My “How to Establish a Company in Hong Kong” parts aren’t in any particular order. In my first post I said I would supply detailed information on the actual process of establishing a company in Hong Kong after I actually established the company.

Type:
LIMITED. Hong Kong has more than one type of business entity available, this blog covers the “Local Limited Company” type.

Cost:
It cost HKD2,170 (about US$280) to register a company. This includes (exactly as it is written on my receipt): Document IRBR1 Levy, HKD450; Document NC1 Registration fee of company ,HKD1,425; Document NC1 Lodgement free for incorporation Form, HKD295.

Location:
14/F Queensway Government Office Building
66 Queensway, Hong Kong (Near High Court)
Enquire Telephone: 2234-9933
http://www.cr.gov.hk

How to actually get there:
One bright sunny day you wake up, eat some noodles, and take the MTR to Admiralty, Pacific Place shopping mall. You exit C1, walk across the sky bridge into the main entrance of Pacific Place (you’ll see Starbucks and other little coffee shops, restaurants), take an immediate right up a gently upward sloping walkway and through some doors, out of the mall. Now you are outside with Queensway road to your right, walk until you see some elevators to your left (yes, HK has lots of outside elevators), take these elevators about 6 levels up (seriously), you will then be at the entrance of the correct HK Government Office Building (my use of capitalization is intentional, lending to the Hong Kong government’s very professional and official way of conducting itself). Walk in the building, enjoy the A/C, take the elevators, which are to your left, up to one of the Company Registry floors. The Company Registry is on two floors and you will go to the wrong floor every time you guess which one you’re supposed to go to, so get used to it.

Procedure for Registering a Local Limited Hong Kong Company:
You can almost entirely register a company online. The Hong Kong government will say you can entirely register online, and technically they are correct. But, before you can register online, you have to prove who you are, and to do this you have to visit the Company Registry office. Once you are done showing your HKID and filling out a short form you are a “qualified known person” and can do official stuff online, such as register a company.

If this is your first company, or if you are a particular unregistered individual, it will probably be easier for you to entirely register at the Company Registry office. You can do it in one day, maybe even in an hour if everything goes smoothly. It took Denis and I several days to register, but the time we actually spent registering as opposed to waiting/fixing problems was actually around three hours.

This is the way it works is supposed to work: Walk into the office, fill out some forms, pay a fee, get official documents emailed to you, done. In our case, my “registration number” mysteriously got stuck somewhere in the registration process. My name and paticulars were registered, I had an “e-registry” number, but the number did not work. So I had to wait several days until this got un-stuck. Then, I only received two of the three forms in my email, the other never arrived but for some reason was sent to Denis (the company’s CTO). You probably won’t have this experience, so don’t worry.

Websites and Documents:
The Company Registry office uses a website/program called e-Register for nearly everything. You’ll use this to register, regardless of if you are at their office or at home. After you register they will  email you two forms:

1. Certification of Incorporation
2. Business Registration Certificate

(The third form I mentioned is the Memorandum and Articles of Association. You’re on your own with that one.)

You have now registered your company. Congratulations.

Don’t get in line for a Shroff, you won’t need one.