Do You Need to Spend a Minimum Number of Days Per Year in Hong Kong In Order to Maintain a Capital Investment Entrant Scheme Visa?
Posted by The Visa Geeza / in Investment Visas, Long Stay & PR, Your Question Answered / No responses
PRACTICE UPDATE 2026
How the Content Must Now Be Read in Light of the New CIES Policy
Our original article addressed a frequent concern for internationally mobile investors: whether maintaining a CIES visa requires spending a mandatory minimum number of days per year in Hong Kong. The short answer remains legally unchanged—there is no statutory minimum day-count requirement to maintain or extend the visa during the holding period.
However, the procedural environment governing this flexibility has been fundamentally upgraded under the New Capital Investment Entrant Scheme rules. While active categories such as the Top Talent Pass Scheme (TTPS) and Investment as Entrepreneur subject entrants to intense scrutiny regarding their local physical presence and operational footprint, New CIES extensions turn entirely upon InvestHK’s continuous portfolio audit rather than passport entry stamps.
As Stephen Barnes, the Hong Kong Visa Geeza, emphasizes in our definitive New CIES Practice Direction:
“Absence from Hong Kong is not a barrier to extending a New CIES visa, provided the HK$30 million portfolio remains intact inside an authorized Permissible Investment Account. Where physical presence does matter is at Year 7: prolonged absences will preclude the Right of Abode under Section 2(4) of the Immigration Ordinance, but the scheme preserves the unique privilege of Unconditional Stay—granting indefinite residency and full portfolio release regardless of how few days were spent in the territory.”
Does the rationale of the CIES dictate that you spend a certain amount of time in the HKSAR each year in order not to lose the status?
QUESTION
After grant of a Capital Investment Entrant Scheme visa, say if you live overseas, how many days/weeks or months/year, will you have to prove you have stayed in Hong Kong, if you do not wish to live in Hong Kong all the time?
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The Hong Kong Visa Geeza (a.k.a Stephen Barnes) is a co-founder of the Hong Kong Visa Centre and author of the Hong Kong Visa Handbook. A law graduate of the London School of Economics, Stephen has been practicing Hong Kong immigration since 1993 and is widely acknowledged as the leading authority on business immigration matters here for the last 24 years.
