Hong Kong Is Not Dead. Long Live Hong Kong.

We don't usually revisit our own takes. But Hong Kong forces the issue.

Back in March 2024, in a piece ranking Asia's contenders, we put Hong Kong in the loser's column. The complaint list was long: an immigration system that couldn't parse the concept of a startup hiring from abroad, a companies registry that still wanted a wet signature and a physical stamp for something as routine as a share transfer, and a broader sense that the city was drifting from Asia's World City to just another mainland outpost.

Some of that was fair at the time. None of it describes Hong Kong in 2026.

1. The 2026 Scorecard

2. The Numbers Don't Read Like a Loser's

Start with the least glamorous data point, because it's the hardest to fake: how many people are actually registering companies there.

By the end of 2025, Hong Kong had 1,557,103 local and re-domiciled companies on its books — an all-time high, and 96,609 more than the year before. 195,343 new companies registered in 2025 alone. Six months into 2026, the total had already climbed to 1,609,720, with 122,481 fresh registrations in just the first half of the year.

Foreign appetite tells the same story. In 2025, 1,532 non-Hong Kong companies newly established a place of business there. In the first half of 2026 alone, that number was already 903 — on pace to blow past the full prior year.

Then there's the mechanism nobody had two years ago: re-domiciliation. Since May 23, 2025, foreign companies can transfer their legal domicile into Hong Kong — keeping their legal identity, skipping the wind-up-and-reincorporate dance, with no economic substance test attached. It's a one-way door — you can move in, not out — but for founders who set up wherever seemed easiest five years ago and now want a jurisdiction that actually works, that's an option that didn't exist in 2024. We’d know: our own internal jurisdiction file had Hong Kong’s migration-of-domicile field marked “not permitted” as recently as our 2024 review. That’s not a copywriting fix, it’s a database one.

3. Institutions Don't Bluff

Numbers are one thing. Watching who shows up is another.

Hong Kong's Stablecoins Ordinance came into force on August 1, 2025, making the issuance of any fiat-referenced stablecoin — HKD-pegged or not — a licensed activity, full stop. Eight months later, on April 10, 2026, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority handed out the city's first two licences. One went to HSBC. The other went to Anchorpoint Financial, a joint venture between Standard Chartered Bank (HK), HKT, and Animoca Brands. Both plan to launch products in the second half of 2026.

That's not a speculative fintech chasing a narrative. That's two of the most conservative institutions in Asian banking, plus a listed telco, deciding a Hong Kong stablecoin licence is worth building around. The bar to get one isn't low, either: HKD 25 million in capital, full 1:1 reserve backing in high-quality liquid assets, segregated, with prompt par redemption and genuine Hong Kong substance. This isn't a rubber-stamp regime — it's a filter, and HSBC cleared it anyway.

4. The Regulator Stopped Being Precious

If the stablecoin story is about credibility, the virtual asset trading story is about speed.

Hong Kong's VASP licensing regime for exchanges has existed since June 2023. What changed is the pace of approvals. As of May 2026 there were 13 SFC-licensed virtual asset trading platforms; a single batch of approvals on April 8, 2026 — twelve licences granted in one day — pushed the total number of active licensed platforms to 47. The SFC also loosened the leash on what licensed platforms can actually do: November 2025 circulars let them plug their order books into global affiliates for shared liquidity, and a February 2026 framework lets them offer perpetual contracts to professional investors and work with affiliated market makers.

Underneath all of it sits Cyberport's Blockchain & Web3.0 Pilot Subsidy Scheme — up to HK$500,000 per project, funding 80% of costs, aimed at real-world-asset tokenisation, stablecoin infrastructure, decentralised identity and Web3 security. It's funded 45-plus projects across banking, real estate, tourism, telco and the arts. Not venture-scale money, but it signals where the government wants builders pointed, and it's free runway if your project qualifies.

Worth being honest here: Singapore still tops the 2026 Crypto Friendly Cities Index, with Hong Kong sitting third, behind Zurich. Perception hasn't fully caught up to substance. But perception is a lagging indicator — Singapore spent mid-2025 giving offshore-only crypto firms an ultimatum to get licensed locally or shut down, pushing some builders to look at Dubai and Hong Kong instead. Rankings measure vibes. Licences measure commitment. Right now Hong Kong is winning on the second one.

