What to buy in Hong Kong

Hong Kong is a free port with a free trade policy and no barriers on trade. No tariff is charged on the import or export of goods, although some goods need a licence to meet international obligations or public health and safety needs.

Only four types of goods are dutiable: liquors, tobacco, certain hydrocarbon oil and methyl alcohol. Everything else arrives duty free.

The inbound duty-free concession for a passenger aged 18 or over is 1 litre of alcoholic liquor with a strength above 30 per cent by volume, plus either 19 cigarettes, or 1 cigar or 25 g of cigars, or 25 g of other manufactured tobacco. Nineteen cigarettes, not 200.

Holders of a Hong Kong identity card only get the liquor concession if they have spent 24 hours or longer outside Hong Kong, and there are no concessions at all for dutiable goods brought in for trade, business or commercial purposes, which must go through the Red Channel.

Failing to declare dutiable goods, or making a false or incomplete declaration, is prosecutable under the Dutiable Commodities Ordinance. Note that smokeless tobacco and alternative smoking products sit outside the dutiable tobacco regime entirely, and separately cannot be imported at all.