Hong Kong is attracting a new wave of foreign entrepreneurs using the city as a base for e-commerce, digital products and cross-border business, according to a corporate-services report released on Saturday, November 14, that points to particularly strong interest from European founders. The Foreign-Owned SME Report from Get Started HK analyzed about 5,400 companies incorporated through the firm between June 2024 and May 2026 and found that overseas founders continued to use Hong Kong as a launch point for businesses serving customers across Asia and other international markets. The findings add to broader official evidence showing that Hong Kong’s company registrations and foreign-business presence have continued expanding despite years of debate over the city’s political environment, economic direction and long-term competitiveness.

The report’s most striking finding is the prominence of founders from Europe within the firm’s foreign-owned client base. Dutch nationals represented 8.36 percent of the companies analyzed, making the Netherlands the largest single nationality group in the sample, followed by Thai founders at 7.75 percent and Italians at 5.41 percent. The concentration of European founders is significant because Hong Kong has historically drawn heavily from mainland China, the United Kingdom, the United States, Japan and other established commercial partners, while the latest data suggest that smaller international entrepreneurs are increasingly viewing the city as a practical operating base rather than simply a destination for multinational corporations.

The findings should, however, be interpreted carefully because they do not constitute an official census of foreign entrepreneurship in Hong Kong. Get Started HK examined only companies that came directly through its own corporate-services business, and its methodology excluded companies referred through partner networks. A company was counted as foreign-owned when at least one shareholder holding 75 percent or more of the business was a non-Hong Kong national, meaning the results provide a detailed picture of one large client portfolio rather than the entire Hong Kong corporate sector.

Within that sample, e-commerce and digital-product businesses emerged as one of the most important sources of growth. The firm said incorporations in those categories rose 13 percent between the second half of 2024 and the first half of 2026, reinforcing the idea that Hong Kong is increasingly being used by founders who do not necessarily require a large physical office or conventional local retail operation. Instead, many of these businesses sell online, receive payments in multiple currencies, source products or services across borders and use Hong Kong primarily as a legal, financial and commercial base for wider Asian operations.

That business model fits closely with Hong Kong’s traditional strengths. The city maintains a simple corporate tax system, freely convertible currency, deep financial markets, established commercial law and close access to mainland China while also remaining connected to international banking and trade networks. For an entrepreneur selling goods or digital services across several countries, those features can make Hong Kong attractive even if customers, suppliers and staff are spread across multiple jurisdictions.

Banking and payments have become particularly important to that model. Get Started HK said 88.63 percent of the companies in its sample opened at least one Hong Kong business or payment account, with an average of 1.39 accounts per company. Among e-commerce companies referred by the firm, 67 percent opened an Airwall account, with a median time of approximately 2.3 days after incorporation, illustrating how quickly founders are trying to move from forming a company to receiving payments and operating commercially.

The importance of payment infrastructure reflects a wider shift in how small international companies are built. Traditional businesses often incorporated first, rented offices, hired staff and then established banking relationships over several weeks or months. Digital entrepreneurs increasingly expect to register a company, secure multi-currency payment access and begin trading almost immediately, meaning the attractiveness of a jurisdiction can depend heavily on whether financial infrastructure is available quickly after incorporation.

Hong Kong’s fintech ecosystem has developed around that demand. Airwall, PayPal, Pioneer, PingPong and conventional banks such as HSBC and DBS all serve different parts of the cross-border business market, allowing founders to collect payments, convert currencies and move money between markets. The availability of several providers also reduces reliance on a single banking relationship, which can be important for young companies that may have difficulty meeting the onboarding requirements of traditional banks.

Get Started HK Managing Director Harry Lo said the firm’s data show that entrepreneurs from Europe, the Gulf, Southeast Asia and other markets continue to see Hong Kong as a practical location for building international businesses, particularly in e-commerce. The company argues that incorporation itself is only the first step and that founders increasingly judge a jurisdiction by whether they can obtain banking, payment, accounting and compliance support immediately after establishing a legal entity.

