Working hours & days
in Hong Kong.

The Hong Kong Employment Ordinance (Cap. 57), or EO, provides some basic rules regarding rest days and specifying work hours in an employment contract for employees working under continuous contracts (i.e., employees who work at least 18 hours a week for a period of four weeks), but otherwise there are very limited work-hours laws in Hong Kong.

In Hong Kong, employees working under continuous contracts are entitled to one rest day of at least 24 hours every seven days. It is an offense for an employer to fail to provide rest days or to force an employee to work on a rest day, with a maximum penalty of HK$50,000, or about US$6,374, for either offense. There is no legislation on daily rest or meal breaks; however, the government has published a nonbinding guide on this, and it is common practice for employees to be permitted a one-hour lunch break in most industries. Doing so helps fulfil employers’ obligation under the Occupational Safety and Health Ordinance to ensure the safety and health of employees at work.