Hong Kong Leave Laws

Holidays

• 1st January – New Year’s Day

• 12th February – Chinese Lunar New Year’s Day (3 days off)

• 2nd April – Good Friday

• 3rd April – The day following Good Friday

• 5th April – The day following Ching Ming Festival

• 5th April – The day following Easter Monday

• 1st May – Labour Day

• 19th May – Buddha’s Birthday

• 14th June – Tuen Ng Festival

• 1st July – Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Establishment Day

• 22nd September – The day following the Chinese Mid – Autumn Festival

• 1st October – National Day

• 14th October – Chung Yeung Festival

• 25th December – Chinese Winter Solstice Festival (Christmas Eve)

Employees who have been employed under the continuous contract for not less than three months are entitled to holiday pay.

Paid Time Off

PTO (Paid Time Off)

• Vacation/Annual Paid Leave

Rest days

Every employee who has been employed by the same employer under a continuous contract shall be granted not less than 1 rest day in every period of 7 days.

Rest days shall be in addition to any statutory holiday, or alternative holiday or substituted holiday, to which an employee is entitled.

There is no legal requirement that the rest days are paid or not, it is up to the agreement between the employer and the employee. 

Annual Paid Leave

Employees are entitled to paid annual leave if they have completed 12 months of service under the continuous contract. The number of days of leave increases in parallel to the completed length of service period:

• 1st and 2nd years: 7 days per year
• 3rd to 9th years and onwards: annual increase 1 day – from 8 days to 14 days per year

Employers are required to provide continuous annual leave to their employees:

• less than 10 days of annual leave: up to 3 days of separated leave

• equal or more than 10 days of annual leave: at least 7 days of continuous leave

• Rollovers and payout of unused hours

• Use-it-or-lose-it policy 

Paid annual leave must be consumed within 12 months after the entitlement

• PTO payout at the termination

When a contract of employment is terminated any sum due to the employee shall be paid to him as soon as is practicable and in any case not later than 7 days after the day of termination.

Maternity Leave, Child Raising Leave, Parental Leave

Maternity Leave

Female employees are entitled to 14 weeks of continuous maternity leave, and additional leave period which is equal to the difference between the next date of actual confinement and the expected date of confinement is granted to employee if confinement takes place later than the expected date.

Employees are also entitled to a further period, not exceeding 4 weeks, on grounds of illness or disability arising out of the pregnancy or confinement.

The period of maternity leave may be taken wholly or in part. 

Employees are eligible to paid maternity leave, apart from being employed under the continuous contract, if the period of service is not less than 40 weeks before the commencement of scheduled maternity leave.

Medical certificate is required.

Paternity Leave

A male employee is entitled to up to 3 to 5 days of paid paternity leave in respect of the birth of a child if he is the child’s father and if he has been employed under a continuous contract immediately before taking leave.

Employees are required to notify employers of their intentions at least 3 months before the expected date of the delivery of the child.

Sick Leave

Employees under the continuous contract are entitled to paid sick leave. During the first 12 months of employment, employees are granted 2 paid sick days per month. After the first 12 months of service, employees are granted 4 sick days per month.

Employees can accumulate sick days throughout their entire employment period. There are two categories of accumulated days:

• Maximum of 36 accumulated days, which can be taken if the medical certificate is provided.
• Maximum of 84 accumulated days, which can be taken only if all the days from the previous category had been consumed. 

An employee who has been employed by his employer under a continuous contract for a period of 1 month or more immediately preceding a sickness day shall be paid by his employer sickness allowance.

Jury Duty Leave, and Voting Leave

Not specified.

Bereavement Leave

There is no law that mandates a company to provide bereavement leave to its employees. 

Military Leave

Not specified by law.

Please consult your local legal counsel to learn more about Hong Kong Leave Laws.

To learn more about laws in various countries, check out our Leave Laws page.