The report also found signs of improving business performance among parts of the sample. Among companies for which sufficient turnover data were available, median expected annual revenue rose 9.64 percent between the first and last six-month periods examined, while 68 percent of companies with at least six months of data recorded positive sales growth. Those figures should not be interpreted as representative of all Hong Kong startups, but they suggest that many of the foreign-owned businesses included in the report were active commercial enterprises rather than dormant shell companies.

Official statistics provide broader support for the idea that Hong Kong’s corporate sector has been expanding. The Companies Registry reported 215,806 newly incorporated local companies during the 2025–26 financial year, with a daily average of 890 new registrations. By March 31, 2026, the number of local and re-domiciled companies on the register had reached a record 1,584,413, and the total subsequently climbed to 1,628,654 by September.

The government’s first-half 2026 figures also showed continued growth among foreign companies maintaining a formal place of business in the city. A total of 903 non-Hong Kong companies established new operations during the first six months of the year, bringing the number of registered non-Hong Kong companies to a record 16,014 by the end of June. Those figures include larger corporate entities and cannot be compared directly with the Get Started HK SME sample, but they indicate that foreign business activity has continued rising at the institutional level as well.

Hong Kong has also introduced a company re-domiciliation regime allowing businesses incorporated elsewhere to transfer their legal domicile to the city without winding up and creating a completely new company. The regime took effect in May 2025, and by the end of June 2026 authorities had received 70 applications, with 42 companies successfully completing the process. The measure is part of a wider government strategy to encourage companies to make Hong Kong a more permanent legal base rather than simply maintaining representative offices.

The startup ecosystem has expanded at the same time. InvestHK’s 2025 Startup Survey counted 5,221 startups operating in the city, an increase of 11 percent from the previous year, employing almost 20,000 people. About one-third of startup founders were non-local, with mainland Chinese founders forming the largest overseas group followed by entrepreneurs originating from the United Kingdom, United States, France and Australia.

European participation is therefore not limited to the latest private-sector report. Official EU data show that European Union companies remain the largest non-Chinese foreign business community in Hong Kong, with at least 1,770 EU companies active in the city in 2025. That represented an increase of 7.9 percent from 2024 and more than 10 percent compared with 2019, although the average size of those companies has declined and the number maintaining regional headquarters or regional offices remained below pre-pandemic levels.

That distinction is important because Hong Kong may be attracting a different type of international business than it did in earlier decades. Large multinational corporations once dominated foreign-company expansion, often establishing substantial regional headquarters with hundreds of employees. The latest trends increasingly include smaller, technology-enabled businesses that may operate with lean teams, distributed workers and digital sales channels while still relying on Hong Kong for incorporation, finance and access to Asian markets.

European entrepreneurs appear particularly suited to that model. Businesses based in smaller European markets may find it difficult to reach Asian customers efficiently from their home countries, while Hong Kong provides closer access to suppliers, logistics networks and customers across mainland China, Southeast Asia and the wider region. The city’s historical use of English in commercial law and business administration also lowers some of the barriers that foreign founders might encounter in other Asian jurisdictions.

Recent evidence from individual European business communities supports that pattern. The Irish Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong said earlier this month that more Irish companies were considering the city as a base for expansion across Asia as firms looked beyond Europe in response to Brexit, tariffs and changing trade conditions. Austrian startup programmed have similarly brought European technology and creative-sector founders to Hong Kong in 2026 to explore opportunities in Asian markets.

The shift is taking place against a changing global trade environment. Companies in Europe face slower growth, geopolitical uncertainty, shifting U.S. tariff policy and increasing pressure to diversify supply chains. Asia remains one of the world’s most important sources of consumer growth and manufacturing capacity, making Hong Kong attractive to founders looking for a bridge between Western markets and Asian production networks.

E-commerce is especially sensitive to those changes because online businesses can shift sourcing, warehousing and payment arrangements relatively quickly. A founder based in Europe may source products from mainland China, use a Hong Kong company to manage payments and contracts, store inventory in regional logistics hubs and sell to customers in Europe, Southeast Asia or North America without maintaining a large traditional office.

