On an HK$8 million flat, a buyer without a Hong Kong permanent identity card paid HK$2,400,000 in stamp duty in September 2023 and pays HK$240,000 today, the same as a first-time buyer who holds one. We worked that flat through the Inland Revenue Department's rate tables for each period. The bill fell by nine-tenths across two cuts, one in October 2023 and one in February 2024.
Today a flat pays HK$100 of ad valorem stamp duty up to HK$4 million, then climbs through a set of bands to 3% at HK$8 million and 4.25% from about HK$21.7 million. Above HK$100 million it rises again, through a steep relief zone, to 6.5% from about HK$109.6 million. That top rate was enacted in May 2026 and applies to instruments signed on or after 26 February 2026.
The rate table is identical for every kind of buyer now
The Financial Secretary's 2024-25 Budget speech on 28 February 2024 cancelled what the Government calls its demand-side management measures, the "cooling measures" in common English and 撤辣 in Hong Kong Cantonese, "with immediate effect, that is, no SSD, BSD or NRSD needs to be paid for any residential property transactions starting from today." The Special Stamp Duty on quick resales and the Buyer's Stamp Duty on buyers without permanent residency went, and the 7.5% flat rate for buyers who already owned a flat was brought into line with the ordinary scale.
The scale itself was not abolished. In the IRD's words on its demand-side measures page, a repeat buyer or a buyer without permanent residency is still charged under "Part 1 of Scale 1", but "the rates after amendment are the same as those of Scale 2". The IRD's ad valorem duty FAQ prints the current residential table, effective from 26 February 2026. A buyer counts as a Hong Kong permanent resident only if they hold "a valid permanent identity card", so a Singaporean or Malaysian citizen without one is charged exactly as a Hong Kong buyer is.
Non-residential property is charged under its own Scale 3 from 26 February 2026; before that it was on Scale 2 from 26 November 2020, according to GovHK's stamp duty rates page. Its rates match the residential ones up to HK$100 million and stay at 4.25% above that. The 2025 Budget moved the bottom of both tables. From 26 February 2025, the HK$100 band runs to HK$4 million, up from HK$3 million. The HK$100 is the duty on the sale agreement; once that is stamped, the IRD's rate notes say the later assignment "will be chargeable with a fixed stamp duty of $100 only."
The 2026 Policy Address on 16 September proposed a further concession, a waiver of up to HK$20,000 for families with a child born in Hong Kong on or after that date and a parent holding permanent residency. The IRD says it "will take effect upon enactment" and that, until then, the prevailing rates apply and a refund can be claimed later. On 2 October 2026 it was not yet law.
The bill for a buyer without permanent residency is a fraction of the 2023 figure
We parsed the IRD's historical rate tables and computed the duty on the same flat at four different dates. The prices are illustrative, not market figures.
| Price (HK$) | Sep 2023, buyer without permanent residency | Jan 2024, buyer without permanent residency | 28 Feb 2024 to 25 Feb 2025, any buyer | Since 26 Feb 2025, any buyer |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4,000,000 | 1,200,000 | 600,000 | 60,000 | 100 |
| 5,000,000 | 1,500,000 | 750,000 | 112,500 | 112,500 |
| 8,000,000 | 2,400,000 | 1,200,000 | 240,000 | 240,000 |
| 10,000,000 | 3,000,000 | 1,500,000 | 370,000 | 370,000 |
| 15,000,000 | 4,500,000 | 2,250,000 | 562,500 | 562,500 |
| 30,000,000 | 9,000,000 | 4,500,000 | 1,275,000 | 1,275,000 |
In September 2023 that buyer paid two 15% charges, the Buyer's Stamp Duty and ad valorem duty under Part 1 of Scale 1. On 25 October 2023 both were halved to 7.5%, which the 2024-25 Budget speech records at paragraph 42, and on 28 February 2024 both went. The table leaves out the Special Stamp Duty, which fell on sellers, and the exemptions: some transfers between close relatives were exempt, and the IRD runs a separate suspension and refund scheme for eligible incoming talent, so not everyone without permanent residency paid the full figures in the first two columns.
For a Hong Kong permanent resident who already owned a flat, the HK$8 million purchase went from HK$600,000 in January 2024 to HK$240,000 on 28 February 2024. For a first-time Hong Kong buyer above about HK$4.3 million, nothing changed in either 2024 or 2025. We have not compared any of this with Singapore's or Malaysia's own property duties.
