Hong Kong Lawmakers Pass Crypto Tax Reporting Bill for 2027 Collection

Hong Kong's Legislative Council voted on Wednesday, Nov. 4, to pass a bill writing the OECD's Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework into the city's tax law, the government said in a statement that day. The measure, formally the Inland Revenue (Amendment) (Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework and Amended Common Reporting Standard) Bill 2026, gives legal force to a schedule the government laid out in May.

Crypto service providers in Hong Kong must begin gathering the user information the framework requires on Jan. 1, 2027. The Inland Revenue Department will then start sharing that data with partner jurisdictions in 2028, the government said. The same bill adopts the OECD's updated Common Reporting Standard, which extends to digital financial products and tightens due diligence and reporting; those changes take effect on Jan. 1, 2028, with the first exchanges under the revised standard following in 2029.

The vote leaves firms little time to prepare. Passage came about eight weeks before the 2027 collection year opens, Unchained reported. The Inland Revenue Department's CARF page shows the registration portal is still under development and the reporting schema and list of partner jurisdictions have not yet been published, so firms with a Hong Kong nexus will build their systems against rules whose technical details are still outstanding.

The department's page defines the reporting firms broadly. An individual or entity that provides a service effectuating exchanges between crypto assets and fiat currencies or between crypto assets, as a business, is a reporting crypto-asset service provider; examples include exchanges, brokers, dealers and operators of crypto-asset ATMs. Reportable transactions cover exchanges between crypto assets and fiat, exchanges between crypto assets, and transfers, including moves to external wallet addresses. Central bank digital currencies, specified electronic money products and crypto assets that cannot be used for payment or investment purposes sit outside the scope.

Providers that meet any of the nexus criteria with Hong Kong face registration, due diligence and reporting requirements starting Jan. 1, 2027, the page states. Registration is due on or before Jan. 31 of the year after a provider first meets a nexus criterion, and it applies even when the provider has no reportable information to submit. The department will publish the data schema for returns "in due course," and it proposes keeping records for six years after the CARF return due date.

The bill also proposes due diligence duties. Providers must collect self-certifications from users when taking on new customers and confirm the stated residence jurisdictions look reasonable, the department's page says, and must refresh a certification that later appears incorrect or unreliable. For customers already on the books, self-certifications are due within 12 months of the rules taking effect. The legislation proposes penalties for non-compliance, for incorrect or incomplete information and for failing to notify the department of a misleading return, with some fines calculated per day of continuing offence or per user involved.

Christopher Hui, the Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury, said implementing the standards is "crucial to maintaining Hong Kong's reputation as an international financial and commercial centre." Aligning with the latest international standards "will reinforce the confidence of crypto-asset service providers, financial institutions and digital asset users in operating and making long-term investments in Hong Kong," he said in the government statement.

The bill was gazetted on May 22 and introduced in the legislature for first reading on June 3, following a public consultation that ran from December 2025 to February 2026, according to Unchained. The government committed to the first automatic exchange under CARF in 2028 on condition that the necessary domestic legislation was in place by 2026, the department's page notes. Hong Kong has swapped financial account data with partner jurisdictions under the original Common Reporting Standard every year since 2018, the government said.

The OECD published CARF in 2023 so tax authorities could trade information on crypto transactions automatically once a year, and amended the CRS to cover digital financial products, the government statement said. To help the industry adapt, the Inland Revenue Department will issue guidance and has set up a dedicated team to provide technical support and answer enquiries, it added.