Hong Kong TTPS Category A 2026: What Income Level Actually Gets Approved?
Category A approvals under Hong Kong's Top Talent Pass Scheme (TTPS) concentrate at the very bottom of the published income range, not at the top. In January–June 2026, 3,444 of the 5,937 approved Category A applications — roughly 58% — sat in the HK$2.5 million to under HK$3 million income band, according to the Hong Kong Immigration Department's Visas facts and statistics page as of October 2026. The page records income "in the preceding year" and covers Category A applicants only; Categories B and C are not required to submit income information.
What income level actually gets approved?
The published distribution has four bands, and the count falls away sharply at each step up.
| Income in the preceding year (HK$) | 2025 | 2026 (Jan–Jun) |
|---|---|---|
| 2.5 million to less than 3 million | 5 355 | 3 444 |
| 3 million to less than 5 million | 2 762 | 1 543 |
| 5 million to less than 10 million | 1 143 | 525 |
| 10 million or above | 938 | 425 |
| Total | 10 198 | 5 937 |
Two things follow from this. The lowest band is where the bulk of approvals sit in both periods, and its share has grown: about 53% of 2025 Category A approvals, against roughly 58% in the first half of 2026. The top band, HK$10 million or above, accounted for 938 approvals in 2025 and 425 in the first half of 2026 — a little over 7% of the half-year total.
Does a higher income improve your chances?
The statistics cannot answer that, and it is worth being precise about why. The Immigration Department publishes counts of approved applications by income band; it does not publish application volumes or refusals for those bands, so no approval rate can be calculated from them. The steep drop in counts as income rises is most plausibly a reflection of how few people earn at those levels, not evidence that adjudicators treat higher income as stronger or weaker.
What the data does support is a statement about the composition of the approved pool: it is built mainly from people who sit just inside the lowest published band, with a long thin tail above it.
Why is Category A only part of the scheme?
Because the income breakdown describes only those required to report income. Across the whole scheme, 14,847 applications were approved in January–June 2026, of which 5,937 — about 40% — fall in the Category A income tables. For 2025, the comparison is 10,198 out of 31,508, or roughly 32%.
The remaining approvals include Categories B and C, for which no income distribution exists at all. Any claim about the "average income" of the scheme as a whole would therefore be unsupported by these figures.
Approvals are also heavily concentrated geographically: of the 14,847 approvals in January–June 2026, 13,819 came from the Chinese Mainland, followed by Others (495), the U.S.A. (173), Canada (177), Australia (113) and Singapore (70).
How does HK$2.5 million compare with other Hong Kong talent programmes?
This is where the bands are most useful to a high-net-worth reader: they show what Hong Kong's own channels treat as "high income".
| Programme | Income data published | Highest band | 2026 (Jan–Jun) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Top Talent Pass Scheme, Category A | Annual income in the preceding year | HK$10 million or above | 5 937 approvals; 3 444 in the lowest band |
| General Employment Policy | Monthly remuneration | $80,000 or above | 1 885 of 13 640 |
| Admission Scheme for Mainland Talents and Professionals | Monthly remuneration | $80,000 or above | 840 of 13 654 |
| Technology Talent Admission Scheme | Monthly remuneration | $80,000 or above | 10 of 95 |
| Quality Migrant Admission Scheme | No income breakdown published | — | 1 940 cases passing the selection exercise |
| Immigration Arrangements for Non-local Graduates | No income breakdown published | — | 7 480 approvals |
Set the bands side by side and the gap is wide. A Category A income at the bottom of the published range is about HK$208,000 a month; the top monthly band in the General Employment Policy starts at $80,000, which annualises to roughly HK$960,000. On that basis, the entry point of the TTPS income tables sits at more than twice what the general employment channel records as its highest remuneration band — and only about 14% of General Employment Policy approvals and about 6% of Mainland Talents and Professionals approvals in the first half of 2026 reached that $80,000-or-above band at all.
Read as a benchmark rather than a rule, the message is that Hong Kong operates two quite different income registers: an employment-visa register where "high" begins near HK$1 million a year, and a top-talent register where the published range starts at HK$2.5 million.
Which sectors do approved applicants come from?
The scheme's sector breakdown covers 11,513 approvals in January–June 2026, and it comes with a coverage note: from 1 March 2023 the Immigration Department required applicants with work experience to declare the industry or sector of their previous occupation, so these figures count only applicants with work experience who declared it, and they span the whole scheme rather than Category A alone.
| Industry/sector | 2026 (Jan–Jun) |
|---|---|
| Commerce and trade | 2 461 |
| Innovation and technology | 2 024 |
| Financial services | 1 391 |
| Information and communication technology services | 838 |
| Manufacturing industries | 569 |
| Engineering and construction | 529 |
| Business support and human resources | 451 |
| Academic research and education | 414 |
| Others | 2 836 |
Commerce and trade, innovation and technology, and financial services together make up just over half of the declared-sector approvals — 5,876 of 11,513, or about 51% — which is consistent with an income-based route that draws on commercially rewarded roles.
How should you read these bands for your own planning?
- Locate your income in the preceding year within the four published bands.
- Check the current Category A income requirement on the scheme's official pages before you rely on any band.
- Treat the bands as the composition of approved cases, not as a scoring curve.
- Re-check each year, because the department publishes these figures by calendar period rather than as a fixed schedule.
Everything above is general reference drawn from published statistics rather than advice on an individual case, so match your own circumstances against the official requirements and, where the position is unclear, a qualified professional's view.
What the published data does not tell you
The page is a statistics release, not a statement of eligibility rules. It does not set out the minimum income required to apply, how income is defined, or what evidence is needed. It publishes no refusal figures, no application volumes, no processing times and no fees, so none of those can be read off it. The 2026 column also covers January to June only, and half-year counts should not be compared directly with full-year 2025 counts when judging trend. Where a figure or rule matters to a decision, the official scheme requirements as most recently published govern.
Frequently Asked Questions
What income level actually gets approved under TTPS Category A in 2026?
Most approvals sit in the HK$2.5 million to under HK$3 million band: 3,444 of the 5,937 Category A approvals recorded for January–June 2026. The next band, HK$3 million to under HK$5 million, accounted for 1,543.
Is an income above HK$10 million more likely to be approved?
The published statistics cannot show that, because they count approved applications only, with no application or refusal totals by band. The HK$10 million or above band recorded 425 approvals in the first half of 2026, a small share of the total.
Why is there no income data for Categories B and C?
Category B and Category C applicants are not required to submit information on income in the preceding year, so no income distribution exists for them. The income tables therefore describe Category A only, which covered 5,937 of the scheme's 14,847 approvals in January–June 2026.
How does the Category A income range compare with the General Employment Policy?
The General Employment Policy publishes monthly remuneration bands, with the highest starting at $80,000, reached by 1,885 of 13,640 approvals in January–June 2026. The Category A income tables begin at HK$2.5 million a year, roughly HK$208,000 a month.
Do these statistics state the minimum income needed to apply?
No. The page breaks approved Category A applications into bands beginning at HK$2.5 million in the preceding year, but it does not set out the eligibility threshold itself. Confirm the current requirement against the official scheme rules.
Are the 2026 figures full-year results?
No. The 2026 column covers January to June only, so its totals are roughly half-year counts and should not be read as an annual figure or compared directly with 2025.