Hong Kong company setup is also referred to as Hong Kong business incorporation, Hong Kong corporate formation or Hong Kong company establishment. To incorporate a local limited company, one of the first steps is to choose a company name. It is therefore important that, when choosing a company name, applicants should satisfy themselves that the intended company name meets the requirements for the registration of a company name.
General Requirements of a Company Name
1. A company may be registered with an English name, a Chinese name, or an English name and a Chinese name. A company name with a combination of English words/letters and Chinese characters is not allowed.
2. An English company name must end with the word “Limited” and a Chinese company name must end with the characters “有限公司”.
3. A Chinese company name should contain traditional Chinese characters (繁體字) that can be found in the Kang Xi Dictionary (康熙字典) or Ci Hai Dictionary (辭海) AND also in the ISO 10646 international coding standard. Simplified Chinese characters will not be accepted.
Company Name Will Not Be Registered
Generally speaking, a company name will not be registered if:
(a) it is the same as a name appearing in the Registrar’s Index of Company Names;
(b) it is the same as a name of a body corporate incorporated or established under an Ordinance;
(c) in the Registrar’s opinion, its use would constitute a criminal offence; or
(d) in the Registrar’s opinion, it is offensive or otherwise contrary to the public interest.
In determining whether a company name is “the same as” another:
(a) The following shall be disregarded:
(i) the definite article, where it is the first word of the name;
(ii) the ending words or expressions “company”, “and company”, “company limited”, “and company limited”, “limited”, “unlimited”, “public limited company”, their abbreviations, and the ending characters “公司”, “有限公 司”, “無限公司” and “公眾有限公司”;
(iii) type or case of letters, spaces between letters, accent marks, and punctuation marks.
(b) The following words and expressions are regarded as the same:
“and” and “&”
“Hong Kong”,“Hongkong” and “HK”
(c) Two Chinese characters will be regarded as the same if the Registrar is satisfied, having regard to the usage of the two characters in Hong Kong, that they can reasonably be used interchangeably.
Contact Us
If you have further inquires, please do not hesitate to contact Tannet at anytime, anywhere by simply visiting Tannet’s website english.tannet-group.com, or calling Hong Kong hotline at 852-27826888 or China hotline at 86-755-82143422, or emailing to tannet-solution@hotmail.com. You are also welcome to visit our office situated in 16/F, Taiyangdao Bldg 2020, Dongmen Rd South, Luohu, Shenzhen, China.
Previous：Hong Kong Company Tax Return: Rules on Annual Return Filing
Next：Hong Kong Business Setup Advantages