MPF for Hong Kong employers: enrolment and contributions

If you employ someone in Hong Kong aged 18 to 64 for 60 days or more, you must enrol them in a Mandatory Provident Fund (MPF) scheme within the first 60 days of employment. From then on, you and the employee each contribute 5% of their relevant income every month, with a monthly income floor of HK$7,100 and a cap of HK$30,000. Contributions are paid through the eMPF Platform. These rules come from the Mandatory Provident Fund Schemes Authority (MPFA), and a payroll firm can run them for you but cannot change them.

Who you must enrol

The MPFA’smandatory contributions pageand itsarticle on basic MPF knowledge for employersset the test. An employee aged 18 to 64 who is employed for 60 days or more must be enrolled within the first 60 days of employment. Part-time staff are covered on the same test.

Some people are exempt and do not have to join an MPF scheme. The MPFA’semployer FAQlists, among others:

• employees under 18 or aged 65 or over;
• domestic employees who provide domestic services in the employer’s residence;
• people covered by statutory pension or provident fund schemes, such as civil servants and subsidised or grant school teachers.

If you are self-employed yourself and aged 18 to 64, the MPFA requires you to enrol in your own right within the first 60 days of becoming self-employed. That is a separate duty from the one you owe your staff.

What each side pays

Employer and employee each contribute 5% of the employee’s relevant income. For monthly-paid staff the minimum relevant income level is HK$7,100 and the maximum is HK$30,000:

• below HK$7,100 a month, only the employer contributes;
• above HK$30,000 a month, each side’s contribution stops at HK$1,500.

Some hypothetical monthly figures, using only those rules:

Relevant income means wages, salary, leave pay, fees, commission, bonuses, gratuities, perquisites and allowances paid to the employee. Housing allowance or housing benefit, severance payments and long service payments are not relevant income. The MPFA says a bonus, whether an annual bonus, a thirteenth-month payment or a profit-sharing bonus, should generally count as relevant income in the contribution period in which it is ascertainable and falls due.

When contributions are due

The first contribution is due by the 10th day of the month after the month in which the employee’s 60th day of employment falls. After that, the contribution day for monthly-paid staff is the 10th of each month. A hypothetical example: an employee who starts on 15 January 2027 reaches the 60th day on 15 March 2027, so the first contribution is due by 10 April 2027.

New employees have a contribution holiday. They do not contribute for the first 30 days of employment, or for any incomplete wage period that immediately follows those 30 days if they are paid monthly or more often. The holiday covers the employee’s share only.

Within seven working days after making the contributions, you must give each employee a monthly pay-record. It shows the employee’s relevant income, the employer’s and employee’s contributions, mandatory and voluntary, and the date they were paid to the trustee.

Steps for each new hire

1. Check whether the employee is an exempt person.
2. Enrol them in your company’s MPF scheme within the first 60 days of employment.
3. Work out their relevant income each month, deduct their 5% once the contribution holiday ends, and add your own 5%.
4. Pay the first contribution by the 10th of the month after their 60th day, then monthly.
5. Issue the monthly pay-record within seven working days of each payment.

Late contributions

An employer that misses the contribution day is in default. Surcharges on the arrears are paid into the MPF accounts of the employees concerned, and the MPFA can take further enforcement action. The current surcharge rules and penalties are on the MPFA’senforcement measures and penalties page.

Severance and long service payments since 1 May 2025

The MPF “offsetting arrangement” was abolished on 1 May 2025, the transition date. The MPFA’slong service and severance payments pageexplains the effect. You can no longer use MPF benefits from your mandatory contributions to offset severance or long service payments for years of service from 1 May 2025. You can still use benefits from voluntary contributions. For staff who started before the transition date, mandatory and voluntary benefits can still offset the part of a payment for service before 1 May 2025. The change is not retrospective. The Labour Department runs asubsidy schemethat shares some of employers’ severance and long service payment costs for service after the transition date.

The rest of payroll

MPF is one part of running payroll. Salaries also go on the Inland Revenue Department’s employer’s return each year, covered inemployer’s return in Hong Kong, and the wider picture is inpayroll in Hong Kong. If you want a firm to handle the monthly work, comparepayroll firmsin our directory. This page is general information, not legal advice, and the MPFA’s pages are the authority on the rules.