Hong Kong’s logistics infrastructure reinforces that role. The city operates one of the world’s busiest air-cargo hubs and has invested heavily in e-commerce fulfilment capacity, including automated warehouses and specialized facilities supporting cross-border shipments. Its proximity to Shenzhen and the broader Greater Bay Area gives companies access to one of the world’s most concentrated manufacturing ecosystems within a short distance of Hong Kong’s financial and legal infrastructure.

That combination is particularly valuable for businesses selling physical goods online. Product development, manufacturing, quality control, shipping and payment settlement can all be coordinated within the same broader region. For digital-product businesses, the logistics advantage matters less, but access to international banking, Asian customers and professional services can still make Hong Kong attractive.

The city is also benefiting from wider growth in digital commerce among local businesses. Hong Kong government statistics show that 99.3 percent of companies used the internet for business purposes in 2025 and more than half maintained some form of web presence. In 2024, electronic sales generated approximately HK$972.7 billion in receipts across the sectors measured by the government, representing 9.4 percent of total receipts.

Local SMEs are increasingly looking outward as well. A recent Hong Kong Productivity Council and Standard Chartered survey found that around one-third of SMEs were either already operating across borders or planned to expand internationally within the following year. More than 90 percent of SMEs involved in cross-border activity said they wanted to use digital tools to support that expansion, particularly social-media marketing, cross-border payments, remittance services and artificial intelligence.

That creates a convergence between foreign founders entering Hong Kong and local companies using the city to expand abroad. Both groups depend on many of the same services, including payment platforms, digital marketing, cloud software, logistics providers and professional advisers. The result is an ecosystem increasingly built around cross-border business rather than companies serving only the domestic Hong Kong market.

For the government, that development supports its long-standing effort to position Hong Kong as a two-way commercial gateway. Officials frequently describe the city as a bridge allowing foreign companies to enter mainland China while helping Chinese companies expand internationally. A growing community of independent foreign founders gives that strategy a different dimension because these businesses are often smaller, more digital and more mobile than the multinational corporations traditionally associated with Hong Kong’s role as a regional headquarters center.

Competition for those entrepreneurs is intense. Singapore remains one of Hong Kong’s strongest regional competitors, offering a stable legal environment, major international banks, English-language business services and direct access to Southeast Asia. Dubai has also emerged as a major international entrepreneurship hub, while jurisdictions such as Estonia and the United Kingdom offer simplified company-formation systems aimed at globally mobile founders.

Hong Kong therefore cannot rely solely on historical reputation. Entrepreneurs increasingly compare jurisdictions based on tax treatment, bank-account access, payment processing, compliance burden, digital administration and the ability to operate remotely. A city that makes incorporation easy but banking difficult can quickly lose business to a competitor offering a smoother overall experience.

This helps explain the emphasis in the latest report on payments rather than incorporation alone. For a digital entrepreneur, a company that cannot receive customer payments or pay suppliers efficiently is of limited practical value. The speed with which founders obtain financial accounts has therefore become one of the most important measures of whether a corporate jurisdiction actually supports modern online businesses.

There are also regulatory considerations. Hong Kong requires companies to maintain proper accounting records, file annual returns and comply with anti-money-laundering and beneficial-ownership rules. Banks and payment companies perform identity and business-model checks before opening accounts, meaning foreign founders must demonstrate legitimate commercial activity even when their businesses are operated remotely.

The growth of e-commerce companies can therefore create both opportunities and supervisory challenges. Cross-border digital businesses can move money rapidly across several jurisdictions and may have customers, suppliers and owners in different countries. Regulators must balance the objective of making Hong Kong easy to use with the need to prevent fraud, money laundering and abuse of corporate structures.

Professional-service firms are adapting by automating more of the compliance process. Get Started HK is developing an AI-based platform called G-flowdesk that it plans to launch commercially in January 2027, combining bank and payment-provider matching, electronic identity verification, document management and accounting support. The firm says qualified professionals will remain responsible for final decisions even where artificial intelligence is used to assist with processing and recommendations.

That development reflects a wider transformation in the corporate-services industry. Company formation was once heavily paper based and often required face-to-face interaction, while many jurisdictions now allow most of the process to be completed online. Hong Kong itself has moved increasingly toward digital incorporation, with the majority of company applications now submitted through the Companies Registry’s electronic services.

