News and Insights
Commentary on the regulatory and commercial developments shaping capital deployment into the Hainan Free Trade Port.
Showing 10 of 47 results
Navigating RMB Capital Routing: Structuring Considerations for Offshore Principals
Capital routing into and out of a Hainan entity sits at the intersection of foreign exchange control, banking compliance, and corporate structuring. We examine the considerations that matter most.
Beneficial Ownership Filing: Why Almost No Foreign-Invested Entity Is Exempt
China's beneficial ownership filing regime has applied since 1 November 2024. It carries an exemption, and the exemption is written in a way that a foreign-owned entity almost never satisfies.
Hiring a Foreign National in Hainan Means Two Permits and Two Authorities
A work permit and a work-type residence permit come from different authorities on different clocks. Hainan has aligned the counters and the validity periods, which helps — provided you know the sequence.
Four Thresholds Decide Whether You Owe Transfer Pricing Documentation
The local file thresholds are specific numbers, tested per category, per year. Below them there is no preparation obligation. Above any one of them, the document is due by 30 June whether or not anyone asks for it.
Talent Recognition Is Slow, and Almost Everything Else Waits For It
Recognised talent status feeds settlement, allowances and the individual income tax cap. It is administered through list management, and it is the slowest item in a relocation.
Hainan Payroll: The Bases Reset Annually and Nothing Reminds You
Social insurance and housing fund contribution bases are recalculated each year against the previous year's actual average wage. Payroll that keeps running last year's figures is quietly wrong from a specific month.
Relocating to Haikou: Settlement, Schooling and the Things That Decide Whether People Stay
Haikou optimised its talent settlement policy in 2024, and recognised high-level talent can settle directly. The permissions are the easy part; what determines whether an assignment survives is usually the family's.
The RMB 5 Million Line That Changes When You Buy Equipment
Hainan lets an entity deduct qualifying assets in full in the year of purchase below a unit value of RMB 5 million, and accelerate above it. The relief runs to the end of 2027, which makes it a sequencing question.
The Hainan Annual Compliance Calendar, and the Two Filings Nobody Diarises
A Hainan entity's year has a predictable rhythm of returns and reports. The items that cause trouble are the annual ones that fall outside the monthly cycle and therefore outside anyone's habit.
The Dispatch Rules an Employer of Record Cannot Contract Around
Employer of record arrangements in China rest on labour dispatch, and dispatch carries a positions test and a proportional cap. A licence solves the first problem and not the second.
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Our practice areas cover the whole life of a foreign-owned presence in Hainan — from the feasibility assessment made before anything is filed, through formation and licensing, payroll, tax and ongoing compliance, to the deregistration that closes an entity properly — alongside the Free Trade Port incentives that are the reason to be here rather than anywhere else in China. One engagement model means a single accountable team across all of them.
