Hong Kong.

Hong Kong abolished estate duty effective 11 February 2006. The territory operates a common-law inheritance system inherited from English law and preserved under the Basic Law’s Article 8. Succession is governed primarily by the Wills Ordinance (Cap. 30), the Probate and Administration Ordinance (Cap. 10), and the Intestates’ Estates Ordinance (Cap. 73). The High Court of Hong Kong’s Probate Registry handles applications for probate and letters of administration.

Cross-border issues centre on Hong Kong’s territorial profits-tax system, the absence of capital-gains tax, and the territory’s role as a regional trust and family-office hub. Trust law follows the English common-law tradition with the Trustee Ordinance (Cap. 29) and 2013 amendments modernizing the regime. Hong Kong’s increasing alignment with mainland China — particularly post-2020 — has begun to affect the legal landscape for cross-border families with assets in both jurisdictions.

The memoranda in this series address the recurring fact patterns in Hong Kong cross-border estate planning — including ancillary probate of foreign grants, Hong Kong-resident decedents with offshore assets, the territorial-tax treatment of foreign-source income, the use of Hong Kong-law trusts for global family wealth, the Common Reporting Standard (CRS) reporting overlay, and the absence of estate-tax treaties with Canada and the United States.