The relief zone just above HK$4 million is unusually steep
Between bands, the table does not jump straight to the higher rate. It uses relief zones, where duty is a fixed sum plus a share of the price above the threshold, so that HK$1 more does not suddenly cost tens of thousands. Inside four of the six zones, each extra dollar of price draws 10 cents of duty. The zone the 2025 Budget created above HK$4 million draws 20 cents, and the 2026 zone above HK$100 million draws 30.
| Relief zone (HK$) | Duty on each extra dollar |
|---|---|
| 4,000,001 to 4,323,780 | 20 cents |
| 4,500,001 to 4,935,480 | 10 cents |
| 6,000,001 to 6,642,860 | 10 cents |
| 9,000,001 to 10,080,000 | 10 cents |
| 20,000,001 to 21,739,120 | 10 cents |
| 100,000,001 to 109,574,470 | 30 cents |
At HK$4,000,000 the duty is HK$100. At HK$4,050,000 it is HK$10,100, and at HK$4,323,780 it is HK$64,856. Before 26 February 2025 every zone in the table ran at 10 cents. The amount taxed is not necessarily the agreed price. The IRD charges duty on the consideration or the value of the property, whichever is higher.
Our calculator was a dollar low on almost half of all prices
The IRD's rate notes say that "where the stamp duty calculated includes a fraction of $1", the duty is rounded up to the next dollar, and the IRD's own online calculator does the same. We wrote our own version of the table in whole-number arithmetic and tested it against a copy of the IRD's calculator at 60,538,462 prices from HK$1 million to HK$200 million. They agreed on every one.
Until 2 October 2026, our Hong Kong stamp duty calculator rounded to the nearest dollar instead. Its bands were right at every edge, but it came out HK$1 low on 45.6% of whole-dollar prices between HK$1 million and HK$50 million. A price in whole thousands was never affected. It now rounds up, and inside a relief zone it says how much each extra HK$10,000 adds.
Every party to the agreement is jointly liable
The IRD's FAQ answers the question of who pays in law, not by custom: "The buyer, the seller, and any person who uses the instrument will be jointly and severally liable to pay AVD … irrespective of any agreement to the contrary made between them." Who bears the cost is a matter for the contract; who the IRD can pursue is everyone on it.
The deadline runs from the first agreement. The IRD's leaflet on late stamping sets 30 days "after the relevant date", which it says is "generally speaking" the date of the first agreement for sale, usually the provisional one. If a formal agreement is signed within 14 days of the provisional one, the formal agreement has 30 days from its own signing. The penalty for late stamping is twice the duty for a delay of up to a month, four times up to two months, and ten times beyond that, and the leaflet adds that "the Collector of Stamp Revenue ('the Collector') may remit partly or wholly the penalty payable."
The duty on a lease is small beside the duty on a sale
A tenancy agreement is stamped on the rent, not the property's value. The IRD's leaflet on stamping a tenancy agreement sets 0.25% of the total rent for a term of up to a year, 0.5% of the yearly rent for a term over a year and up to three, and 1% for longer terms, plus HK$5 for each duplicate or counterpart. The deposit is not counted. All the parties who sign are liable, and the 30 days run from signing, whatever date the tenancy starts.
The IRD's own example is a two-year lease at HK$10,000 a month with two months rent-free. With HK$220,000 of rent over two years, or HK$110,000 a year, the duty comes to HK$555, 0.5% of the yearly rent plus HK$5 for the copy. A HK$8 million purchase pays HK$240,000.
The top band above HK$100 million is too new for an older IRD page
The 2026-27 Budget speech raised the duty on residential property above HK$100 million from 4.25% to 6.5%, which it estimated would affect about 0.3% of residential transactions, with retrospective effect from 26 February 2026. The Legislative Council passed the bill on 20 May, and the Government said the IRD would write to the solicitors on deals signed between 26 February and 28 May asking for the difference by 29 June, with a late penalty of up to ten times the difference if it was not paid. A HK$105 million flat pays HK$5,750,000 under the new table, against HK$4,462,500 under the old one. At HK$150 million the extra is HK$3,375,000.
GovHK's stamp duty computation index links the IRD's 2026 calculator programs, which carry the new band. An older IRD calculator page was still reachable on 2 October 2026, headed as Scale 2 for residential and non-residential property, and its table stopped at 4.25%. Run at HK$150 million, it gave HK$6,375,000, the pre-2026 figure.
