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Before you apply for Investment as Entrepreneur Visa

2025-07-31
Hong Kong is well-known as one of the vibrant metropolises across the Asia. It is a perfect city not only to work in, also to set up business in here. Hong Kong possesses with its unique strategic location, its stable economic environment, its transparent and friendly business environment, its well established legal and banking system, its simple and low tax regime, its world-class infrastructure and its well-educated & productive workforce.

While Hong Kong is situated at the heart of Asia and next to mainland China, it becomes an imperative gateway to enter China markets. In addition, the Hong Kong Express Rail Link commenced operation in the third quarter of 2018 and connects Hong Kong with the national high-speed rail network in Mainland China covering most major cities. It will take about 15 minutes, 45 minutes, 8 hours and 9 hours to reach Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Shanghai and Beijing respectively.

Therefore, if you would like to initiate a business in Hong Kong, you would have to incorporate a Hong Kong company here which is a simple process even when you are afar. Not long after your company is well-stablished and operating smoothly, you may realize that you would like to station in Hong Kong and manage your business, that is the moment when investment as entrepreneur visa comes to play.

While regular staffs apply for employment visa, for business owner should go for investment as entrepreneur visa since he/she is the director and shareholder of the Hong Kong company. Not limited to starting up a business, the applicant may consider acquiring the shares of existing company to become the shareholder and director for the application of the investment as entrepreneur visa.

The purpose of this investment as entrepreneur visa is to encourage foreign investors to setup business here to generate economic contributions to Hong Kong. To enhance the successful rate of visa approval, the applicant ought to show the contributions to Hong Kong economy by the followings:
  1. Create job vacancies (regardless of senior or junior level) for the locals or employed local staffs in the Hong Kong company
  2. Capital injection from the applicant to the company to sustain the business operations continuously
  3. Ownership or rental of physical offices (virtual office will not be considered)
  4. Introduction of innovative technology and business ideas


To be more convincing, a sound and feasible business plan for the upcoming 3 years is instrumental to the application. Based on our experience, Hong Kong Immigration Department (hereinafter referred as to “ImmD”) focus on the development of the company in reference to possible office expansions, newly created positions for locals (to set out the organizational structure of the company) and turnover projections. So that to demonstrate the viability of the proposed company and how it could contribute to the growth of Hong Kong economics. Some of the elements such as the nature of business, market and competitive analysis, market positioning, business direction, sales targets, marketing strategy are suitable content to be included in the business plan. (Please do not exaggerate the business plan as it will become one of the visa extension consideration base on your execution of the plan)

It is an advantage if the business is with these industries such as: trading & logistics, tourism, financial services, professional services, transportation, exhibition, manufacturing, cultural & creative industries, introduction of innovative technology or government-accredited incubator program.


Besides the company financial statements, personal bank statements are one of the crucial proofs to evaluate how deep the applicant’s pocket is. By providing the personal bank statements, the HK ImmD officer will have an idea how much back-up funding is available whenever the company needs further capital injections for the contingency and estimate the strength in financial of the applicant. In addition, the applicant’s educational background and previous working experience is best to be relevant to his/her business so that it will be more promising to the application. It is important to have your source of income documents in hands to prove that the fund is from work or other businesses and the capital investment to the Hong Kong company has nothing to do with money laundering. Therefore, cash-intensive businesses, complicated company structuring or shell companies (intend to hide under the radar to conceal ownership) that are related to the Hong Kong company are not recommended.

Based on the above information, I guess you would have an idea that the company has to be up-and running before the investment visa application. Therefore, to start from scratch it can take up to half a year for the preparation of documents for this visa application. This will give you a general idea on the timeframe for every step of the preparation:
  • Company Incorporation (approx. 10 business days)
  • Corporate Bank Account Opening (1.5-2 months)
  • Rental of Physical Office (1-2 months)
  • Staffs Employment and Onboarding or Job Advertisement Posting (1-2 months)
  • Business Plan Draft (2-4 weeks)
  • Hong Kong Immigration Department Processing Time (8-12 weeks)

As you see, the whole process from head-to-tail can stretch up to 9-12 months, and we can expect that ImmD would request further supplementary documents in the middle of process. So, patience and attention-to-details are extremely important along the way. We always recommend the applicant to submit a complete set of documents to reduce the possibility of a great volume of supplementary documents that might be requested by ImmD. This investment as entrepreneur visa program is under general employment policy of Hong Kong immigration ordinance. The Last but not least, the applicant requires a sponsor for his/her investment visa. This can be any Hong Kong residents or other business entity which has a commercial relationship with applicant and his/her business (Please note that the applicant’s owned company for the application cannot be used as sponsor).

In conclusion, it is not a rocket-scientist project to apply for the investment as entrepreneur visa. However, all the paperwork has to be there and ready in primary submission or request for evidence stage to fulfill ImmD requirement. If you need any assistance on Hong Kong visa programs, please contact our specialists for more details or assessment.

Related Topics：Investment as Entrepreneur Visa | Hong Kong Employment Visa

Disclaimer

All information in this article is only for the purpose of information sharing, instead of professional suggestion. Kaizen will not assume any responsibility for loss or damage.

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