In July 2024, Hong Kong's Financial Services and Treasury Bureau (FSTB) published its Consultation Conclusions1 on its proposed introduction of an inward re-domiciliation regime to allow companies incorporated outside Hong Kong to re-domicile to Hong Kong as set out in its March 2023 Consultation Paper.2
Chief Executive, John Lee, has since announced in his 2024 Policy Address3 delivered on 16 October 2024 that the FSTB will introduce a bill this year to implement the Hong Kong re-domiciliation regime as part of the Hong Kong Government’s efforts to attract more offshore companies to establish headquarters or corporate divisions in Hong Kong. For further details of the Chief Executive’s 2024 Policy Address, please see our October 2024 newsletter and for details of the FSTB’s Consultation Paper on Proposed Company Re-domiciliation Regime in Hong Kong, please see our June 2023 newsletter.
Following its introduction of fund re-domiciliation regimes to allow offshore funds established as companies or limited partnerships to re-domicile to Hong Kong as open-ended fund companies or limited partnership funds, the Hong Kong Government is proposing a legislative regime to allow companies incorporated in overseas jurisdictions to migrate their place of incorporation to Hong Kong while maintaining their legal identity and the validity of their corporate actions prior to the re-domiciliation. The intention is to provide a streamlined and cost-effective way for overseas companies to move their place of incorporation to Hong Kong which avoids the need to wind-up the company in its original domicile and set up a new company in Hong Kong.
The proposed regime will be administered by the Hong Kong Registrar of Companies, who will approve or reject applications for re-domiciliation to Hong Kong.
1 FSTB. Consultation Conclusions and Legislative Proposals – Proposed Company Re-domiciliation Regime in Hong Kong, July 2024
2 FSTB. Public Consultation on Proposed Company Re-domiciliation Regime in Hong Kong, March 2023
3 The Chief Executive’s 2024 Policy Address, October 2024
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