Hong Kong QMAS 2026: Prerequisites and How to Choose Between the Two Routes

You have to clear four prerequisites before Hong Kong will score you at all: you must be 18 or above, able to support and accommodate yourself and any dependants on your own resources without public assistance, free of any criminal record or adverse immigration record in Hong Kong or elsewhere, and possessed of a good educational background — normally a first degree from a recognised university or tertiary institution. Only after all four are met do you choose one of two assessment routes, the General Points Test or the Achievement-based Points Test, and you may have only one application under one route in the system at a time. This reflects the Hong Kong Immigration Department's Quality Migrant Admission Scheme (QMAS) Frequently Asked Questions page, which carries a date of 1 March 2026.

What are the four prerequisites, and what actually trips people up?

The scheme exists to attract highly skilled or talented persons to settle in Hong Kong to enhance the city's economic competitiveness, and the prerequisites are the gate in front of the scoring.

Age: 18 or above at the time you submit the application.
Financial requirement: you must demonstrate you can support and accommodate yourself and your dependants from your own financial resources during your stay, without relying on public assistance.
Good character: no criminal record and no adverse immigration record, in Hong Kong or anywhere else.
Basic academic qualifications: a good educational background, normally a first degree from a recognised university or tertiary education institution.

In practice the third and fourth items are where files are won or lost. A single adverse immigration record — an overstay, a refused application, a removal — is disqualifying on the face of the published rule, and it is not something a strong profile can offset. The financial requirement, by contrast, is rarely the obstacle for a high-earning applicant; it is a documentation exercise.

What if I don't have a bachelor's degree?

The published rule leaves a narrow door open. Under special circumstances, good technical qualifications, proven professional abilities, and/or experience and achievements supported by documentary evidence may be considered in place of the usual first degree.

That wording is doing a lot of work. "Special circumstances" is not defined on the official page, and "supported by documentary evidence" means the burden sits entirely with you: professional licences, portfolios, contracts, press coverage, award citations, and verifiable records of what you built or delivered. The safer reading is that this route is reserved for people whose professional standing is already independently verifiable, not for people whose main asset is seniority.

Note the separate trap: a strong professional profile can satisfy the prerequisite, but it does not earn points under the academic qualifications aspect of the General Points Test, which is assessed on its own terms.

How does the General Points Test work?

It is a checklist, not a competition between applicants. Twelve criteria across six aspects are assessed; each is a yes-or-no question, and the prevailing passing threshold is 6 out of 12. Only applicants who meet the threshold can submit an application through the online system, and the threshold can change from time to time without prior notice.

Aspect	Criterion
(A) Age	(1) Aged 50 or below
(B) Academic qualifications	(2) Master's or doctoral degree from an eligible university
	(3) That master's or doctoral degree is pertinent to STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics)
(C) Language proficiency	(4) Proficient in two languages, written and spoken
	(5) Proficient in written and spoken English
(D) Work experience	(6) No less than five years' graduate or specialist level experience
	(7) No less than three years' graduate or specialist level experience in MNCs or reputable enterprises, such as listed companies or companies on Forbes' Global 2000, Fortune Global 500 or Hurun China 500 lists
	(8) No less than three years' graduate or specialist level experience in innovation and technology, finance, or international trade (including cross-boundary marine and aviation transportation, and supply chain management)
	(9) No less than two years' graduate or specialist level experience with international exposure
(E) Annual income	(10) Annual income reaching HK$1 million or above, or equivalent in foreign currency, in the year immediately preceding the application
(F) Business ownership	(11) Currently owns a business entity with annual profit reaching HK$5 million or above, or equivalent, in the year immediately preceding the application
	(12) Currently owns a listed company

Six of twelve is a low bar in arithmetic terms, but three of the twelve (income of HK$1 million, business profit of HK$5 million, and ownership of a listed company) are effectively reserved for senior earners and owners. A typical strong candidate banks points from age, degrees, languages, and two or three of the four work experience criteria, and then needs one of the financial criteria to be safe.

Which degrees count, and from which universities?

For criteria (2) and (3), the degree must be a master's or doctoral degree awarded by a university on the aggregate list of eligible universities, which is compiled by the Labour and Welfare Bureau for the QMAS. That list is built from the eligible universities under the Top Talent Pass Scheme plus the top 10 institutions in the QS Global MBA Rankings and the Financial Times Business School Rankings in MBA providing only postgraduate programmes over the past five years.

