Court and Tribunal Fees in Hong Kong: What the Rules Prescribe

Introduction

Filing in a Hong Kong court or tribunal costs money, and that money is a government charge. It is not set administratively. Each figure is prescribed item by item in subsidiary legislation: Small Claims Tribunal fees in the Small Claims Tribunal (Fees) Rules, Labour Tribunal fees in the Labour Tribunal (Fees) Rules, District Court fees in the District Court (Fees) Rules, and so on. The parent Ordinances — the Small Claims Tribunal Ordinance, the District Court Ordinance — only authorise the making of rules. They contain no fee figures at all.

That distinction matters in practice. To find what you must pay, you read the rule that prescribes it, not the Ordinance. This guide names the instrument behind every figure and gives the date of the version it is taken from.

Important: this page lists court and government charges only — it does not cover solicitors' fees. Lawyers' fees are agreed between each firm and its client, and this site does not publish lawyer-fee information. A losing party may separately be ordered to pay the other side's costs; that runs on a different mechanism, dealt with below.

If you cannot afford the fee: most fee schedules carry a power to reduce, remit or defer — but not all

If the fee itself is the barrier, this is the most important section on the page.

In the Small Claims Tribunal, the Labour Tribunal, the Minor Employment Claims Adjudication Board, the District Court, the High Court and probate, the rules that prescribe the fees also empower the registry's principal officer to reduce, remit or defer payment of any fee, endorsing the reason on the document. Matrimonial causes and bankruptcy's own fee schedules carry no such power; both are dealt with at the end of this section, and for bankruptcy the court has a separate remission power of its own. Small Claims Tribunal (Fees) Rules (Cap. 338 sub. leg. B), r. 4:

Labour Tribunal (Fees) Rules (Cap. 25 sub. leg. B), r. 4, is in identical terms:

Minor Employment Claims Adjudication Board (Fees) Rules (Cap. 453 sub. leg. A), r. 3, gives the same power to the Board's registrar:

District Court (Fees) Rules (Cap. 336 sub. leg. C), r. 6:

High Court Fees Rules (Cap. 4 sub. leg. D), r. 2(2):

Three things are worth noticing. First, the power reaches any fee specified in the Schedule, not only the filing fee. Second, the provisions offer three outcomes, and one of them is deferment — payment later, rather than no payment. Third, the threshold in each of those five is "as he may think fit", which is a discretion. None of these rules prescribes an application form, a deadline, or an income or asset test. What each does require is that the reason be endorsed on the document.

Electronic fees have three further provisions of their own. If the step is carried out electronically (see the section on electronic filing below), what is payable is an e-fee, and the power over that fee sits in the e-fee rules themselves. Court Proceedings (Electronic Technology) (Small Claims Tribunal) (Electronic Fees) Rules (Cap. 638 sub. leg. I), r. 8:

Rule 11 of the District Court equivalent (Cap. 638 sub. leg. E) and r. 8 of the High Court equivalent (Cap. 638 sub. leg. K) are in the same terms.

Two exceptions are worth stating plainly.

First, the Matrimonial Causes (Fees) Rules (Cap. 179 sub. leg. B) contain no such power. What r. 2 of those Rules does is different — it fills gaps in the fee amounts from the High Court Fees Rules:

That proviso imports fees. It does not say in terms that the remission power travels with them; the point is unsettled.

Second, the Bankruptcy (Fees and Percentages) Order (Cap. 6 sub. leg. C) contains no such power either. The Order runs to four paragraphs — citation, interpretation, fees and percentages, and transitional and savings — and no provision in it allows any fee to be reduced, remitted or deferred. Rule 2(2) of the High Court Fees Rules does not fill the gap: it reaches only a fee specified in the First or Second Schedule to those Rules, and the bankruptcy fees are in neither. Nor is the deposit payable to the Official Receiver (below) subject to any such power: the Bankruptcy Rules (Cap. 6 sub. leg. A), which prescribe it, contain no provision for reducing or remitting it.

The Bankruptcy Ordinance itself does, though — separately from the Fees Order. Section 114(2) of Cap. 6 provides:

That power sits with the court, not the registry's principal officer or the Official Receiver, and s. 114(2) prescribes no application form or reason-endorsement requirement of its own — unlike the five registry-level powers above. It is not wholly unconditional, though: the subsection expressly limits the power to a fee or fees "due from any bankrupt" — so the relief only reaches fees the bankrupt themself owes, not fees at large. It is nonetheless a real avenue for relief, and this guide records it.

Which instrument sets which figure

Every figure here can be changed, and by the same route. Each fee instrument is made under a rule-making power in its parent Ordinance, and a fee changes when that power is exercised to amend the subsidiary legislation: the Small Claims Tribunal (Fees) Rules under s. 36 of the Small Claims Tribunal Ordinance; the Labour Tribunal (Fees) Rules under s. 45 of the Labour Tribunal Ordinance; the Minor Employment Claims Adjudication Board (Fees) Rules under s. 42 of that Board's Ordinance; the District Court (Fees) Rules under ss. 72 and 87 of the District Court Ordinance; the Matrimonial Causes (Fees) Rules under s. 54 of the Matrimonial Causes Ordinance; the High Court Fees Rules under s. 54 of the High Court Ordinance; the Bankruptcy (Fees and Percentages) Order under s. 114 of the Bankruptcy Ordinance; the Bankruptcy Rules, which set the deposit, under s. 113 of that Ordinance; and the three sets of e-fee Rules under s. 29 of the Court Proceedings (Electronic Technology) Ordinance. Every amount on this page is what that power had produced as at the version date shown.

