Hong Kong passes crypto tax reporting law: platforms must report client trades to tax authority from 2027

Hong Kong's Legislative Council passed the Inland Revenue (Amendment) (Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework and Amended Common Reporting Standard) Bill 2026 on November 4, bringing the OECD's Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework (CARF) into local law and amending the existing Common Reporting Standard (CRS). It is a significant upgrade to Hong Kong's tax transparency regime: from 2027, crypto platforms connected to Hong Kong must register with the tax authority and report client transaction data every year. (Cover photo is a file photo of Hong Kong's skyline.)

Who is affected: reporting crypto-asset service providers

The rules apply to businesses classed as reporting crypto-asset service providers (RCASPs) — exchanges, brokers and similar intermediaries with a connection to Hong Kong. They must run due diligence on their customers, verify taxpayer identity, and report relevant information to the Inland Revenue Department (IRD) every year. Regardless of activity level, any business that qualifies as an RCASP must register with the IRD from January 1, 2027 — a clear compliance checkpoint.

Timeline: collection from 2027, automatic exchange from 2028

The bill was not rushed: the government ran a public consultation from December 2025 to February 2026, with stakeholders broadly supportive; the bill was gazetted on May 22, 2026, and approved by lawmakers in November. Data collection obligations kick in on January 1, 2027, with the first automatic exchanges of information with other jurisdictions scheduled for 2028; the amended CRS provisions take effect alongside the new crypto rules.

Not a new tax: visibility, not new levies

Importantly, the law creates no new crypto tax and changes nothing about what anyone owes — it solves a visibility problem, making sure the existing tax system can see activity in digital assets. The government says the goal is to reduce the risk of tax evasion through digital assets and to protect Hong Kong's standing as an international financial centre, in light of OECD peer-review feedback, while leaving room for the crypto sector to grow. For users, trades made through covered platforms from 2027 onward will feed into an annual report to the tax authority, and once automatic exchanges begin in 2028, that information may be shared with other participating jurisdictions.