Hong Kong Companies Register Guide (2025 Update)
Hong Kong's corporate registry has undergone significant changes in recent years, and if you're still operating with outdated assumptions about what data you can access, you're likely in for some surprises.
The December 2023 overhaul of the system introduced the Integrated Companies Registry Information System (ICRIS), replacing the 18-year-old AQUA platform. More importantly for compliance professionals, it fundamentally altered what personal information is publicly available.
Gone are the days when you could freely access directors' full identification numbers and residential addresses. These details are now restricted to "specified persons" – essentially regulated entities that can demonstrate legitimate need.
For financial crime professionals conducting investigations or enhanced due diligence, understanding these changes is crucial. The registry remains the authoritative source for Hong Kong company information, but the landscape for beneficial ownership discovery has become considerably more challenging. Here's what you need to know about navigating the current system.
What is the Hong Kong Companies Register?
The Hong Kong Companies Registry (CR) is the authoritative source for company information in the city.
It incorporates and registers new companies, enforces the Companies Ordinance, registers submitted documents, and, most importantly, provides public company search services.
The Difference Between the HKCR and the Business Registration Office
The CR is easily confused with the Business Registration Office (BRO), which covers all legal entities – including sole proprietorships, trusts, partnerships, and companies – and issues newly registered entities with the Business Registration Certificate, a tax ID.
The two departments work in conjunction – so when a company registers with the Companies Registry, they are deemed to have made a simultaneous business registration application to the IRD.
Remember: The Business Registration fee and levy were temporarily waived for eligible businesses between April 1, 2023 and March 31, 2025. This detail may be relevant when reviewing a company's initial expenses and filings.
Changes to the CR (December 2023)
Before the reforms of December 2023, the Hong Kong registry used AQUA, a platform dating to 2005.
No Registration Required: Allowed users to search and purchase company records without account registration.
Free of Charge: Basic information was free.
Accessible to Anyone: Users didn’t need to submit IDs to view records.
Shareholder Data: Full details of directors and shareholders, including ID numbers and addresses.
After 18 years, the system was modernised in December 2023 to the Integrated Companies Registry Information System (ICRIS). The new platform was more user-friendly, consolidated services into one account, and introduced the Unique Business Identifier (UBI). Meanwhile, security and privacy measures were tightened.
The Unique Business Identifier (UBI)
The UBI is the eight-digit Business Registration Number (BRN) assigned by the Inland Revenue Department (IRD), which now serves as the primary identification number for all companies and entities administered by the Companies Registrar.
It was fully implemented on December 27, 2023, and allows government and business entities to connect disparate datasets and trace relationships between companies with greater accuracy.
“Specified Persons”
Until December 27, 2023, the residential addresses and full identification numbers (IDNs) of company directors and secretaries were available. However, these were replaced with correspondence addresses and partial IDNs to protect privacy.
However, “specified persons” can apply to the Registrar for access to the withheld residential addresses and IDNs, otherwise known as the PII. These include:
Foreign lawyers
Solicitors
Financial institutions
Designated Non-Financial Businesses and Professions (DNFBPs).
The application process requires applicants to demonstrate their status and capacity.
What Information is Available on the CR?
Basic Information: Users can access basic details by searching on the CR: for instance, the company’s name, date of incorporation and its current status. However, they need to pay to register an account.
Detailed Information: Users can order a "Company Particulars Report," a snapshot of a company, including its registered office address, share capital, directors, and shareholder information.
Limitations: Beneficial ownership information is not publicly available, and only “specified persons” may access director addresses. This requires regulated institutions to manually extract shareholder data from company filings, which takes time.
The 2024 Data Scraping Incident
On May 3, 2024, the registry announced that a technical flaw in a contractor’s system had resulted in the transmission of additional personal data, including full passport and ID numbers, to client computers.
This additional data, while not displayed on the search results page, was obtainable using data scraping via a "web developer tool" or a "robotic search".
This reinforces the need for professionals to be extremely cautious about the provenance of any third-party static data, as it may have been acquired from a questionable or even illegal source. Always use fresh primary data sources for due diligence to avoid regulatory scrutiny and live access to the Hong Kong company registry.
What is Hong Kong’s Beneficial Ownership Register?
The Significant Controllers Register (SCR) is a mandatory record that lists the individuals or entities in ultimate control of a Hong Kong company.
Private Record: Kept at the company's registered office or another designated location within Hong Kong.
Limited Availability: Only obtainable by law enforcement officers upon demand.
Designated Representative: Each company must appoint a "Designated Representative" to act as the primary contact point for law enforcement regarding the SCR. Company service providers are often appointed.
As Vicole Dong said, this isn’t a deliberate attempt to evade the authorities; there are “cultural” reasons why Hong Kong companies are reluctant to share such information.
Remember: A "significant controller" is defined by a set of five conditions, which include holding more than 25% of the company's shares or voting rights, having the right to appoint or remove a majority of the board, or exercising significant influence or control over the company.
Hong Kong vs. Other Registries
Compliance professionals often compare Hong Kong’s corporate transparency with other major jurisdictions:
United Kingdom: The UK’s PSC (Persons with Significant Control) register is public and free to search. In Hong Kong, however, UBO declarations are private and only available to the authorities.
Singapore: Singapore has a non-public UBO register similar to Hong Kong, but the regulator (ACRA) cross-verifies filings against ID records, which adds a layer of reliability absent in Hong Kong.
