- The stamp duty that non-permanent residents have to pay for property and another levy imposed on additional property purchases by residents will each be halved to 7.5%.
- A special stamp duty amounting to 10% of property prices that was previously imposed on transactions involving property held for less than three years will now apply for transactions involving property held for less than two years.
- Newly arrived foreign talent will enjoy a full suspension of all property purchase levies, but that’s subject to obtaining permanent residency in the Chinese autonomous territory.
Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee delivers his annual policy address to the Legislative Council on October 25, 2023.
Peter Parks | Afp | Getty Images
Hong Kong will slash buyers’ stamp duties for property buyers to help boost its struggling real estate sector, while reducing levies on stock trades in a bid to kickstart economic activity in the Asian financial hub.
This is the first time property cooling measures — in a variety of stamp duties known as “spicy policies” — will be relaxed effective Wednesday. They were first introduced in 2010 to curb red-hot property prices in a low interest rate environment.
“Over the past year, interest rates have risen significantly, various economies have shown moderated growth, and transactions of the local residential property market have declined alongside a downward adjustment of property prices,” Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee said in his second annual policy address on Wednesday.
Hong Kong’s lukewarm post-Covid economic recovery has been accompanied by diminished stock trading volumes and sluggish residential transactional volumes in the territory’s once notoriously hot property sector.
Home prices in Hong Kong fell four months in a row. The official housing price index stood at 339.2 in August, down 7.9% from a year earlier and 4.2% lower from April peaks.
Among levies relaxed: the stamp duty that non-permanent residents have to pay for property and another levy imposed on additional property purchases by residents will each be halved to 7.5%.
Lee also announced a special stamp duty that was previously imposed on transactions involving property held for less than three years will now only apply to transactions for property held for less than two years. This levy amounts to 10% of the property price.
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