October 23, 2025 · 《Ming Pao》
By Yun-wing Sung
In his first Policy Address in 2022, Chief Executive John Lee put forward the “talent grab” policy, and by the end of that year rolled out a total of seven “talent-grab” measures, including the newly launched Top Talent Pass Scheme (TTPS) and “enhanced versions” of the previous six talent-attraction measures. The aim was to address the large loss of talent triggered by the emigration wave following the 2019 anti-extradition bill protests.
According to government data, in the two-and-a-half years from the launch of the “talent-grab” policy in 2023 to the end of June this year, as many as 430,000 people arrived in Hong Kong through the seven talent schemes, including 220,000 talents and 210,000 dependants. Bizarrely, however, Hong Kong’s total population actually shrank rather than grew over the same period — slipping slightly from the historical peak of 7.53 million in mid-2023 to 7.52 million in mid-2025. Judging by the population total, the large influx of talent into Hong Kong vanished without a trace, like a clay ox entering the sea.
This article aims to provide a comprehensive analysis of why this paradoxical phenomenon has emerged. A detailed account of why Hong Kong’s population is shrinking rather than growing will not only help us understand the main factors driving population change, but also help policymakers grasp and design various population and socio-economic policies.
1. Recent Population Changes in Hong Kong
Hong Kong’s population reached 7.5 million in mid-2019. This was followed by an “emigration wave” triggered by the anti-extradition bill protests, compounded by a “pandemic-fleeing wave” sparked by COVID-19 (Hong Kong’s relatively stringent quarantine measures prompted many foreign residents to leave temporarily). By mid-2022, Hong Kong’s population had dropped by 160,000 to a low of 7.34 million.
From mid-2022 to mid-2023, the city underwent a “post-pandemic normalisation”: the pandemic-fleeing residents originally based in Hong Kong gradually returned, and a large number of Hong Kong people who had long been living overseas or in mainland China took the opportunity to come back to visit relatives as transport links were restored. The population surged by 190,000 in a single year, reaching a historical peak of 7.53 million — about 20,000 more than at mid-2019.
Hong Kong’s “talent-grab” measures only began in late 2022, so by mid-2023 there had been only about half a year for them to take effect, and it is believed that not many talents had successfully applied and arrived during that period. Therefore, the surge in Hong Kong’s population from mid-2022 to mid-2023 was mainly the result of post-pandemic normalisation, and had little to do with the “talent-grab” measures.
For ease of detailed analysis, this article refers to the two-year period from mid-2023 to mid-2025 as the “recent two years”. In fact, in these recent two years, in addition to the 430,000 talents and dependants who arrived, large numbers of other people also entered Hong Kong, including new arrivals on One-Way Permits, foreign workers (in unskilled or low-skilled jobs), non-local students, and foreign domestic helpers. The total inflow of all these categories of people into Hong Kong reached as high as 590,000 — yet the population of Hong Kong still shrank rather than grew.
2. Limitations of Conventional Wisdom
There are three popular explanations for why Hong Kong’s population shrank rather than grew over the recent two years. First, the city’s population is ageing severely; in recent years, the number of deaths has exceeded the number of births, leading to natural population decline that has offset part of the inflow. Second, because the Top Talent Pass Scheme does not require applicants to secure a job in Hong Kong before applying for a two-year visa, it is prone to abuse. Many (perhaps even most) top talents, after successfully obtaining their visas, arrive in Hong Kong to complete check-in formalities and then leave — the goal being to obtain a two-year visa that makes it convenient to travel back and forth to Hong Kong; or to let their children become dependants, who can then study at Hong Kong tertiary institutions by paying only local student fees (in July this year, the government revised the eligibility for subsidised post-secondary programmes, requiring dependants to have resided in Hong Kong for two years before they can apply for subsidised fees). The headline figure for top talents coming to Hong Kong is therefore heavily inflated, exaggerating the actual inflow. Finally, the conventional view holds that, since 2019, large numbers of Hong Kong residents have emigrated, offsetting the inflow into the city.