5. Where the Money's Actually Going

Two mechanisms worth knowing about if you're structuring around Hong Kong rather than just incorporating there.

The Capital Investment Entrant Scheme (CIES) — Hong Kong's investment visa — has pulled in over 3,300 applications and roughly HK$99 billion (about US$12.6 billion) in anticipated investment since its March 2024 launch. A March 2026 amendment removed the requirement that a holding company used for the investment be incorporated at least six months prior, which matters if you're setting up a fresh Hong Kong vehicle specifically to qualify.

Family offices are the other story. Hong Kong now counts more than 3,300 single family offices, per the 2026–27 Budget Speech. Eligible family investment vehicles pay 0% profits tax, provided the single family office managing them has at least HKD 240 million under management. A June 2026 bill goes further, proposing to extend that 0% rate to profits from trading digital assets and precious metals, and broadening the legal definition of a "fund" to cover single-family investment vehicles — funds-of-one, essentially.

And the everyday version — the two-tiered profits tax — still applies to any Hong Kong-incorporated company doing genuinely Hong Kong-sourced business: 8.25% on the first HKD 2 million of assessable profits, 16.5% above that. It's not the 0% headline BVI or Cayman offer, and it was never meant to be — Hong Kong taxes what's actually earned there, which is a very different proposition to an offshore holding shell.

6. What Still Isn't Perfect

A comeback story is only useful if you don't oversell it.

The 2024 complaints about analogue process weren't invented. The Companies Registry does now run a genuinely digital e-Services Portal for annual returns and address changes, and the SFC is rolling out a paperless securities regime for listed companies in early 2026 — but that push is aimed at listed securities, not the private-company share transfers that actually caused us grief two years ago.

Immigration is a similarly mixed picture. CIES has made getting capital into Hong Kong easier than ever — but that scheme is about investors, not about the general ease of bringing in foreign technical talent, which was the original 2024 complaint. We haven't seen evidence that's been meaningfully fixed.

There’s also the question we don’t outsource to a scorecard: political stability. Our own internal jurisdiction file still lists it as “uncertain — increasing Chinese oversight,” and the 2026 numbers don’t erase that; they sit alongside it.

And the crypto-hub rivalry with Singapore isn't decided. Hong Kong is ahead on institutional adoption and regulatory speed right now. Whether that holds through the next real market stress event — the point at which every "hub" claim actually gets tested — is still an open question.

7. How Otonomos Helps

None of this changes what a Hong Kong Limited Company actually requires day to day. Every company needs a locally resident company secretary, a registered office address, a Significant Controllers Register naming anyone holding 25% or more of shares or voting rights, an Annual Return filed within 42 days of your incorporation anniversary, and a Profits Tax Return once the company's had time to trade. None of it is optional, and getting any piece wrong means penalties, or eventually a compliance headache with the Inland Revenue Department.

Otonomos handles the parts that are easy to get wrong from abroad: company secretary and registered office, the full KYC and Significant Controllers Register process (typically 1–3 days online once documents are ready), nominee director or shareholder arrangements if privacy matters to you, and the ongoing filing calendar — Annual Return, Business Registration renewal, Profits Tax Return, Employer's Return, AGM — so nothing lapses while you're focused on the business.

Two rules catch first-time founders specifically: a sole director cannot also serve as the company secretary, and the secretary must hold a Hong Kong address — a P.O. box doesn’t qualify. The board has a similar floor: corporate directors are permitted, but at least one director must be a natural person, so an all-corporate board isn’t an option here the way it might be elsewhere.

Where it goes further than a generic company secretary: if you're structuring around any of what's above — a stablecoin-adjacent operating entity, a holding company positioned for CIES, or a family investment vehicle sitting underneath a single family office — that's an entity stack decision, not a form-filling one, and it's worth getting right before incorporation rather than retrofitting it after.

8. Frequently Asked Questions

Hong Kong spent two years proving the doubters right. It's spending 2026 proving us wrong. Worth a second look.

For the full mechanics — KYC documents, renewal deadlines, deregistration process — see our Hong Kong Limited Company guide.