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Foreign national employment visa holders in Hong Kong are quite often interested in setting up a side business…

QUESTION

I am currently employed full-time by a company in Hong Kong. They successfully sponsored my Hong Kong employment visa and I just started my job 2 months ago. All is going very well.

But I would like to register my own business, because I see a chance to act as middle-man for service exchange between China and Europe, and would like that to be done in an official, legal manner.

A recent podcast answer of yours said it would be possible for me to request permission to join in a “side business”.

Does a “side business” involve getting others to register the company, and joining as partner?

Or does it simply mean I can register myself but there are restrictions on what I can earn or do?

Can you please advise on how I can actually go about setting up a side business and then getting the permission of Immigration here to be able to do this?

Best regards, and thank you for sharing your expertise in this manner.

ANSWER

I’m really grateful for this question because it gives me an opportunity to discuss how one goes about establishing a side business. If you’re here as an employee sponsored by an employer and your employment visa has been granted for you to do the work to that employer, but the side business has attractions to you and so you wish to get the permission of the Immigration Department to joining that side business to supplement what you’re doing with your formal full time employment.

Firstly, to establish a side business, you need to get the permission of your existing employer in writing, stating that they have no objection to joining in the side business. And then you need to ensure that you have a business entity properly registered in Hong Kong to your name, not to business partners as such, although you can have partners in a side business, but normally the Immigration Department are expecting that your side business is you doing some stuff that is in addition to your primary employment, as I say, that your current employer has no objection to engaging in.

So you register, typically a sole proprietorship, which is the simplest form, a business entity in Hong Kong with the Commissioner for Inland Revenue, which means you go down to the revenue tower in Wan Chai, which is next to Immigration Tower, and apply for business registration certificate, which is a simple exercise, filling in some forms and presenting a copy of your Hong Kong identity card and away you go.

At that point you’ll be issued with a business registration certificate once you’ve paid the fee, which is a little over HKD2,000, which is an annual fee, by the way. And once you have got your business registration certificate, you then effectively write to the Immigration Department seeking their permission to join in as side business with the consent of your existing employer.

And that application bundle itself will be including the letter from your employer, a copy of business registration certificate, short synopsis of what you’re planning to do with your side business, and showing also that your activities will contribute to the economy of Hong Kong. So that’s inimical to your argument. It’s not a long and complicated process. It’s relatively straightforward. The vast majority of these applications do get approved by the Immigration Department on the basis that it’s merely a business on the side. It’s not going to in any way conflict with your primary employment activities, which, after all, are the reasons why you’ve been granted permissions to remain in Hong Kong in the first place. That application process normally takes about four weeks to finalise, so it certainly doesn’t involve anybody else assisting you in respect of this side business. It’s expected that you’re going to be undertaking this business by yourself, as I say, as a supplementary activity to your core employment activities with your sponsoring employer.

Okay. Hope you found that useful.

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