Hong Kong

Hong Kong is a Special Administrative Region of China, not a country, and it runs its own immigration system separate from the Mainland’s. The endpoint is permanent residence, not nationality. There is no Hong Kong citizenship, and there is no Hong Kong passport except for Chinese citizens who already hold permanent residence.

Can you stay in Hong Kong long term?

Yes, and the clock is written into statute rather than left to policy. Seven years of continuous ordinary residence under Schedule 1 to the Immigration Ordinance (Cap. 115) gets you a permanent identity card and the right to live and work here indefinitely.

Every route on this page feeds that same clock: the Top Talent Pass Scheme, the General Employment Policy, the Quality Migrant Admission Scheme, the New Capital Investment Entrant Scheme and the Technology Talent Admission Scheme. Student time counts too, which is why a four year degree followed by three years of work is the fastest legitimate path to permanent residence.

The seven years must be continuous and must sit immediately before the date you apply. Holidays and business trips do not break it. Long or frequent absences can, and the Immigration Department looks at the reason, the duration and the frequency of each absence, where your employer is based, and where your family actually lives. Time as a domestic helper, imported labourer, consular officer, garrison member, detainee or unlawful resident does not count.

Two things surprise people. First, the status is not automatic on your seventh anniversary. You are a permanent resident only when the Director of Immigration approves the application, and that verification takes weeks to months. Second, permanent residence is not citizenship. A foreign national keeps their own nationality and travels on their own passport. Naturalising as a Chinese citizen is possible under Article 7 of the PRC Nationality Law, but that is a change of nationality rather than a Hong Kong one, and in practice it requires renouncing what you have.

There is one narrow exception to the residence requirement. New CIES entrants who keep their portfolio compliant for seven years but cannot show ordinary residence may be granted unconditional stay instead of permanent residence.

Ways to move to Hong Kong

Use the table to find the one or two routes that fit your facts, then read those records before comparing costs.

The programmes

Top Talent Pass Scheme. The only major route that needs no job offer and no sponsor. Category A is for people earning HK$2,500,000 or more in the year before application; Categories B and C are for graduates of a listed university, with C capped at 10,000 a year on a first come, first served basis. Each person can only be granted the initial stay once, so letting it lapse closes the route.

General Employment Policy. The ordinary work visa, and the one most people end up on. You need a confirmed offer at the prevailing market rate, and your employer has to show the vacancy could not be readily filled locally unless the role is on the Talent List or pays HK$2,000,000 or more. The permit is tied to that employer, so changing jobs means a new application.

Quality Migrant Admission Scheme. Rebuilt in November 2025 into a twelve item true or false questionnaire with a pass mark of 6 and no annual quota. The old 245 point test is gone, and any guide written before late 2025 describes a scheme that no longer exists. A bachelor’s degree alone scores nothing on the academic criteria.

New Capital Investment Entrant Scheme. HK$30,000,000 net, of which HK$27,000,000 goes into permissible assets and HK$3,000,000 into a government-directed investment portfolio. Mainland Chinese residents are excluded unless they hold permanent residence abroad. It is the only route with a direct path to settlement and the only one where you are not expected to work.

Technology Talent Admission Scheme. A fast employer-led route for technology R&D staff, running through an Innovation and Technology Commission quota held by the company. The visa can turn around in about two weeks once documents are complete, which makes it worth asking a prospective employer whether they hold a quota before accepting a General Employment Policy timeline.

What Hong Kong is bad at

Flexibility after arrival. Almost every route binds you to an employer, a quota, a portfolio or a sponsor, and when that link breaks the permit goes with it. The eligibility lists are arbitrary and move without notice: the Top Talent Pass university list is an aggregate of four rankings plus regional carve-outs, and Category C can close mid-year when the 10,000 places run out.

There is no digital nomad visa and no retirement visa. A remote worker earning USD 40,000 a year has no route unless a Hong Kong employer sponsors them, and a retiree has no route at all except the HK$30,000,000 investor scheme. Parents cannot join as dependants, and there is no parent visa of any kind.

Housing is the real filter. The “suitable accommodation” test for dependants, against the cost of living, means a salary that looks adequate on paper often will not support a family. And the system ends in permanent residence rather than a passport, so seven years and a great deal of money still does not buy a Hong Kong nationality, because none exists.

Guides

• Top Talent Pass Scheme: the three categories, the university list trap, the once-only rule
• General Employment Policy: sponsor duties, the local recruitment test, the entrepreneur stream
• Quality Migrant Admission Scheme: the twelve criteria, the 2025 rebuild, selection exercises
• New Capital Investment Entrant Scheme: the asset rules, the property cap, annual CPA certification
• Technology Talent Admission Scheme: quota mechanics, the STEM degree test, the two week turnaround

Sources

• Immigration Department, Top Talent Pass Scheme, checked 2026-10-22
• Immigration Department, General Employment Policy, checked 2026-10-22
• Immigration Department, Quality Migrant Admission Scheme FAQ, checked 2026-10-22
• New CIES Office and InvestHK, application procedures, checked 2026-10-22
• Innovation and Technology Commission, TechTAS FAQ, checked 2026-10-22
• Immigration Department, Right of Abode eligibility, checked 2026-10-22

Last updated 2026-10-22.