Contacts
What this office does
Role of the office. Part of our work on foreign trade contracts and currency control for clients importing equipment and goods from China and other countries of the region is handled through the Hong Kong office.
How the work is organised. The office is a point of local presence, not a separate practice. Every matter is led by a partner from the head team, who is personally responsible for the result and coordinates the work across all the jurisdictions involved.
A similar case: importing equipment from China.
How exactly we help here
Our other offices
Registering a company in Hong Kong
A Hong Kong company is not an offshore vehicle without reporting. Behind the simple registration stand a mandatory company secretary and an annual audit.
Form and participants. International structures usually use a Private Limited Company. A non-resident, including a Russian citizen, may be a director and shareholder, but the company in any case needs a corporate secretary (a Hong Kong resident or a licensed secretarial company) and a registered legal address in the jurisdiction.
Register of beneficial owners. Details of persons with significant control are entered in the Significant Controllers Register and kept at the company’s address. They are not published in a public state register, but are disclosed on request to law enforcement and supervisory authorities.
Reporting every year. Unlike classic offshore jurisdictions, a Hong Kong company must keep accounting records, be audited annually by an independent certified public accountant (CPA) and file a profits tax return, even if all its activity is conducted outside Hong Kong and the tax actually payable is nil.
We provide corporate support for such structures within our corporate law practice.
Hong Kong’s tax regime
Hong Kong taxes profit by the place of its source, not by the place where the company is registered. This is the foundation of the jurisdiction’s whole tax architecture.
The territorial principle. Profits tax is charged only on income whose source is in Hong Kong itself. Profit from transactions conducted entirely outside it can be claimed as offshore and exempted, but since 2023 such claims have been scrutinised more closely because of the FSIE (Foreign-Sourced Income Exemption) regime, introduced for passive income under EU pressure.
Rates and absent taxes. The standard profits tax rate is 16.5%, with a reduced rate of 8.25% on the first HKD 2 million of profit. Hong Kong has no VAT, no capital gains tax and no withholding tax on dividends and interest, a fundamental difference from mainland China.
The agreement with Russia. There is no direct double taxation agreement between Hong Kong and Russia, although the jurisdiction has a broad network of such agreements with other countries. This is taken into account at the stage of planning the structure, not after the company is registered.
We handle these questions within our tax law practice.
Bank compliance for clients from Russia
Opening an account with a Hong Kong bank is harder today than registering a company, and this must be built into the timeline in advance.
Enhanced scrutiny. Since 2022, Hong Kong banks, including the largest, HSBC, Standard Chartered and Bank of China (Hong Kong), have applied heightened compliance checks to structures with a traceable link to Russia: to beneficial owners, directors, the countries of counterparties and even the settlement currency. There is no formal ban on serving Russian clients, but the bank’s decision depends on the specific profile of the structure and on a document package prepared in advance.
What the bank looks at. The compliance department assesses the economic logic of the company: whether it carries on real activity, whether it has an office and staff in the region, where the founders’ capital comes from and why Hong Kong was chosen. A structure without a clear answer to these questions risks refusal after several weeks of review.
Alternatives. When an account with a systemically important bank is unavailable, we consider Hong Kong’s virtual banks, which have more flexible compliance, or opening an account in a friendly jurisdiction for specific settlements. The choice depends on which payments the account is needed for.
We handle these questions together with our international law practice.
What we prepare before applying to the bank:
Investment migration and private capital
Hong Kong has reopened to large private investors, but the programme is designed for placing capital, not for obtaining a residence permit quickly.
The investor programme. Since March 2024, Hong Kong has operated an updated programme for investment migrants (the New Capital Investment Entrant Scheme): a residence permit for those prepared to place at least HK$30 million in the jurisdiction in permitted asset classes, namely equities, bonds, certain funds and non-residential property. Part of the sum must go into a separate investment portfolio supporting local innovative industries.
Family offices. For qualifying investment structures managed for the benefit of a single family (Single Family Office), Hong Kong offers a separate tax concession: a wide range of such a structure’s investment income is exempt from profits tax, subject to requirements on presence and the composition of assets. This is separate from the general territorial tax regime for companies.
Who it suits. Such structures are more often considered not for the Hong Kong residence permit itself but as part of a broader aim: diversifying assets across several jurisdictions and preparing capital for transfer to the next generation.
We handle questions of inheritance and the transfer of capital between generations within our inheritance law practice.
Frequently asked questions
How does a Hong Kong company differ from a company in mainland China?+
Hong Kong retains a separate legal system based on English law and its own currency regime, which gives more flexibility for international operations than registration in mainland China.
Do you help with trade contracts with Chinese suppliers?+
Yes, this is one of the main tasks of the Hong Kong office, from agreeing the terms of the contract to currency control and customs clearance on import into Russia.
Do I need to open an account in Hong Kong specifically to work with Asian suppliers?+
Not always, but it is often convenient: it simplifies settlements and lowers conversion costs compared with paying directly from Russia.