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On December 10, 2015 I gave a talk at Centre O Connect in Sheung wan setting out the nitty gritty of the Hong Kong entrepreneur visa since the implementation of the Enhancement Measures on May 6, 2015.

PRACTICE UPDATE: How to read in light of current ImmD policy:

• Historical Editorial Standard: In this contextual retrospective from the Centre O lecture series, the Geeza charts the chronological evolution of Hong Kong’s business immigration policy leading up to the seminal “Enhancement Measures” introduced on May 4, 2015. Historically, the presentation tracked the shift from the rigid, traditional trading-post mindset of the 1990s and early 2000s toward a progressively more liberalized, startup-friendly ecosystem. The narrative highlighted how the government, recognizing the global innovation race, intentionally introduced policies to welcome innovative founders, accommodate asset-light ventures, tolerate co-working spaces, and soften the historically strict capital and hiring requirements through expanded administrative discretion.

• Comparative Reading Under the Upgraded Regime: The historical narrative depicting an unbroken, progressive liberalization toward accommodating lean, early-stage, or asset-light founders must now be re-anchored by a pivotal counter-shift. The historical timeline must now incorporate the comprehensive policy tightening and administrative restructuring enforced since April 2026. Rather than continuing down the path of subjective flexibility, ImmD has executed a decisive pivot back toward rigorous, institutional-grade gatekeeping:

  1. Closing the Discretionary Loophole: The decade of administrative latitude initiated in 2015—which allowed bootstrapped or lifestyle entrepreneurs to rely on qualitative pitches and flexible working arrangements—has been formally terminated for standard GEP filings.

  2. The TTPS Category A Benchmark: The modern regime directly benchmarks standard Entrepreneur visa assessment against the economic substance standard of TTPS Category A (~HKD 2.5 million annual enterprise scale). ImmD now treats the standard route not as an exploratory launchpad for fledgling founders, but as an empirical audit of established commercial substance.

  3. The Bifurcated Landscape: The historical progression must now explain that the flexible, innovation-friendly spirit of the 2015 measures has been ring-fenced exclusively within accredited government incubation schemes (such as Cyberport and HKSTP). Outside of those official government-backed corridors, the standard GEP Entrepreneur category now enforces hard-coded day-one prerequisites: unencumbered capital deployment of HKD 1.5M to HKD 2.0M in a functional Hong Kong corporate account, exclusive commercial premises (“four walls”), and active payroll/MPF records for 2 to 3 local Hong Kong permanent residents at the point of adjudication.

In this segment, I discuss the history of investment visa policy in Hong Kong over the last 25 years and how it led to the present situation today. Here is the 10 Must Have Resources link discussed in the talk.

More In This Series

Introduction

How Did We Get Here?

Startup vs. Entrepreneur

Getting Approved

The Question of Money

Passing the Approvability Test

Improve Your Chances

D-I-Y Application

Other Relevant Content

How To Apply for a Hong Kong Business Investment Visa Without Any Professional Help

Hong Kong Entrepreneur Visa (Business Investment) – A Practical Guide

Is the Hong Kong Startup Visa All That It’s Cracked Up to Be?

Hong Kong Visa Handbook – The Entrepreneur Visa