Several exclusions apply, and they are strict:

A bachelor's degree from an eligible university does not meet the academic qualifications criteria.
Honorary master's or doctoral degrees are not accepted.
Degrees not awarded by nationally accredited or licensed institutions are not accepted.
Qualifications awarded by an eligible university's continuing and professional education arm, branch school, extension school or subsidiary school are not accepted.
For jointly operated programmes, all awarding institutions must be on the eligible list.
You must be able to provide proof of graduation; until then the criterion is not met.

The STEM reference list is published separately and is explicitly for reference only. A subject not on the list may still be considered, depending on the supporting documents you furnish.

You must also submit verification proof of your academic qualifications issued either by a third-party credential verification organisation or by the awarding institution, and provide the details the Immigration Department needs to carry out online authentication on the relevant platforms.

How is work experience assessed?

Where you worked matters less than what you did. Whether experience counts as being in innovation and technology, finance, or international trade depends primarily on the nature of your role, position or designation, not on how your employer is classified industrially. The exception runs the other way: if you hold a role with broad operational responsibility — chief executive officer, general manager, president — the nature of the company's business is also taken into consideration, alongside the nature of your role.

"International exposure" has a precise meaning here: graduate or specialist level work experience outside your home country or territory. Secondments, regional mandates and overseas postings all potentially qualify, but a Hong Kong-based role serving international clients is a weaker fit for the wording.

Can income and profit be shown in a foreign currency?

Yes. Alongside the Hong Kong dollar, the online application service offers 17 other major currencies, including the Chinese Renminbi, US Dollar, Sterling, Japanese Yen, Canadian Dollar, Australian Dollar, Singapore Dollar, New Taiwan Dollar, Swiss Franc, Korean Won, Thai Baht, Malaysian Ringgit, Euro, Philippine Peso, Indian Rupee, Indonesian Rupiah and South African Rand. The system converts the figure into Hong Kong dollars automatically once you select the currency. If your income is denominated in none of these, convert it into Hong Kong dollars or one of the 17 currencies yourself and upload the supporting documents with your conversion.

For the HK$1 million income criterion, the documents the official page points to are the notice of salaries tax assessment for the previous assessment year issued by the competent authority, documentary proof from your employing company specifying the value of stock options granted to you, and, where relevant, financial standing documents for companies you own such as the latest audited financial report, trading profit and loss account, or profits tax return.

How is business ownership established?

A business entity means a legally recognised company or corporation over which you have the right to exercise legal and financial control. Ownership is usually established in one of two ways:

You hold 50% or more of the ownership interests in a non-listed company to which you are absolutely beneficially entitled, giving you a controlling stake and influence over the business.
You hold a significant percentage of a listed company's shares — normally 10% or more — to which you are absolutely beneficially entitled, demonstrating substantial ownership, control and influence over strategic direction, operational decisions and overall governance.

Note the pairing of legal and beneficial entitlement. Nominal shareholding without beneficial ownership does not satisfy the test as published.

What does the Achievement-based Points Test actually require?

It is a two-pronged test, and the official page states plainly that the requirements under this route are very high. You pass if you meet either of the following:

You have received an award of exceptional achievement — the examples given are an Olympic medal, a Nobel prize, or a national or international award.
You can show that your work has been acknowledged by your peers or has contributed significantly to the development of your field — the example given is a lifetime achievement award from the industry.

Meeting one criterion means you pass the assessment route and are selected for further assessment by the Assessment Panel. Meeting neither has an immediate consequence the General Points Test does not have: your application will be refused immediately.

So which route should you choose?

Choose based on what kind of evidence you can produce, not on which route sounds more impressive.

The General Points Test rewards breadth. It is built for applicants whose strength is cumulative: a good degree plus a second language plus five or ten years of specialist experience plus a solid income. Six of twelve is reachable for a well-documented senior professional, which is why this is the route almost every qualified applicant should evaluate first. The practical discipline here is to score yourself against all twelve criteria honestly before you submit, because the threshold is a gate on submission itself and it moves without notice.

The Achievement-based Points Test rewards peak evidence. It asks for a single artefact of exceptional standing — an award of the order of an Olympic medal or a Nobel prize, or demonstrated peer acknowledgement of the kind a lifetime achievement award represents. There is no partial credit and no accumulation: if you cannot point to that one artefact, the application is refused outright. It is also worth understanding what passing buys: it moves you to the Assessment Panel, not to a visa.

