How to open an ecommerce business in Hong Kong

Ecommerce is booming around the world, so it’s a great time to expand your business to make more online sales in more parts of the world. That’s why more ecommerce companies are asking how to register a company in Hong Kong, a convenient location for serving customers across South-East Asia.

Running a legal entity in Hong Kong is relatively simple. The tax system there is simple to understand, and most cross-border businesses can get offshore tax exemption status, so you don’t have to pay any tax. You also don’t have to open a Hong Kong bank account — you can just use your Payoneer account, or your local bank account in your home country, as long as it can accept Hong Kong dollars (HKD).

Fortunately, there are also a number of agencies who are experts in the Hong Kong business system, and they offer their services to help make it easier for overseas business people to open a Hong Kong entity and start doing business out of Hong Kong. With their help and your Payoneer account, you can soon start accepting direct payments in over 200 local currencies at your online store.

Making more sales from your Hong Kong business

Once you’ve opened a business in Hong Kong, you can use Payoneer’s new payment acceptance solution, Payoneer Checkout, to make more sales anywhere in the world. Payoneer Checkout lets you accept direct online credit card payments in over 200 currencies, so customers can easily pay in their local currency.

With Payoneer Checkout, you enjoy a high payment acceptance rate that helps grow your income, and stop leaking money on unreasonable foreign currency conversion fees and third party transfer fees. Payoneer Checkout improves your cash flow with fast settlement, 0% conversion fee for USD, EUR, low exchange rates for others, and full support for chargebacks, with documentation in both English and Chinese for your business records.

Note: Payoneer Checkout is currently only available for merchants with a Hong Kong entity, although support for other regions is coming soon. It’s a highly secure solution with advanced fraud protection, intelligent risk monitoring, and PCI DSS compliance.

Integrating your Hong Kong revenue streams

Payoneer Checkout lets you bring revenue from direct sales in your online stores into the Payoneer account, so you can consolidate all your revenue streams, from the online store and marketplace in a single location.

This gives you full visibility into every single business transaction, whether it takes place through your online store, a marketplace store, or with a freelancer, client, or partner. Manage all your income and expenditure through one system.

Payoneer Checkout helps you save time, cut transfer and currency conversion fees, and gives you the flexibility to use your money however you like. You can withdraw it to your local bank account, use it to pay online costs, or send payments to other Payoneer users free of charge.

Payoneer Checkout is easy to set up. You can use a direct plugin for stores that use WooCommerce or Magento or use the Payoneer Checkout API.  Fees are competitive and flexible to help you save money on payment processing.

Opening a business in Hong Kong

Creating a Hong Kong entity for your business is fairly straightforward, and you can submit all the information online. Once you’ve submitted all your forms, you just wait for the government to approve your new business and send your business registration certificate.

You’ll have to provide basic information about your business and a Hong Kong business address. Your directors and shareholders can be anywhere in the world, but you need a company secretary based in Hong Kong, and you’ll still have to provide a lot of paperwork.

Normally, legal entities require you to be physically present for a formal KYC. However, with cutting-edge cloud service platforms like Sleek, thousands of foreign entrepreneurs are able to establish their business 100% on the cloud – meaning you don’t need to physically be there in person to open your Hong Kong entity.

Companies like Sleek makes it easier by taking over all the hassle of sending in documents, plus they can provide a local mailing address for your Hong Kong business and serve as your local company secretary. You just tell them about your company, and they produce the documentation and send it to the government. All your documentation will be accessible and secure in the cloud.

Maintaining your business in Hong Kong

When you have a legal entity in Hong Kong, you have to submit four legal compliance documents every year. Companies like Sleek help you out here too; they can create and send in your annual returns, and update the government whenever something changes in your business.

With the help of companies like sleek, you will never have to worry about missing a tax filing deadline or violating any regulatory requirements in Hong Kong. Most importantly, you won’t have the hassle of company reporting at the end of your financial year. Plus, you’ll have access to your financial status in real time, any time throughout the year.

Payoneer Checkout makes it easy to grow your business in Hong Kong

When you set up and maintain a legal entity in Hong Kong, you can use Payoneer Checkout to integrate your revenue streams and enable you to accept payment in more currencies. This way, opening a business in Hong Kong is a great way to grow your income and scale across the world.

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