Inland Revenue (Amendment) (Automatic Exchange of Information) Bill 2026 (the Amendment Bill)

The contents of this page are based on the Amendment Bill which is subject to scrutiny by the Legislative Council.  Readers are reminded to be alerted to the latest development upon enactment of the Amendment Bill.  

The Amendment Bill was gazetted on 27 March 2026.  The Amendment Bill aims to strengthen the existing administrative framework for the Common Reporting Standard (CRS) to ensure effective implementation.  Subject to the passage of the Amendment Bill, the legislative amendments will be implemented from 1 January 2027 onwards.

The main legislative amendments of the Amendment Bill are as follows: 

Introducing mandatory registration requirement for reporting financial institutions (RFIs)

All RFIs in Hong Kong are required to register in the AEOI Portal for CRS reporting purposes, irrespective of whether they have any information to report to the Inland Revenue Department.  For existing RFIs that remain unregistered, they are required to register in the AEOI Portal by 31 March 2027.  For financial institutions becoming RFIs since 1 January 2027, they are required to register in the AEOI Portal by 31 January of the year following the calendar year in which the financial institutions first become RFIs.  Nevertheless, in certain scenarios (e.g. a trustee and its trusts, an umbrella fund and its sub-funds), if an RFI (e.g. a trust, a sub-fund) has been registered under the account of another RFI (e.g. the trustee of the trust, the umbrella fund of the sub-fund) and the relevant CRS data, including nil reporting, is reported by the latter RFI, the RFI (e.g. the trust, the sub-fund) is not required to make the registration separately.

Enhancing record keeping requirements

RFIs are required to keep sufficient records for a period of six years after the due date of the Financial Account Information Return (BIR80), regardless of whether the RFI has ceased to be an RFI or has been dissolved.  For a dissolved RFI, every person who was a director (or a trustee or person who was responsible for the management, if there was no director) of the RFI immediately before its dissolution is required to ensure that the sufficient records of the RFI are kept until the end of the six-year retention period.

Enhancing sanctions

The Amendment Bill introduces new sanctions in respect of RFIs’ non-compliance with relevant obligations without reasonable excuse (including failure to register, provision of incorrect or incomplete information, etc.).  It also introduces penalties calculated based on the number of financial accounts involved for certain offences (including failure to carry out due diligence procedures, etc.) to ensure that the penalties are proportionate to the nature and seriousness of the offences.  To improve the timeliness and cost-effectiveness of penalty actions, an administrative penalty mechanism is introduced as an alternative to prosecution.  Where an RFI commits certain offences without reasonable excuse, it can be liable to an administrative penalty in lieu of prosecution in respect of the same facts for which no prosecution has been initiated.

Click here to view full content of this Amendment Bill.

Click here to view the Press Release announced on 25 March 2026.