ICRIS (Integrated Companies Registry Information System) for companies + BRO (Business Registration Office) for sole proprietorshipsOperated by the Companies Registry of Hong Kong and the Inland Revenue Department respectively
Coverage
Search, Lite Profile, and Enhanced Profile available for V1 and V2Bilingual names: English / translated alongside the original-language (typically Traditional Chinese) registered name
Hong Kong corporate data is sourced from ICRIS for Companies Registry entities and from the Business Registration Office for sole proprietorships. Search, Lite Profile, and Enhanced Profile are all supported across V1 and V2. Registry Documents search is supported for CR entities (94+ filing types observed in production); sole proprietorships and mutual funds are not supported on the document-search endpoint.
Data quality improvements in progress. HK responses are being refined for richer structured data and improved standard-value mappings; release notes will follow when updates ship.
The HK identifier is the Company Registration Number — typically an 8-digit zero-padded numeric string. Different prefixes indicate different entity types, and sole proprietorships use a hyphenated format.
Identifier
Format
Example
Notes
Standard CR Number
8-digit numeric (no prefix)
03645219
Private Ltd and Public Ltd HK-incorporated companies
Non-HK company
F- prefix
F0008739
Registered non-Hong Kong companies (foreign)
Guarantee company
C- prefix
C0486085
Companies limited by guarantee, charities, special categories
Mutual Fund
MF- prefix
MF001910
Investment funds
Sole proprietorship
NNNNNNN-NNN (hyphenated)
41409990-000
Business Registration; suffix is branch number
In V2 the CR Number is companyNumber and is also the registry-encoded portion of the V2 id. In V1 it appears as codeField.
Do not confuse with the Business Registration Number (BRN). The BRN is a separate document issued by the Inland Revenue Department. The Company Registration Number (above) is the correct identifier for API requests.
Six entity types are returned for HK. The Kyckr response shape is consistent across all six (transformation reconciles registry-specific source-data differences); the matrix at the bottom of this guide details which fields are populated per entity type.
Hong Kong companies frequently hold both an English and a Traditional Chinese registered name. Three Kyckr fields carry HK name information:
V2 field
V1 field
Content
companyName
nameField
The primary registered name as held at source — for most HK-incorporated companies this is the English (Latin-script) name. For some registered non-HK companies (e.g. Bank of China subsidiaries) the source treats the Chinese name as primary, and companyName carries the Chinese name.
englishName
englishNameField
Populated only when companyName is non-Latin AND a distinct Latin-script name is available at source. This is the recovery field for the registered-non-HK-company case where the English name is not in the primary slot.
aliases[] (type: Original Language)
aliasesField
The source original-language name when distinct from companyName — for normal HK entities (English primary) this is where the Traditional Chinese name appears. Suppressed when englishName is populated, to avoid mislabelling an English string as “Original Language”.
This means:
Normal HK case (Latin primary):companyName = English, englishName = null, aliases[] = Chinese (Original Language).
Bank of China-style case (Chinese primary):companyName = Chinese, englishName = English, aliases[] = null.
In both cases the English name is reachable on a single field — companyName when present there, otherwise englishName.Some Chinese names appear in parentheses at the registry (e.g. (中銀集團人壽保險有限公司)); these are preserved as supplied. Previous names — including bilingual previous-name pairs — are surfaced in previousNames.
HK Lite Profile populates legalForm.normalized only when the regulator-mandated Chinese suffix 有限公司 appears on the original-script name. This is the official suffix that signals an HK Private Limited Company; emission is rule-based, not heuristic.
Source signal
legalForm.normalized
Notes
Chinese name contains 有限公司
Private Limited Company
Regulator-mandated suffix; emitted when present
English-only registered names (PLC, FOUNDATION, FUND, BANK …)
null
Source rule: emit when the source has the signal; null when it does not
Lite payload missing the suffix entirely
null
E.g. HSBC BANK PLC, BOCHK CHARITABLE FOUNDATION, HSBC ASSET MANAGEMENT INVESTMENT FUNDS
HK Enhanced Profile surfaces an explicit entity-type signal and populates legalForm.normalized for all entity types (Private Limited Company, Public Limited Company, Association, Collective Investment Vehicle, Foreign Registered Body, Sole Proprietor, etc.).
CR entities populate the standard V2 capital / totalCapital shape. Mutual funds, sole proprietorships, and guarantee companies do not have capital data.
Issued and paid-up capital are usually identical for HK-incorporated companies.
Paid-up capital is null for registered non-HK companies.
Multi-currency entries are common — some entities have capital entries with different currencies (e.g. GBP + USD on the same company). Do not assume one entity = one currency.
Share types observed: ORDINARY (most common), with occasional source variant ORDINARY SHARE. Around half of HK fixtures have shareholder data; mutual funds, sole proprietorships, guarantee companies, and some registered non-HK companies have no shareholders.
CR entities populate V2 representatives.individuals[] with the role Director. Sole proprietorships surface the sole proprietor on the same array with a null role.
Non-HK nationals: bilingual format "<Chinese> <ENGLISH>" (e.g. "英國 UNITED KINGDOM", "中國 CHINA")
Surfaced on V2 representatives.individuals[].nationality. Chinese names alongside Latin names are populated for most HK-resident directors and null for most foreign nationals. Appointment / outgoing dates are populated for sole proprietorship records; an empty / sentinel date in the source means “still active” / “not departed”.
Hong Kong uses HSIC (Hong Kong Standard Industrial Classification, derived from ISIC Rev 4) at the registry, but activity codes are not surfaced for Companies Registry entities — the registry does not expose HSIC via the data interfaces Kyckr connects to. activities[] is empty for HK CR companies.For sole proprietorships, a single activity is mapped from the Business Registration industry field with a Chinese-language description and no code.
Integration note: Hong Kong Enhanced Profile fulfilment latency varies — some orders complete within the ~40s connection-hold window, others exceed it (and today time out). HK is in the initial preview rollout for the async order pattern (alongside GB, IE, LU, EE, LV, CN, JP).
Until that migration completes:
Slow HK Enhanced Profile orders may time out today.
Once the migration completes, slow orders will return 202 with an orderId (on GET) or POST will be available for fire-and-forget ordering.
Build for both 200 and 202 responses on GET from the start so that no integration changes are needed when HK migrates.On V1 once HK migrates: handle the 200 (fast path) and the 202 (async path) on GET /core/company/profile/HK/{companyCode}.On V2 once HK migrates: use POST /v2/companies/{kyckrId}/enhanced + poll GET /v2/orders/{orderId} for production-grade ordering. The GET convenience pattern (200 / 202 fallback) will also be available.See the V1 (GET + 202 fallback) and V2 (POST + poll recommended) release notes for full integration guidance.HK Lite Profile and Search are synchronous and return data immediately.