These three pieces of conventional wisdom each have some merit, but they can only account for a small part of the phenomenon (see analysis below). For example, last year Hong Kong’s natural population decline amounted to only 33,000, which is quite limited. To fully explain why an inflow of 590,000 people vanished like a clay ox entering the sea, we still need other, more powerful factors.
“Water” in the “talent-grab” numbers
There has been much public discussion recently about whether the talents who arrive in Hong Kong actually stay. Among these, several commentaries by former Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying are representative. On 5 August this year, he noted that although the government has attracted large numbers of talents to Hong Kong, the number of private residential move-ins over the past five years has not changed much. This indicates that the vast majority of talent families coming to Hong Kong have not settled here, but instead have obtained their identity cards and then returned to the mainland with their whole families.
The author agrees that the Top Talent Pass Scheme is prone to abuse, but estimating the “abuse rate” of incoming talents is no easy matter. Even talents who find jobs in Hong Kong may or may not stay long-term — that remains uncertain and needs time to verify. As far as the situation of the recent two years is concerned, however, the author judges that those who arrive and “return to the mainland with their whole family” are not in the majority, and the “abuse rate” should be well below half.
The author’s judgement rests on two factors. The first is that in mid-August this year the government published the first batch of TTPS visa renewal figures: among the first batch of more than 13,000 cases, the renewal rate was 54%. Cases of abuse would have difficulty passing the renewal assessment, which suggests that even within the TTPS — where the abuse situation should be relatively more pronounced — the “abuse rate” is still below half.
The second factor is that, of the 430,000 talents and dependants who arrived in Hong Kong in the recent two years, those who came through the TTPS account for about 49%, slightly below half. The remaining slightly-more-than-half came via the other six talent schemes, and applicants under those routes generally need to have secured a job in Hong Kong before applying (such as the General Employment Policy, which mainly targets overseas talents, and the Technology Talent Admission Scheme, among others). They generally do not “return to the mainland with their whole family” right after arrival, so the likelihood of abuse is not high.
Judging from these two factors, the “abuse rate” across the seven talent admission schemes combined should be less than half of half — that is, less than one-quarter (or 25%). The reasoning is as follows: the 54% renewal rate for the TTPS tells us its “abuse rate” should be less than half; and the number of arrivals through the TTPS is less than half of all admission schemes. Therefore, across all admission schemes combined, the “abuse rate” should be less than half of half — that is, less than 25%. But to be cautious, and considering that the other admission schemes may also have some abuse, the author boldly posits that the “abuse rate” may reach a maximum of 30%. In other words, as many as about 130,000 (30% of 430,000) “arriving talents” may be statistical “water” — they arrived and then left. Subtracting this “water”, the number of people flowing into Hong Kong over the past two years was about 450,000 rather than 590,000. Even after stripping out the “water”, an inflow of 450,000 remains a striking figure; the fact that the total population shrank rather than grew is still hard to explain.
3. The Hong Kong Emigration Wave Has Notably Eased in the Past Two Years
The most detailed public estimate of emigration figures comes from the media outlet Citizen News (集誌社). By examining visa figures from the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and Taiwan, the outlet estimates that around 300,000 Hong Kong residents emigrated over the five years from mid-2019 to mid-2024, with the UK’s BNO (British National (Overseas) passport) visa scheme accounting for around half of that figure.
The serious impact of the emigration wave on Hong Kong should not be underestimated. But in recent years, with anti-immigration sentiment on the rise worldwide and destinations tightening their restrictions on incoming migrants, Hong Kong’s emigration wave has notably eased over the past two years. Take the UK BNO visa scheme as an example: from the scheme’s launch in 2021 to mid-2023 — a period of two-and-a-half years — about 124,000 Hong Kong residents arrived in the UK under the scheme, averaging about 50,000 per year. In the recent two years, however, this figure has plunged to 42,000, averaging just 21,000 per year; and in the most recent six months, the figure has dropped further to 5,000.