Cayman Islands & BVI: Similar to Hong Kong, beneficial ownership information is filed privately with authorities and not accessible to the public. However, these jurisdictions have formal agreements with UK authorities for (theoretical) beneficial ownership exchange, while Hong Kong’s access is limited to law enforcement requests.
EU (post-2022): Following court rulings, many EU states restricted public access to UBO registers, bringing them closer to Hong Kong’s privacy-heavy approach.
Takeaway: Hong Kong has aligned itself more with offshore financial centres and privacy-first jurisdictions than with transparency regimes like the UK. For compliance teams, this means heavier reliance on “multi-pronged” shareholder verification using third-party providers like Kyckr.
How to Search the Hong Kong Companies Register
1. Register an Account
Just set up an account at the CR.
2. Prove Identity
A passport or identification document will suffice.
3. Pay the Subscription
The e-Search Services require an annual payment of HK$500 and $100 for a subsequent account.
4. Access the e-Search Services Portal
Look for the option ‘Company Search’.
5. Commence Search
Enter search criteria: company’s name, company number or Business Registration Number (BRN).
6. Select a Company
It’ll show basic business information: registered address, filing history, and legal name.
7. Download Documents
These documents contain critical information, such as Certificates of Incorporation and financial data.
Documents Available at CR
The registry holds a wealth of company documents, stored as PDFs.
Company Particulars
This document provides a general overview, showing everything from its name to its capital structure.
Company name (including name in English).
Company number.
Legal status.
Legal dorm.
Registration date.
Registered address.
Capital structure.
Company officials' details.
Annual Return
The Annual Return provides not only the capital structure of a given entity but also its shareholder details. It’s useful for unwrapping a UBO, but it can only go so far.
Company name (including name in English).
Company registration number.
Registered address.
Capital structure.
Company officials details.
Shareholders details.
Certificate of Incorporation
This is critical when evaluating a company’s history. It shows the following:
Company name (including name in English).
Company registration number.
Legal form.
Registration authority.
Registration date.
Articles of Association
Another critical document for tracing a company’s history.
Company name (including name in English).
Company registration number.
Legal form.
Registration authority.
Registration date.
Mortgages and Charges
This is another important financial document, showing the following:
Company name (including name in English).
Company registration number.
Legal form.
Agents name.
Description of instrument.
Particulars of mortgagee or chargee.
APIs and Open Data Sets
APIs: According to Vicole Dong, CEO of Asia Verify, the CR doesn’t offer any direct API connections. This requires regulated institutions to create an account, access company information via the portal, and purchase reports.
Open Data: There is bulk data available on the government’s open data site, data.gov.hk, but it’s limited, according to Vicole Dong. This includes:
Lists of Newly Incorporated Companies That Have Recently Changed Names.
Registered Office Address of Live Local Companies and Principal Place of Business of Registered Non-Hong Kong Companies.
List of Non-Compliance with Directions to Change.
Name/Replacement of Company Names by Company Registration Numbers.
Is Shareholder Data Available in Hong Kong?
Since the revamp in December 2023, “Financial information and shareholder details are extremely limited,” said Vicole Dong. Particularly since publicly available unique identifiers for individuals were scrapped, this makes UBO discovery harder.
Third-party providers such as Kyckr automatically extract shareholder data from registry filings such as annual returns using Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology, turning it into machine-readable text.
Is CR Data Reliable?
As with all official company registers, the Hong Kong registry relies on companies to be honest about themselves in company filings. However, the CR has made steps to verify information, as Business Registry Insights' recent report found.
Disqualified entities and sanctions lists are cross-referenced at registration.
Directors’ identities are now verified.
However, there’s no automated checking against other data sources, and the person submitting the filing isn’t verified, unlike in Singapore.
2025 Reforms
The Companies (Amendment) Ordinance 2025 was passed on January 8, 2025, and came into effect on April 17, 2025, introducing several key changes.
Treasury Shares Regime
This amendment permits Hong Kong-incorporated listed companies to hold repurchased shares in treasury rather than automatically cancelling them – a similar practice to those in overseas jurisdictions like the Cayman Islands and Bermuda.
Paperless Corporate Communication
The amendment introduces an implied consent mechanism, allowing all companies to disseminate corporate communications through a website after sending a single, one-off notification to shareholders.
Remember: For due diligence and audits, this means that critical documents may no longer be available in physical form.
Company Re-domiciliation Regime
This came into operation in the first half of 2025, a way for non-Hong Kong corporations to re-domicile in the city while preserving their legal identity and operational continuity.
Remember: This means foreign companies from a jurisdiction with a more transparent UBO regime could suddenly become subject to Hong Kong's non-public SCR.
How to Verify Businesses in Hong Kong
If you just need basic company information and official documents, the Companies Registry is the place to go – everything is official, up to date, and now more user-friendly.
However, when it comes to UBO discovery, things get complicated. The privacy rules mean you won’t get the full picture directly from the registry.
For deeper insights, such as ownership mapping, ongoing monitoring, and sanctions screening, it’s best to work with a service provider that has the technology to verify complex ownership structures and structure the data for risk assessment.
Kyckr provides live access to structured shareholder data from 300+ jurisdictions via a single access point, allowing analysts to verify UBOs automatically.
Book a demo to learn more.
