Hong Kong Visitors |  No Passport Stamps

Landing Slips Are Issued Instead

Visitors no longer get visa stamps in their passports. As of March 19, 2013 the Hong Kong Immigration Department have changed the way they process and record Visitors entering into Hong Kong.

According to the blurb put out on the ImmD website…

“..all arriving visitors at immigration control points will be issued with landing slips in lieu of stamping on their travel documents. The landing slip is the same as that currently issued to Macao Smart Permanent Identity Card holders and Taiwan residents travelling under the Pre-arrival Registration arrangement. It bears the visitor’s English name, travel document number, arrival date, conditions and limit of stay in Hong Kong.”

In a practical sense, this should have no impact on Visitors arriving in Hong Kong, although if you lose your landing slip you should, ostensibly, report to Immigration Tower for a new one yet ImmD say that lost landing slips will not necessarily inhibit your ability to be cleared for departure at the time you try to leave.

The interesting upshot to all of this (to me at least) is how ImmD will now carry forward the SCL mechanism to control Visitors who’s bona fides are suspected.

The Department state in their news release that “stamping on travel document may still be applied in exceptional circumstances”. It remains to be seen if SCL will still be stamped in passports (indicating to the Visitor that time is now working against him) or whether it stays bound up in the record associated with the reduced limit of stay to such Visitors.

Time will tell. Watch this space!

Practice Update 2026 – This content must be read in light of changes to ImmD practice since it was first published

Visitors no longer get visa stamps in their passports … Under Hong Kong immigration control, the administrative transition from physical ink passport stamps to automated paper landing slips marked a major procedural modernization at boundary control points, though foreign nationals frequently misunderstand its legal implications. In Hong Kong Visitors No Longer Get Visa Stamps In Their Passports, Stephen Barnes, the Hong Kong Visa Geeza, analyzes the operational shift introduced when the Immigration Department replaced traditional ink stamping with printed landing slips bearing the traveler’s English name, travel document number, arrival date, conditions of stay, and permitted limit of stay. As Barnes explains:

 

While the reform was designed to enhance boundary clearance efficiency and save passport visa pages, it altered none of the substantive legal obligations binding foreign entrants under Section 41 of the Immigration Ordinance. A loose landing slip carries identical statutory force to an inked stamp: visitors remain strictly barred from taking up paid or unpaid employment, establishing or joining in any business, or enrolling in local educational institutions.

Stephen Barnes – The Hong Kong Visa Geeza

 

Furthermore, the electronic tracking architecture behind the landing slip gives immigration officers instant, centralized visibility into an entrant’s historical travel patterns. The absence of a physical physical ink mark in a passport does not obscure previous entries, shortened limits of stay, or departmental warnings (such as previously applied Special Conditions of Landing endorsements); every crossing is logged permanently in the Immigration Department’s database. To examine how contemporary immigration policy creates structured, lawful avenues for temporary specialist contributions without violating landing slip conditions, Stephen Barnes provides the definitive analysis in Practice Update: The 2026 Immigration Facilitation Scheme – Short-Term Work for Visitors to Hong Kong.

The essential operational reality detailed in the Practice Update is that while the regularized and expanded Short-Term Visitor Facilitation Scheme—now encompassing 18 designated sectors as of 1 October 2026—provides an express statutory exception to the visitor employment ban, it remains tightly anchored to the conditions reflected on the arrival landing slip. Under the facilitation arrangements, qualifying international talent invited by one of roughly 490 government-endorsed host organisations can lawfully undertake specified professional activities—and receive remuneration or expense honorariums where approved—for up to 14 consecutive calendar days per visit without obtaining a conventional employment visa under the General Employment Policy. However, as Stephen Barnes highlights across both publications, an institutional facilitation endorsement does not override the fundamental statutory limit of stay printed on the traveler’s landing slip. An invited expert admitted as a visitor must hold a landing slip with an unexpired limit of stay sufficient to cover their engagement, and the permitted professional activity cannot exceed the statutory 14-day facilitation cap. If an individual misplaces their landing slip during their stay, they must obtain a free replacement from the Immigration Department to prove lawful presence, but the underlying electronic record remains the definitive measure of compliance. Foreign visitors and inviting host entities must maintain absolute regulatory precision: boundary landing slips define strict temporal and conduct boundaries that cannot be exceeded, while any active, on-the-ground professional execution must fit strictly within authorized institutional facilitation or be formally sanctioned under a standard employment visa.

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