Do Hong Kong People Who Work in the Mainland Need to Join MPF?

The Mandatory Provident Fund Scheme (MPF) is a retirement protection policy in Hong Kong. Therefore, many Hong Kong people working in the mainland do not understand whether they should follow this policy?

According to the Mandatory Provident Fund Schemes Ordinance (Chapter 485, Laws of Hong Kong), “An employee working outside Hong Kong may be covered by the MPF System if there is sufficient connection between the employee and Hong Kong.” In other words, this depends on whether the employee (Hong Kong resident) is employed by the Hong Kong company or by the mainland company? If an employee is employed in a Hong Kong company and gets paid from it, but works in the mainland on a temporary basis, the employer must enrol the employee in an MPF scheme.

Example 1

Alex is a permanent resident of Hong Kong and employed by a company named A incorporated in Hong Kong. When Alex was assigned to work in the Shanghai office for 4 months, the employer also needed to enrol him in an MPF scheme.

Example 2

Jane is a permanent resident of Hong Kong and employed as an engineer from Hong Kong by the Hong Kong representative office of a company incorporated in the People’s Republic of China. She needed to work in Shenzhen for one year, and the employer also should enrol her in an MPF scheme.

However, if the employee is transferred from the Hong Kong employment contract to the mainland labor contract (the contract is performed in the mainland), he/she will be covered by the mainland social insurance and housing fund system. If there’s any labor dispute, it will be enforced by the mainland laws.

Read More: Employer’s Ultimate Guide to MPF

If a company has offices both in Hong Kong and in the mainland with different employees, the mainland office needs to offer the social insurance and housing fund, and the Hong Kong office needs to enrol them in an MPF scheme. In order to assist HRs in the two places to work together, Workstem, a human resource management system, not only has a Hong Kong version but also provides a mainland version to help the company manage employees more efficiently in different places.