Wei Chen
No, you no longer need an arrival card for Hong Kong, and there is no digital replacement to file instead. The Hong Kong Immigration Department confirms that all travellers, residents and visitors alike, are not required to complete and furnish arrival or departure cards at immigration clearance points. The card requirement was scrapped in October 2024, announced in the Chief Executive’s 2024 Policy Address as a measure for faster and more convenient clearance. You arrive with your passport, you clear immigration, and you keep the landing slip you are issued. That is the whole paperwork story.
Quick Facts About Hong Kong Arrival Cards
- Arrival card: Not required. There is no paper form and no online form.
- Departure card: Not required either. The change covers both directions.
- Changed: October 2024, with the measure taking effect on 16 October 2024.
- Authority: The Hong Kong Immigration Department, stated on GovHK’s immigration clearance pages.
- Applies to: All travellers at all control points, by air, land and sea.
- What you receive instead: A landing slip on arrival, issued since 2013 in place of a passport stamp. Keep it during your stay.
- Visa rules: Unchanged. Visa-free access periods and visa requirements still apply exactly as before.
- Official source: gov.hk and immd.gov.hk. Ignore any website selling a Hong Kong arrival card service.
What exactly changed at the border?
For decades, visitors to Hong Kong filled in a two-part paper arrival and departure card, usually handed out on the flight and completed in the immigration queue. From 16 October 2024 that ritual ended. The Immigration Department removed the requirement entirely rather than digitizing it, which makes Hong Kong an outlier in a region currently moving in the opposite direction. Neighbouring systems have gone online instead of disappearing, as our guide to the Taiwan online arrival card shows, and Thailand has taken the same digital route described in our explainer on the Thailand digital arrival card. Hong Kong’s bet is different: passenger data already flows to the authorities through airline systems, so the paper duplicate added delay without adding information.
GovHK’s immigration clearance pages now carry the position in plain language under the heading for arrival and departure cards: residents are not required to complete them, and a matching statement covers visitors. The simplification applies at Hong Kong International Airport, at the land crossings to Shenzhen, at the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge port and at the ferry terminals. There is no traveller category left filling in the old card, and no enrolment, pre-registration or QR code standing in its place for ordinary visitors.
What do you still need to enter Hong Kong?
Removing the card changed the form, not the fundamentals. You still need a passport or travel document with validity covering your stay, and you still need a legal basis to enter. Hong Kong grants visa-free access to nationals of many countries for periods that vary by nationality, commonly 180 days for British citizens, 90 days for many European, Commonwealth and other passports, and shorter periods for others. Indian nationals have a separate pre-arrival registration system for visa-free visits, which was not affected by the card change and still needs to be completed online before travel. Travellers who need a visa still need one arranged in advance. The officer can still ask about your plans, your accommodation and your onward travel, and entry is never guaranteed.
On arrival you are issued a landing slip, the small printed record that replaced passport stamps in March 2013. It carries your name, travel document number, arrival date and your permitted limit of stay. Keep it with your passport. Hotels occasionally ask to see it, and it is your simplest proof of your conditions of stay if anything is questioned during the trip. If it is lost, the Immigration Department can advise on a replacement, but the process is far slower than simply keeping the slip in your passport from the start.
How does clearance actually work now?
The flow at Hong Kong International Airport is now passport, desk or gate, baggage. Visitors with eligible travel documents can use the automated e-Channel gates on departure through the Smart Departure system without enrolment, and frequent visitors can enrol for e-Channel use more broadly. Families and travellers who prefer a staffed desk simply present their passport to an officer as before, minus the pen work. Because there is no form to distribute, airlines no longer hand out cards on inbound flights, and crew announcements about Hong Kong paperwork have quietly disappeared. If a fellow passenger or an old guidebook insists a card is waiting on board, that advice is out of date.
One caution is worth stating plainly. The end of the arrival card also ended the card’s usefulness as a memory prompt. The landing slip is now the single document that states your limit of stay, so check the date printed on yours before you leave the desk. Overstaying in Hong Kong is a serious matter, and your permitted period depends on your nationality and the officer’s grant, not on a standard number repeated online.
Watch out for arrival card scams
Any website offering to file a Hong Kong arrival card for a fee is selling a service that does not exist. There is no official portal, no application window and no confirmation email, because there is no card. Travellers who encounter such a site, particularly one reached through a search advertisement, should close it and rely on gov.hk and immd.gov.hk. The same caution applies to social media posts recycling pre 2024 advice: the paper card era in Hong Kong is over.
How does Hong Kong now compare with the rest of the region?
Travellers moving around Asia in a single trip will feel the contrast immediately. Taiwan requires its online arrival card before immigration, Thailand requires its digital arrival card, Singapore keeps its electronic SG Arrival Card and South Korea runs its own e-arrival system, most of them filed inside a three-day window before landing. Hong Kong now asks for nothing at all. That makes it the friction-free stop on a multi-country itinerary, but it also creates a trap for the well-organised: travellers who have carefully filed forms for every other destination sometimes go hunting for a Hong Kong form that does not exist, and land on a scam site built to catch exactly that search. File for the destinations that ask, skip the one that does not, and keep the landing slip as your only Hong Kong document.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do you need to fill in anything online before flying to Hong Kong?
For most visitors, no. There is no arrival card in any format. Separate requirements still exist for specific travellers, such as pre-arrival registration for Indian nationals visiting visa-free, and ordinary visa rules where they apply.
When did Hong Kong scrap arrival cards?
The requirement ended on 16 October 2024, following the announcement in the Chief Executive’s 2024 Policy Address. It covers both arrival and departure cards.
Does the change apply at land and ferry crossings too?
Yes. GovHK states the position for immigration clearance points generally, not just the airport, so the Lo Wu, Lok Ma Chau, bridge and ferry control points work the same way.
What is the landing slip and should you keep it?
It is the printed record issued on arrival since 2013 instead of a passport stamp, showing your arrival date and limit of stay. Keep it with your passport for the whole trip.
Did visa-free stay periods change as well?
No. The card change was purely a clearance simplification. Visa-free periods by nationality and all visa requirements remain exactly as the Immigration Department publishes them.
What if a website asks you to pay for a Hong Kong arrival card?
Do not pay. No such official service exists. Use gov.hk and immd.gov.hk for Hong Kong entry information.