Assuming that the BNO visa scheme continues to account for about half of all Hong Kong emigration abroad, the number of emigrants leaving Hong Kong in the recent two years is estimated to be about 84,000.
The author’s analysis makes clear that the above pieces of conventional wisdom can only account for a small part of the phenomenon: the “water” in the talent admission schemes amounts to less than 140,000, and the number of emigrants leaving Hong Kong is 84,000; the combined total is less than 227,000, or only 38% of the 590,000 inflow. The bulk of the puzzle (62% of the inflow, i.e. about 360,000) still requires other factors to explain.
4. Hong Kong’s Outflow Far Exceeds Its Inflow
Local media in Hong Kong have reported extensively on the emigration wave in recent years, but they have often overlooked the even larger number of Hong Kong residents who have relocated abroad. Emigration requires a visa and involves a change of identity; relocation, by contrast, requires no visa and involves no change of identity. When Chinese-nationality Hong Kong residents move to the mainland, that is relocation abroad rather than emigration. Similarly, when Hong Kong residents with foreign nationality relocate from Hong Kong to the country of that nationality, that too is relocation rather than emigration.
Because relocating abroad does not require a visa, the figures are difficult to estimate accurately — though they are undoubtedly very large. From the Hong Kong Census and Statistics Department’s figure for “Hong Kong residents usually staying in Guangdong Province”, we know that at the end of 2024, nearly 560,000 Hong Kong residents usually lived in Guangdong. According to mainland statistics, of the Hong Kong residents living in the mainland, those residing in Guangdong Province account for about two-thirds. Extrapolating from this proportion, at the end of 2024, roughly 840,000 Hong Kong residents were living in the mainland — a very large number.
The number of Hong Kong residents who stay in Hong Kong but hold foreign nationality is also very large, estimated at 500,000 or more. The number relocating abroad over the recent two years is likewise not to be underestimated.
Since the Census and Statistics Department has not yet released its mid-2025 “Hong Kong residents usually staying in Guangdong Province” figures, we cannot estimate how many Hong Kong residents have relocated to the mainland over the recent two years. But as Hong Kong integrates more closely into the national development plan, the number of Hong Kong residents relocating to the mainland is certainly rising rapidly — and should be sufficient to explain why the city’s total population has shrunk rather than grown, even as it attracts large numbers of incoming talents.
5. Population and Socio-economic Policy Face Greater Uncertainty
Many Hong Kong residents maintain two or more homes in Hong Kong, the mainland, or overseas, and travel frequently between them — making them hard to count accurately. The population statistics do, however, reflect this: in recent years, the number of “mobile residents” has surged, while the number of “usual residents” has correspondingly declined. For example, comparing the population figures for 2019 and 2024, the total population was 7.5 million in 2019 and 7.52 million in 2024 — little difference. But the number of mobile residents was about 200,000 in 2019, rising to nearly 270,000 in 2024 — an increase of 36% — while usual residents fell from 7.31 million to 7.26 million over the same period.
Hong Kong’s future population trends are of paramount importance, as they determine the planning of land, housing, education, and healthcare. But as Hong Kong integrates into the national development plan, the relocation of Hong Kong residents to the mainland will grow rapidly; the relocation of mainland talents to Hong Kong may also grow rapidly. The number and structure of Hong Kong’s population in the future will be increasingly hard to predict, and the uncertainty facing population policy is rising sharply. In such circumstances, it is of utmost importance to maintain flexibility in population policy and socio-economic planning. The government needs to monitor population changes frequently, and to revise socio-economic planning just as frequently.
(Translation supported by AI)
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- Is a 10-Million Greater Bay Area Metropolis Feasible for Hong Kong? by Yun-wing Sung, Alex Ngau
- Mass Population Movements Test Hong Kong’s Social and Economic Planning by Yun-wing Sung, Alex Ngau
