With effect from April 1, 2026, the Hong Kong Business Registration Levy resumed full collection.

The reductions and exemptions enjoyed over the past few years due to the outbreak are officially over, and the cost of new registrations has gone up. The window for early registration has closed and the starting price is now the new standard.

At the same time, the whole process of Hong Kong company registration does not need to go to Hong Kong, 3-5 working days can be completed. However, registration is only the first step, the subsequent annual review, audit, tax return, bank account opening is the key to long-term compliance.

In this article, we systematically sort out the latest fees, complete process, annual maintenance costs and common pitfalls of Hong Kong company registration in 2026 to help you clear up at once.

The Hong Kong corporate profits tax rate tops out at 16.51 TP3T, but profits generated offshore - for which an exemption can be legally claimed - are taxed at a reduced rate of 01 TP3T.

This is the core principle of Hong Kong's tax system: territorial source taxation.

For cross-border e-commerce sellers, your purchases are in the Mainland, your customers are in Europe and the United States, and your goods do not pass through Hong Kong - these profits are essentially unrelated to Hong Kong. The Hong Kong Inland Revenue Department (IRD) allows you to apply for an “offshore exemption” and legally not pay this tax.

However, 90% sellers have never applied. Either they didn't know about the policy or they knew about it but didn't know how to do it.

This article systematically dismantles the application requirements, supporting materials, approval process and common misunderstandings of the offshore exemption to help you get back the tax you should not have paid.

A cross-border boss registered a Hong Kong company with a shared address of a registration center. The account was used for a year and a half, and one day suddenly received an Amazon email:

“It has come to our attention that there are compliance issues with your account, official proof of company address is required ......”

What followed was a lengthy complaint process. The final result: the account was permanently suspended and the $100,000 payment for the goods was held for 180 days.

Little did he know that Amazon was already using an AI system to verify the authenticity of registered addresses in Hong Kong.

The Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology recently jointly issued a policy document that represents the most significant initiative in recent years:

• The VAT deduction rate for environmental protection equipment has been raised from 13% to 25%

• The annual tax reduction cap has been raised to 3 million yuan

• The central government has established a 20 billion yuan subsidy fund

• Companies with ISO 14001 certification are eligible for subsidies of up to 500,000 yuan

Most cross-border sellers with their own factories haven't noticed this document yet.

Starting in 2026, the Italian Revenue Agency (Agenzia delle Entrate) has implemented two mandatory compliance requirements for non-EU sellers using FBA, Pan-EU, and overseas warehouses:

Tax representatives must be formally registered with the Italian Tax Agency, rather than merely being listed in name only;

A financial guarantee of at least 50,000 euros must be submitted, valid for at least 36 months.

Sellers who do not meet both of these requirements will have their Italian VAT numbers marked as “invalid” in the EU’s VIES system. Amazon will take a series of enforcement actions as a result, ranging from making inventory unsellable and preventing the creation of shipments to suspending order fulfillment and disabling the Pan-EU service. A large number of sellers have already found themselves in a difficult situation after ignoring early email notifications.

This article provides a detailed breakdown of the new regulation’s eligibility criteria, types of guarantees, compliance procedures, and emergency response plans to help sellers on the Italian marketplace avoid having their inventory locked.