Asian Family Offices on the Move: Hong Kong vs. Singapore in 2025

As of 2024, the race between Hong Kong and Singapore to attract Asian family offices is no longer theoretical.

Market studies and official statements suggest Hong Kong hosts more than 2,700 single-family offices, while Singapore has just passed 2,000 – both up sharply over the past five years. (Deloitte) For families, the real question in 2025 is not “Which city wins?” but how to use both centres intelligently, given their different tax regimes, substance rules and virtual-asset frameworks.

1. Two Competing Models: Policy, Tax and Virtual Assets

Hong Kong: Concessionary regime plus digital-asset push

Hong Kong’s Inland Revenue (Amendment) (Tax Concessions for Family-owned Investment Holding Vehicles) Ordinance 2023 created a dedicated regime for family-owned investment holding vehicles (FIHVs). Eligible FIHVs and related entities can enjoy 0% profits tax on qualifying investment income, provided:

• The family’s “specified assets” managed by an eligible single family office are at least HK$240 million;
• Substantial activities are carried out in Hong Kong, typically including at least two full-time employees and around HK$2 million of local operating expenditure (with some outsourcing allowed);
• Anti-avoidance and ownership tests are met.

Unlike some competing regimes, no fixed minimum quota for Hong Kong assets is prescribed in the legislation, giving families broad flexibility for global allocation, subject to general anti-avoidance rules.

At the same time, Hong Kong has moved quickly on virtual assets (VAs):

• A dual licensing regime for virtual asset trading platforms (VATPs), backed by the SFC and anti-money laundering laws, covers both security-type and non-security tokens;
• The SFC now maintains public lists of licensed and deemed-to-be-licensed VATPs, and has begun allowing licensed platforms to share global order books to boost liquidity;
• This sits alongside broader ambitions to use tokenisation and regulated stablecoins as part of Hong Kong’s wealth-management and fintech strategy.

The overarching message: Hong Kong wants to be a low-tax, high-substance investment platform that is explicitly open to regulated digital assets.

Singapore: Incentives tied to local contribution and prudential crypto rules

Singapore continues to rely on its well-known Sections 13O and 13U fund tax incentives. These exempt qualifying funds – including those used by single-family offices – from tax on specified investment income when managed from Singapore, but with clear conditions. Recent guidance and practice emphasise:

• Minimum assets under management (AUM) thresholds for 13O and 13U vehicles;
• Economic substance in the form of Singapore-based investment professionals and escalating business spending as AUM grows;
• A Capital Deployment Requirement: at least S$10 million or 10% of the fund’s AUM (whichever is lower) must be deployed into qualifying Singapore assets (listed securities, qualifying debt, eligible funds and others).

In parallel, the Philanthropy Tax Incentive Scheme (PTIS), effective from 1 January 2024, allows qualifying donors linked to family offices to claim enhanced deductions on overseas donations made via approved local intermediaries, capped as a percentage of statutory income.

Regulators have tightened oversight after a S$3 billion money-laundering case in 2023 that involved several tax-incentivised family offices. MAS has introduced a unified exemption framework, stronger AML expectations, and has revoked tax benefits in some cases; Singapore also reports rejecting a small share of new tax-exempt family office applications.

On digital assets, Singapore mainly treats cryptocurrencies as digital payment tokens under the Payment Services Act, and has rolled out a stablecoin framework with stringent reserve, redemption and capital rules for SGD and G10-currency stablecoins issued in Singapore.

The proposition here is different: Singapore offers tax clarity and strong rule-of-law, but expects family offices to “give back” in jobs, local spending, capital deployment and philanthropy, with a more cautious, payments-oriented stance on crypto.

2. Matching Jurisdictions to Family Profiles

With both centres now clearly defined, families are increasingly using a dual-hub strategy rather than choosing just one – a trend highlighted in recent private-bank research on Asian family offices.

Three broad profiles illustrate how Hong Kong and Singapore can be combined.

1. Mainland Chinese entrepreneurs

   
   For founders whose main business and networks remain in Mainland China or the Greater Bay Area, Hong Kong naturally serves as the first platform:
   
   

   • Closer alignment with Mainland advisers and structures, plus no tax on most capital gains;
   • Deep RMB and China access via banking, capital markets and cross-border schemes;
   • A dedicated FIHV regime and the refreshed Capital Investment Entrant Scheme make it easier to align residency, control and outbound allocation.

Singapore then often acts as a Southeast Asia and diversification node, especially for ASEAN private equity, infrastructure and philanthropy anchored in the PTIS framework.

2. Second-generation inheritors and next-gen leaders

   
   Next-gen principals are typically focused on:

• • Professionalised governance and investment committees;
  • ESG, impact and philanthropy;
  • Integrating digital assets and tokenisation into long-term portfolios.

For them, Hong Kong can be attractive where flexible global allocation and access to licensed VA platforms matter. Singapore appeals where the family prioritises institutional-style governance, philanthropy infrastructure and a visible commitment to responsible capital deployment under MAS rules.

In practice, many second-generation families now structure so that one sibling or branch anchors in Hong Kong and another in Singapore, while key control sits above both.

3. Multi-jurisdiction, multi-passport families

Where family members live across Asia, North America and Europe, the primary risk is being pulled unintentionally into any one tax or succession regime.

These families often:

• • Use Hong Kong and Singapore as operating and banking hubs;
  • Hold core wealth via a neutral-jurisdiction trust (e.g., a long-established common-law trust jurisdiction) that owns the operating companies and fund interests;
  • Design governance – voting arrangements, protector roles, distribution policies, next-gen education – at the trust level, not the entity level.

For them, the strategic question is: What combination of Hong Kong and Singapore best serves the family’s long-term map – under a structure that can survive multiple changes in residence, laws and geopolitics?

3. Neutral Trust Architecture and AI Onboarding – The FGA Trust Perspective

For cross-border families, neutral-jurisdiction trusts have become the backbone of planning:

• The trust is domiciled in a jurisdiction with sophisticated trust law and credible courts;
• Hong Kong and Singapore single-family offices act as investment advisers, asset managers and service hubs under that trust;
• Governance is codified in the trust deed and family charter, not left to any single corporate or tax regime.

This separation between “where the family lives” and “where the structure lives” helps manage exposure to future law changes in both Hong Kong and Singapore, while enabling families to rebalance assets between hubs without re-writing their entire estate plan.

The operational bottleneck, however, is often onboarding and KYC, especially when each new bank or asset manager in each jurisdiction requests slightly different documentation and diagrams.

Here, AI-enabled onboarding is beginning to change the economics:

• Automated extraction and classification of multi-language documents reduce manual errors and follow-ups;
• Graph-based mapping of complex ownership trees (trusts, SPVs, operating companies) produces standardised structures that banks and regulators can review more efficiently;

At FGA Trust, our focus is on combining:

• Neutral, cross-border trust architecture designed for families with ties to Greater China, Southeast Asia and beyond; and
• AI-driven onboarding that turns regulatory complexity into a comparative advantage rather than a drag on execution.

The goal is not to pick a “winner” between Hong Kong and Singapore, but to help families use both centres together – under a stable, future-proof structure – as Asia’s family office landscape matures.