Hong Kong Company Registration Quotes: What to Request

Send one founder brief to every quoting provider

Give each provider the same dated brief. Identify the intended local private company limited by shares, the proposed activities and the people or entities that will own and direct it. State the owners’ jurisdictions and residency facts where relevant without sending unnecessary identity-document scans in an unsecured initial enquiry.

Ask the provider to state the assumptions it has made and identify any missing information before giving a firm price. Do not present an individual-shareholder quote to a provider and later expect it to cover a multi-layer corporate owner without review. One shared brief is the basis for comparable quotations.

Specify what must be handed back after registration

List the incorporation outputs, not just the word registration. The Companies Registry incorporation instructions identify the local-company form, articles and IRBR1. Your commercial request should ask who prepares, checks, signs and submits the relevant documents, handles corrections, and delivers the issued certificates and company records.

Where the service includes a secretary or office, request the named legal supplier, appointment or use authority, service start and end dates, and handover records. Controller-register assistance should identify the investigation, records and designated-representative arrangements covered. Specify whether later changes or additional copies are included or separately charged.

Use the underlying company registration requirements in Hong Kong to define the legal setup being quoted. A provider’s completion claim should be tied to records you can retain. “Application submitted”, “company incorporated”, “records handed over” and “bank account opened” are distinct milestones; ask which one ends each workstream.

Request an itemised price schedule in stated currencies

Request separate lines for government charges, professional work, third-party disbursements and recurring services. As verified on October 28, 2026, standard electronic incorporation with a one-year Business Registration Certificate has a statutory baseline of HKD 3,895. This combines the HKD 1,545 CR fee with the HKD 2,350 business-registration fee and levy for the relevant April 2026–March 2027 charging period. Ask whether that amount is included or additional.

HSJGlobal’s public professional starting prices are USD 499 for Filing coordination, USD 899 for First-year company support and USD 1,499 for Expanded setup support. Your request should ask which service level fits the supplied facts and what work changes the starting price. These are USD figures, not fixed HKD totals; the first-year and expanded descriptions do not publish every inclusion or renewal charge.

Each line should show currency, quantity or work allowance, period, due date, inclusion status and extra-charge trigger. If the quote converts currencies, request the source rate, rate date, conversion basis and any payment charge. A blank line is not a zero-price commitment. Treat bank balances, paid share subscriptions and refundable deposits separately from service fees.

Hong Kong does not impose general VAT or sales tax, as the government tax-policy explanation confirms. Ask the supplier to explain any tax shown on an invoice according to its actual invoicing jurisdiction and transaction. Do not add a standard foreign VAT percentage to a Hong Kong price simply because a comparison spreadsheet expects a tax column.

Keep the request, the provider’s response and the accepted revision linked. The evidence trail should preserve the scope assumptions rather than only the final figure.

Identify work that depends on independent decisions

Ask whether banking, licensing, tax analysis or immigration work means a preliminary assessment, document preparation, submission coordination or a complete separately scoped engagement. The answer should identify the institution or authority that makes the decision and the deliverable the provider is selling.

For banking, the HKMA account-opening material describes institutions’ customer-due-diligence requirements. A quoted introduction or application-preparation service cannot establish approval. Ask what happens commercially if the institution requests more evidence, rejects the application or requires an interview: included follow-up, extra work, another route and cancellation treatment should be addressed.

Set the assumptions, timing and change-control rules

Request a timetable with a defined clock start and end. Document collection, due diligence, drafting, signatures, official processing and post-incorporation handover should not be compressed into one unexplained promise. Have the provider distinguish an official processing indication from its own planning estimate, and identify the assumptions that could change that estimate.

Ask how revisions are authorised. The quote should say what happens if ownership changes, more documents are required, the business activity changes or the applicant delays signing. Obtain the quote’s validity period, payment milestones and treatment of work already performed, statutory payments and third-party costs on cancellation. These terms are not supplied automatically by an advertised starting price.

Reconcile the responses before seeking a lower price

Create three response codes: confirmed, conditional and unanswered. Confirmed means the quote identifies the output, term and price treatment. Conditional means a stated fact or later decision can change the answer. Unanswered means the provider has not supplied enough information. Record the exact question that will close each outstanding item.

Normalise the responses to the same applicant, service period and endpoint. The method for reconciling formation quotations can help organise that comparison. Ask for one consolidated revised quote after clarifications; a sequence of chat messages should not leave the accepted price attached to an obsolete scope.

Only then negotiate price. Resolve a required inclusion before treating an offer as cheaper and check whether a discount removes deliverables, shortens the service term or shifts compulsory work to a later invoice. Preserve the original and revised offers so the commercial change can be understood.

Accept a defined quotation version for your company

Accept a quotation version that identifies your company facts, deliverables, currency, statutory-fee treatment, recurring terms, external-decision boundaries and change process. Reference that version in the acceptance and retain the linked founder brief.

Return the request for clarification if a mandatory appointment is unassigned, a required cost is unanswered, or success depends on an unqualified approval promise. The request is complete when another reviewer can see exactly what you bought, what you must supply and what remains outside the engagement.