Hong Kong Passes Legislation to Exempt ETFs from Stamp Duty

On 4 February 2015, Hong Kong's Legislative Council passed the Stamp Duty (Amendment) Bill 2014, which exempts all transfers of shares in exchange traded funds (ETF) from stamp duty. A partial exemption was provided for ETFs in 2010, but stamp duty still applied at a rate of 0.1% paid by both the buyer and seller of shares in ETFs that tracked indices comprising more than 40% of Hong Kong stocks that have their registers of holders in Hong Kong.

The new exemption for all Hong Kong ETFs will…