Faster digital processing can lower barriers for foreign founders, but it also makes competition between jurisdictions more direct. Entrepreneurs can compare several locations online and incorporate without travelling, meaning reputation, financial access and regulatory efficiency become more important than physical proximity alone.

The latest report suggests Hong Kong remains competitive in that environment, at least among the founders using Get Started HK’s services. The strong representation of Dutch and Italian entrepreneurs indicates that demand is not limited to countries with long-standing colonial or corporate connections to the city. Instead, founders appear increasingly willing to choose Hong Kong based on practical business considerations.

That does not mean every indicator is positive. Hong Kong continues to face concerns about operating costs, geopolitical risk and regulatory uncertainty, and some foreign corporations have reduced staffing or shifted regional functions elsewhere in Asia. Official figures showing growth in the number of companies do not automatically demonstrate that every company is large, profitable or employing significant numbers of people.

The structure of foreign investment is changing, and some observers argue that increases in smaller businesses should not be treated as equivalent to the large regional headquarters that once generated substantial employment and executive activity. EU data, for example, show that while the total number of European companies has increased, average staffing levels have declined and the number maintaining regional headquarters and regional offices remains below 2019 levels.

The foreign-founder trend is therefore best understood as one part of a more complicated transformation rather than simple evidence that Hong Kong has returned to its previous economic model. The city is attracting substantial numbers of companies, but many of them are leaner, more digital and less dependent on traditional office infrastructure than businesses of the past.

For e-commerce founders, that may actually be an advantage. A lean company can operate with lower overheads, outsource logistics and accounting, use fintech platforms for payments and employ contractors across several countries. Hong Kong’s value in that model comes from providing a legally recognized corporate base connected to Asian markets and international finance.

The continued strength of the city’s startup and company-registration figures suggests there remains significant demand for that role. The challenge for Hong Kong policymakers is ensuring that business formation translates into durable economic activity, investment, employment and tax revenue rather than simply increasing the number of companies registered on paper.

That will require maintaining reliable financial infrastructure, expanding international market access and keeping compliance processes efficient enough for smaller businesses to manage. It will also require preserving confidence among foreign founders who often have several alternative jurisdictions available to them.

For European entrepreneurs, the decision to establish in Hong Kong is ultimately a strategic calculation. The city offers proximity to China, access to Asia, sophisticated financial services and relatively simple company administration, but founders must weigh those benefits against costs, competition and geopolitical uncertainty.

The current evidence suggests a growing number are deciding that the balance remains favorable. The latest private-sector data show strong participation from Western Europe, while official statistics confirm broader increases in foreign companies, startups and company registrations across Hong Kong.

That combination gives the trend greater significance than a single corporate-services report would carry on its own. The Get Started HK findings cannot represent every foreign-owned company in the city, but they fit into a wider pattern of record company numbers, increasing non-local entrepreneurship and renewed interest from businesses looking for Asian expansion platforms.

Hong Kong’s future as an international business Centre may therefore depend increasingly on this new generation of smaller global companies. They are less visible than the multinational headquarters that once dominated Central’s office towers, but collectively they can generate payment activity, professional-services demand, logistics business and cross-border trade.

As international commerce becomes more digital, the competition to attract these entrepreneurs is likely to intensify. Hong Kong, Singapore, Dubai and other hubs are all trying to become the legal and financial home for businesses whose customers and workers may be located anywhere in the world.

The latest surge in foreign e-commerce incorporations suggests Hong Kong remains firmly in that competition. Whether it can convert those registrations into long-term economic value will depend on how effectively the city supports founders after incorporation, particularly through banking, payments, logistics, technology and access to Asian markets.

For now, the clearest conclusion is that Hong Kong is not relying only on large multinational corporations to maintain its international business role. A growing cohort of smaller overseas founders, including a notable number from Europe, is using the city as an operational base for businesses built around digital sales, cross-border payments and regional expansion, giving Hong Kong’s traditional gateway economy a distinctly more digital shape.