Hong Kong Investment Visas: Sole Proprietorships Can Get Approved

We’ve recently made a couple of interesting Hong Kong investment visa “gains” that go against the commonly used mantra that “one-man businesses never get approved” by the Hong Kong Immigration Department (the “HKID “).

The following cannot be said to apply in all cases of a one-man Hong Kong investment visa application, but it does speak to the reality that such companies MAY in fact receive an approval from the HKID, if they only have :

• A compelling reason to start as a single trader.
• Funds readily available to invest at a level that is somewhat higher than the 6-month minimum cash flow.
• A dynamic in your business plan that is compelling or otherwise offers attractive or scarce ‘human capital’ to the HKSAR.
• A manifestly obvious intention to create local jobs over time, if not immediately.
• Your ducks are completely lined up!

With the facts slightly adjusted to protect the confidentiality of our clients, these are the essential circumstances of 2 separate “one-man businesses” that gained HKID approval under our advice and with us managing the applications.

The first involved an interior design services professional who had a few years previous residence in Hong Kong as an employee but was making a complete career change by joining his new business. His business was ‘he’, to all intents and purposes, but he had some ‘family IP’ that he was bringing to the business, which his father had applied in a similar family business in the UK for over 30 years. Although his father had retired some years earlier, he was appointed to the board of our client’s sole proprietorship limited liability company and was ostensibly going to help his son with advice and counsel. Add in 12 months of funds ready to invest, support from certain HK contacts who indicated they would provide business to this, initially, a one man operation, and a plan that clearly demonstrated that if the growth trajectory was achieved, new new ones would be created. Job positions. As sure as night follows day, the HKID accepted the argument and approved the application with no more fuss than might be expected when there are much larger-scale investment plans for Hong Kong.

The second instance took in a female mental health expert in a profession that does not require formal registration in the HKSAR and who was looking to set up a new practice, having grown tired of working a current job in Hong Kong that was in no way connected to her true qualifications. . As it happened, the business case for starting the business was always going to be nebulous: after all, she was the product, and she only had a finite amount of time to sell. Certainly at least one local job was to be created within 4 months of the business plan and the cash available for investment was literally enough to establish and cash flow for 6 months. However, his area of ​​expertise was so compelling and in such short supply in the HKSAR that our advice was that the “substantial contribution” element of the investment visa pass test should be argued in the context of helping stressed Hong Kong bankers and lawyers and that his practice was never going to be a big money maker that would throw new jobs left and center. It worked and her visa was approved twice as fast.