Hong Kong · HKG · snapshot 2026-10-06
Hong Kong
Measured
Currency movement
-1.1%
The local currency bought more euros at the end of this window than at the start — a more expensive entry for a euro-denominated buyer, and a better exit for anyone already holding the asset.
What it does not show. It is not a forecast and not a property return. A currency move and a price move are different facts and routinely point opposite ways; nothing here says which way either is going next.
Foreign-buyer rules
2 of 2 published rules apply
These are the restrictions a foreign buyer meets before price is even discussed — approval regimes, surcharges, ownership limits.
What it does not show. It is not a completeness claim. A rule we have not read is not a rule that does not exist, and this row counts what is cited, not what is in force.
Cost of money
4%
The price of money to banks in this jurisdiction, which sets the floor everything else is priced from.
What it does not show. It is emphatically not a mortgage quote. What a non-resident is offered is a different number, usually much higher, and the gap between them is where a market's financing story actually lives.
Supply against absorption
Not measured
No statistics agency for this market has been read and cleared for republication. Two have been anywhere: Canada and Singapore. The data very likely exists; the permission to publish it has not been established.
Residential price cycle
Not measured
The OECD house-price dataset does not carry this territory, so there is nothing withheld here — the ratio has not been measured by the source we hold.
Valuation against its own history
Not measured
The OECD house-price dataset does not carry this territory, so there is nothing withheld here — the ratio has not been measured by the source we hold.
On the market now
Not measured
No listings platform has been read for this market. The one platform this site can read covers Russian cities only, and inventing a count for anywhere else would be worse than an empty row.
No dossier has been written for this market yet. What follows is the measured layers and the rules, each with its source — not an argument about whether to be here. A market reaches this page as soon as two layers can be cited, because an unwritten thesis is a reason to publish less, not a reason to publish nothing.
The series behind those figures, and the workings
Currency
-1.1%
Twelve-month move in HKD per euro, 9.1342 in 2025-09 to 9.0301 in 2026-09. Positive means the local currency weakened. Source: European Central Bank monthly reference averages.
8.8438
Latest daily fixing, HKD per euro on 2026-10-06. Shown because it is what a reader would see if they went and looked; the window above uses monthly averages, which one volatile day cannot move.
Against other base currencies
A market is cheap or dear relative to the capital entering it, so the same twelve months read differently depending on what the buyer holds. Both legs are quoted per euro, so the euro cancels and no third source is involved.
| Buyer holds | HKD per unit, 2025-09 | HKD per unit, 2026-09 | Twelve-month move |
|---|---|---|---|
| US dollar (USD) | 7.7855 | 7.8432 | +0.7% |
| Pound sterling (GBP) | 10.5118 | 10.5231 | +0.1% |
| Swiss franc (CHF) | 9.7696 | 9.5761 | -2.0% |
| Singapore dollar (SGD) | 6.0590 | 6.1631 | +1.7% |
| Australian dollar (AUD) | 5.1330 | 5.5859 | +8.8% |
Cost of money
4%
Central bank policy rate, 2026-08. Source: Bank for International Settlements.
This is the price of money to banks, not the price of money to a non-resident buying a building. The gap between those two is where a market’s financing story actually lives, and it is not in this number. A mortgage quote for a foreign buyer depends on the lender, the asset and the borrower, and no public dataset carries it.
BIS terms permit this figure on a free page and state that nothing in their statistics constitutes investment advice. They also allow inclusion in a commercial product only where it adds no charge, so this series is published here and is not priced into any paid work.
Background
Annual national statistics from the World Bank, under a licence that permits reuse with attribution. They describe the country; they do not time an entry, and they are not counted as measurements of this market — otherwise every territory on earth would claim to be measured on the strength of one dataset.
| Indicator | Value | Year |
|---|---|---|
| GDP per capita | 56,983 US$ | 2025 |
| Consumer price inflation | 1.4 % | 2025 |
| Population | 7,498,900 | 2025 |
| Urban population | 100.0 % of total | 2025 |
| Official exchange rate | 7.7971 per US$ | 2025 |
What the rules do to a foreign buyer
Each entry cites the instrument and the authority page it was read from, with the date it was retrieved. Facts of law change; the retrieval date is how you know how old this reading is.
