When you are traveling to Hong Kong, you must know that Hong Kong has a visa/immigration system that is almost similar to that of the British rule over 20 years ago. The Asian city is an international hub of business and a great tourist destination. Depending on your nationality, for certain countries, people are allowed to enter Hong Kong almost visa free entry.
In practice, citizens of more or less 170 countries and regions in the world are not required to enter HK with a visa. Those citizens may receive entry passes which let them to stay in HK for up to 180 days. Countries such as United States, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and certain countries in Europe do not need to be concerned with a visa when entering Hong Kong and staying for at least 90 days. Some of other countries’ passport holders do not need to apply for a visa and are allowed to stay for 14 days. They have to complete pre-arrival registration through an online form.
When you enter Hong Kong at the immigration (or custom), you will find the officials are more than capable of communicating with you in English. This makes the entire process painless and simple. If your travel includes plans to also visit Mainland China, you should inform the immigration your intention to enter China.
If you find HK an interesting place, and would like to relocate, it is possible. For those expats or foreigners are to relocate and find a job, they should actually first find a job and get the employment offer. Obtaining a Hong Kong working visa may be quite difficult. Firstly, the HK immigration department may have been increasingly stringent in assessing foreigner employment visa applications. The application should be straightforward, as long as you have the first prerequisite which is having a job offer already secured.
As a foreigner, you may not know exactly how the employment environment is like locally, and you probably would have many questions. Normally what happens is that when you do not speak the local language i.e. Cantonese, there will be fewer qualified jobs for you to choose from. You are basically left with the jobs that either requires speaking in English (or your mother-tongue language), or requires your very specific skills and/or experience.
Usually the main industries are banking, finance, teaching, media, and hospitality. But nowadays, many local residents (who are bilingual) have grown experience, and they possess the required level of qualifications and experience.
Also, you must qualify for a few things before you can be granted for a working visa. One important criteria is usually your educational background. Hopefully, when you are being evaluated against the local HK residents, your education background may have given you a good edge.
Hong Kong is free of sales tax, but as employee working for a local company, you are still eligible for filing annual tax return and paying taxes.
