's products, and strategic commodities, which run under licence.
Practical matters
English and Chinese are both official; business, the courts and contracts routinely run in English. Common law and independent courts are the main reason deals with mainland China get structured through Hong Kong.
Hong Kong International has long been one of the world's largest cargo airports and the port remains a significant transhipment hub for southern China. Shenzhen is an hour away overland — which is why the sales arms of mainland manufacturers sit here.
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A visa, legalising a document, an invitation letter, the commercial attaché before a trade fair — these only go through a mission. Below are the official registers rather than transcribed addresses: missions move and consular hours change several times a year, so a link to the register stays current where a transcript would not.
Hong Kong has no diplomatic service of its own — visas and consular matters go through Chinese missions, immigration directly through the Hong Kong Immigration Department. Its trade representation is the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Offices, often more useful to a company than an embassy.
Where a country has no mission in Bratislava or Prague it is usually accredited from Vienna, Berlin or Warsaw — the register says which.
Every figure names the authority that published it and the date the line was last worked on. This is not legal or tax advice — verify a figure with the named source before you act on it.