The structural difference that matters most for your odds is this: the Achievement-based route is binary and immediate, so an applicant who is close but not quite there receives a refusal rather than a score. The General Points route lets a strong-but-not-exceptional profile clear the threshold on the strength of many ordinary, documentable facts. For most readers, that makes the General Points Test the rational default, with the Achievement-based route reserved for cases where the award or peer acknowledgement is unambiguous.

Everything above is general information drawn from the official page and is not personalised professional advice; because the passing threshold and assessment arrangements are subject to change without prior notice, please confirm the latest official publication before you act on any of it.

What changes after approval?

The two routes do not lead to the same length of stay.

General Points Test: normally an initial stay of 36 months, on time limitation only with no other conditions of stay.
Achievement-based Points Test: normally a stay of eight years, on time limitation only with no other conditions of stay.

While in Hong Kong, admitted persons are free to take up and change employment during their permitted stay without seeking prior approval from the Immigration Department. Non-permanent residents admitted under the scheme, and their dependants, do not require a re-entry visa or entry permit to return to the HKSAR, provided they return within their permitted limit of stay and the circumstances on which they acquired their residential status remain unchanged.

Dependants can be included. You may apply to bring your spouse, or the other party to a recognised same-sex civil partnership, same-sex civil union, "same-sex marriage", opposite-sex civil partnership or opposite-sex civil union entered into under the local law of the place of celebration and recognised by the local authorities there, together with your unmarried dependent children under 18. You must demonstrate that your personal net worth is sufficient to support and accommodate yourself and them throughout the initial 12-month stay. Dependants can be included in the same online application, dependants admitted under the scheme are allowed to take up employment or study, and they can also be applied for later under the dependant residence arrangements.

Extension of stay follows the pattern rather than the route name. Applications should be made within three months before the limit of stay expires. General Points Test entrants must show, to the satisfaction of the Immigration Department, that they have taken steps to settle in Hong Kong — for example by securing gainful employment or establishing a business — and extensions, if approved, normally follow a "3+2" pattern on time limitation only. Achievement-based entrants must demonstrate that they can support and accommodate themselves and any dependants from their own financial resources. There is also a top-tier employment stream: a General Points Test entrant who has remained in Hong Kong for not less than two years and had assessable income for salaries tax of not less than HK$2 million in the previous year of assessment may apply for assessment even before the three-year limit approaches, and on approval is normally granted a five-year extension on time limitation only, counted from the original limit of stay.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I apply under both routes at the same time?

No. Each applicant may submit only one application and be assessed under only one assessment route at a time. You should score yourself against the General Points Test criteria before choosing, because the choice cannot be hedged.

I only hold a bachelor's degree. Can I still apply?

Yes, at the prerequisite stage, because the basic academic qualification is normally a first degree from a recognised university or tertiary institution. However, a bachelor's degree from an eligible university does not meet the academic qualifications criteria under the General Points Test, which require a master's or doctoral degree.

What is the passing threshold right now, and is it fixed?

The prevailing passing threshold under the General Points Test is 6 out of 12. It is subject to change from time to time without prior notice, so you should verify the current figure on the official page immediately before submitting.

Do I need a job offer in Hong Kong before applying?

The published prerequisites contain no job offer requirement, and persons admitted under the QMAS are free to take up and change employment during their permitted stay without prior approval from the Immigration Department. The General Points Test does, however, reward an annual income of HK$1 million or above, and later extensions under that route require evidence that you have taken steps to settle in Hong Kong.

What happens if my work is respected in my field but I have never won a major award?

The Achievement-based Points Test is not the route for that profile. Its second criterion asks you to show that your work has been acknowledged by your peers or contributed significantly to your field, with a lifetime achievement award given as the example, and failing both criteria results in immediate refusal. A strong career is better evidenced through the General Points Test, where experience, income, language and qualifications each carry separate weight.

How long is the first period of stay, and can it be extended?

General Points Test entrants normally receive 36 months initially, while Achievement-based Points Test entrants normally receive eight years. Extensions must be applied for within three months before the limit of stay expires, and General Points Test extensions normally follow a "3+2" pattern on time limitation only.