| Topic | How it fails you | In force | When it bites | Applies to | What applies | Instrument | Read on |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| What a non-permanent-resident pays today, which is what everyone else pays | The restriction you expected is not there | In forcefrom 2024-02-28 | On the way in | Residential onlyWhere you live | Ad valorem stamp duty on residential property is charged under Part 1 of Scale 1 on every acquisition except one: a Hong Kong permanent resident acting on their own behalf who owns no other residential property in Hong Kong, who is charged under Scale 2 instead. That machinery is still in the Ordinance, and the Inland Revenue Department's own guidance still calls Scale 2 the lower rates. It is not lower any more. The Government's published rate table records that from 28 February 2024 the rates under Part 1 of Scale 1 were amended to be the same as the Scale 2 rates, and the table in force from 26 February 2026 prints a single column headed 'Rates under Part 1 of Scale 1 and Scale 2' — one hundred dollars up to four million, rising by bands to 4.25% above about twenty-one point seven million and 6.5% above roughly one hundred and nine and a half million. So the distinction between a permanent resident and a foreign buyer survives in the form of the charge and has disappeared from its amount. A reader should treat the surviving language as a place where the rate could be separated again by amending one table, not as evidence that it currently is. What was taken away on that date is worth stating in figures, because it is what pre-2024 advice still quotes. A buyer who was not a Hong Kong permanent resident paid Buyer's Stamp Duty at a flat 15% of the consideration or market value, whichever was higher, from 27 October 2012, on top of the ad valorem duty — and on top of the Part 1 of Scale 1 charge, itself a flat 15% until 24 October 2023 and 7.5% from 25 October 2023. The Inland Revenue Department states that under the 2024 Amendment Ordinance any instrument executed on or after 28 February 2024 for the sale, purchase or transfer of residential property is no longer subject to Buyer's Stamp Duty at all. | Stamp Duty Ordinance (Cap. 117), ad valorem stamp duty, Part 1 of Scale 1 and Scale 2, as amended by the Stamp Duty (Amendment) Ordinance 2024 and as at the rates in force from 26 February 2026. Read from the stamp duty rate table published by the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. | 2026-09-06 |
| Special Stamp Duty, which priced the exit rather than the entry | It costs | Ended, still owed2010-11-20 → 2024-02-27 | On the way out | Residential onlyEveryone | Special Stamp Duty was charged on a resale, not a purchase, and it is recorded here because an exit cost is the half of a holding that a screen most often forgets. For residential property acquired on or after 27 October 2012 it ran at 20% where the property had been held for six months or less, 15% for more than six months and up to twelve, and 10% for more than twelve months and up to thirty-six, computed on the higher of the stated consideration and market value. For property acquired between 20 November 2010 and 26 October 2012 the rates were 15%, 10% and 5% over shorter windows. It bound every seller alike rather than foreign ones. The Inland Revenue Department states that under the 2024 Amendment Ordinance any instrument executed on or after 28 February 2024 is no longer subject to it, so a three-year lock-in that shaped how this market was underwritten for more than a decade is simply gone. | Stamp Duty Ordinance (Cap. 117), Special Stamp Duty, introduced with effect from 20 November 2010, rates revised from 27 October 2012, abolished by the Stamp Duty (Amendment) Ordinance 2024 for instruments executed on or after 28 February 2024. Read from the Inland Revenue Department's own guidance. | 2026-09-06 |
What is missing, and why
valuation — Source does not cover this market
The dataset simply does not include this territory. Absent, not zero.
The OECD house-price dataset does not carry this territory, so there is nothing withheld here — the ratio has not been measured by the source we hold.
supply — Source does not cover this market
The dataset simply does not include this territory. Absent, not zero.
No statistics agency for this market has been read and cleared for republication. Two have been anywhere: Canada and Singapore. The data very likely exists; the permission to publish it has not been established.
What supports this, what would make it wrong, and how it could go
Record
| Why this market is on the list | Added because two layers already covered it from sources whose licences are confirmed — the ECB reference rate for the currency and the BIS policy rate for the cost of money — and neither needed a new grant, a new connector, or a new fetch. The friction layer was opened on 2026-09-06, and what it found was a dismantling rather than a charge: the whole apparatus that priced a non-permanent-resident buyer differently was taken apart on one day, 28 February 2024. Two of the three entries here are therefore historical, and they are kept because advice written before that date is still in circulation. It is on the screen because it is measured, not because it was chosen. |
|---|---|
| Dossier | None written. Layers and rules only, which is why this market reads as “Measured” rather than reviewed. |
| Next review | 2026-11-15 |
| Evidence snapshot | 2026-10-06 |