Basic Structure of a Hong Kong Private Limited Company

Foreign companies who want to setup their business in Hong Kong are usually recommended to register a subsidiary company in the city. A foreign owned subsidiary in Hong Kong is the same as registering a private limited company. The entire procedure is fairly simple and as long as you maintain the required company structure and file your application with all required documents, the incorporation application is approved within a week or so. Some of the basic company structure requirements for a private limited firm in Hong Kong are as follows:

To begin with, all incorporated companies in Hong Kong need to have at least one director, one shareholder and one company secretary. While the director as well as the shareholder can be from any nation, the company secretary has to be someone who is currently residing in Hong Kong. If the company secretary is a corporate body, in that case they need to have their office in Hong Kong itself. The director and the shareholder can be the same person and at the same time, there is no requirement of them relocating to the city to manage their Hong Kong based company.

Also all companies in Hong Kong must get their named approved by the concerned authorities before they can proceed with actual company registration. Company names in Hong Kong are usually either in English or Chinese. Few companies have their names in both languages. However, while the company can maintain two names in the respective languages, they cannot have a name which is a mixture of English and Chinese.

Companies in Hong Kong must also maintain authorized share capital or paid up capital. There are no given norms for minimum authorized capital but generally the standard practice is to have an authorized share capital of HKD 10,000.
The company structure requirement is actually pretty simple in Hong Kong and as long as you maintain the above, company incorporation applications are approved fairly quickly. The only other requirement is to have a registered business address in Hong Kong which is an actual address and not simply a PO Box. After company incorporation, there are a few post incorporation formalities as well which all businesses must complete as soon as possible. This includes registering with the Inland Revenue Department, opening of a corporate bank account and applying for additional business licenses if required. Foreign companies may also start applying for appropriate employee visas if they need to relocate staff from their head office to Hong Kong.


Author Bio
Bryan Wong is a business analyst in the Asia-Pacific region and in his free time writes business articles. In this article, Bryan talks about Hong Kong private limited company and Company incorporation in HK.