Who should join MPF Scheme?

Modified on Wed, 7 Dec, 2022 at 1:31 PM

MPF is an employment-based retirement protection system. Except for exempt persons, employees (regular or casual) and self-employed persons who are at least 18 but under 65 years of age are required to join an MPF scheme.

Exempt Person

The following are exempt persons who are not required to join an MPF scheme:

domestic employees;
self-employed hawkers;
people covered by statutory pension or provident fund schemes, such as civil servants and subsidized or grant school teachers;
members of occupational retirement schemes which are granted MPF exemption certificates;
people from overseas who enter Hong Kong for employment for not more than 13 months, or who are covered by overseas retirement schemes; and
employees of the European Union Office of the European Commission in Hong Kong.

MPF Arrangements for Employees Working Outside Hong Kong

The guiding principle for MPF coverage is that the Mandatory Provident Fund Schemes Ordinance (Chapter 485, Laws of Hong Kong) is intended to cover only those employees who are employed in or from 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.

Broadly speaking, a Hong Kong resident employed from Hong Kong by a company engaging in business in Hong Kong to work outside Hong Kong for a limited period should generally be considered as sufficiently connected to Hong Kong, and therefore the employer has to enrol the employee in an MPF scheme and make MPF contributions for him/her. For example, an engineer employed from Hong Kong by the Hong Kong representative office of a company incorporated in the People’s Republic of China to supervise a project in Beijing should be covered by the MPF System.

Likewise, a person who is employed in Hong Kong, but who is working outside Hong Kong on a temporary basis is also covered by the MPF System. Examples of such persons include aircraft crews and pilots, cross-boundary lorry drivers and professionals on overseas assignments.

Source: http://www.mpfa.org.hk/eng/mpf_system/system_features/coverage/index.jsp