Hong Kong investment visas: sole proprietorships can be approved
We have recently landed a couple of interesting Hong Kong investment visa “wins” that go against the commonly used mantra that “one-man businesses are never 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 speaks to the reality that such companies MAY in fact receive an HKID approval, if you 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 minimum 6-month cash flow.
- A dynamic in your business plan that is compelling or otherwise offers attractive or scarce ‘human capital’ to the HKSAR.
- A blatantly obvious intention to create local jobs over time, if not immediately.
- Your ducks are fully aligned!
With the facts slightly adjusted to protect our clients’ confidentiality, these are the essential circumstances of 2 separate “one man deals” that later secured HKID approval under our advice and with us managing the applications.
The first involved an interior design services professional who had a few years of previous residence in Hong Kong as an employee but was completely changing careers upon joining his new business. His business was ‘him’, for all intents and purposes, but he had some ‘family IP’ that he was bringing into the business, which his father had applied to 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 clearly going to help his son with advice and counsel. Include 12 months of ready-to-invest funds, 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 Job positions. As sure as night follows day, 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 mental health expert in a profession that does not require formal registration with the HKSAR who was seeking to establish a new practice, having grown tired of working in a current job in Hong Kong that was in no way connected to her actual qualifications. . She just so happened that the business case for starting the business was always going to be nebulous: she was the product, after all, and she only had a finite amount of time to sell. Certainly at least one local job would be created 4 months after the business plan and the cash available for investment was literally enough to set up and 6 months cash flow. 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 approval test should be argued in the context of aid given to the stressed Hong Kong. bankers and lawyers from Kong and that his practice was never going to be a big moneymaker that would throw new jobs left and center. It worked and her visa was approved twice as fast.