These instruments do not move in step. The Small Claims Tribunal fee Schedule was last amended by L.N. 112 of 2024. The Labour Tribunal fee Schedule, in the English version used here, closes with the amendment record "L.N. 108 of 1991; L.N. 312 of 1992; L.N. 387 of 1992" and has not been amended since. The High Court's First and Second Schedules were amended by L.N. 58 of 2025.

Filing electronically: 80% during the concessionary period

The tables below are the paper fees. If the step is carried out through an e-system, what you pay is not that figure but an e-fee under the Court Proceedings (Electronic Technology) rules — and during the concessionary period the e-fee is 80% of the corresponding paper fee.

Four courts are specified as e-Courts: the District Court, the Magistrates' Court, the Small Claims Tribunal and the High Court (Court Proceedings (Electronic Technology) (Specification of e-Courts) Rules (Cap. 638 sub. leg. A), Schedule, version in force 30 June 2025). The Magistrates' Court is criminal and outside this page (its e-fee rules are Cap. 638 sub. leg. F); the other three each have their own set of e-fee rules, built the same way. Court Proceedings (Electronic Technology) (Small Claims Tribunal) (Electronic Fees) Rules (Cap. 638 sub. leg. I), r. 4(1), version in force 22 May 2025:

Rules 4(1) and 7(1) of the District Court equivalent (Cap. 638 sub. leg. E, version in force 31 October 2024) and rr. 4(1) and 4(3) of the High Court equivalent (Cap. 638 sub. leg. K, version in force 7 May 2026) are in the same terms.

The concession is time-limited, and the clock is started by a notice. For the Small Claims Tribunal the concessionary period is "the period of 3 years beginning on the earliest date specified under section 32(2) of the Ordinance in relation to the Tribunal" (Cap. 638 sub. leg. I, r. 2), and the High Court provision is the same 3 years with "the High Court" in place of "the Tribunal" (Cap. 638 sub. leg. K, r. 2); for the District Court it is 5 years (Cap. 638 sub. leg. E, r. 2, as amended by L.N. 188 of 2022). That starting date is fixed by the Chief Justice in an implementation notice published in the Gazette under s. 32(1) and (2) of the Court Proceedings (Electronic Technology) Ordinance (Cap. 638). When the period ends, the e-fee reverts to the same amount as the paper fee.

The reduced figure is then rounded, so it is not simply the paper fee times 0.8: under $5, to the nearest 10 cents; $5 to under $10, to the nearest 50 cents; $10 to under $100, to the nearest whole dollar; $100 to under $1,000 and not a multiple of $5, to the nearest multiple of $5; $1,000 to under $10,000 and not a multiple of $10, to the nearest multiple of $10 (r. 6 of Cap. 638 sub. leg. I, r. 9 of sub. leg. E, r. 6 of sub. leg. K). Those five bands are complete for sub. leg. I (Small Claims Tribunal), but sub. leg. E (District Court) and sub. leg. K (High Court) carry two further bands: $10,000 to under $100,000 and not a multiple of $50, to the nearest multiple of $50; and $100,000 or more and not a multiple of $100, to the nearest multiple of $100. Every figure below is under $10,000, so only the first five bands are in play here.

What the concession reaches has to be checked item by item; you cannot take 80% of a whole table. In particular:

• The $10-per-address delivery fee (Cap. 338B item 10A) is not in the Schedule to Cap. 638 sub. leg. I. It stays at $10.
• For the Labour Tribunal, Part 3 of the Schedule to Cap. 638 sub. leg. E has one item only — item 6 of the Labour Tribunal fee Schedule, registration of an award or order with the District Court. The $20 to $50 filing bands are not reduced.
• For probate, Part 2 of the Schedule to Cap. 638 sub. leg. K has two items only — items 7 and 17 of the Second Schedule to the High Court Fees Rules (every search; filing inventory). The $265.00 filing fee at item 1 and the $72.00 per page of engrossing at item 6 are not reduced.
• The Minor Employment Claims Adjudication Board, matrimonial causes and bankruptcy have no e-fee rules at all, so the tables below are what is payable.
• One thing is free rather than reduced: no e-fee is payable for a copy of a document obtained from an e-system (r. 4(2) of Cap. 638 sub. leg. I, r. 4(2) of sub. leg. E, r. 4(2) of sub. leg. K).

Small Claims Tribunal

Jurisdiction. Paragraph 1 of the Schedule to the Small Claims Tribunal Ordinance (Cap. 338) covers "Any monetary claim founded in contract, quasi-contract or tort" where the amount claimed is not more than $75,000. The cause of action matters as much as the ceiling: contract, quasi-contract or tort, and nothing else. The paragraph also carries a proviso listing what the tribunal may not hear: defamation, maintenance agreements within the meaning of s. 14 of the Matrimonial Proceedings and Property Ordinance, actions by licensed money lenders for money lent, matters within the Minor Employment Claims Adjudication Board's jurisdiction, matters within the Labour Tribunal's jurisdiction, matters submitted to the Estate Agents Authority which it has not declined, and costs-only proceedings where nothing was ever commenced in the tribunal.

Subparagraph (d) of that proviso — matters within the Labour Tribunal's jurisdiction — is not absolute. Paragraph 1A of the same Schedule gives the tribunal jurisdiction, notwithstanding subparagraph (d), over a claim transferred to it under s. 10(2) of the Labour Tribunal Ordinance (Cap. 25). Paragraph 2 then adds a second head of jurisdiction: recovery of any penalty, expenses, contribution or other amount recoverable by virtue of an enactment, and of any amount an enactment declares recoverable as a civil debt, again capped at $75,000 — but this head carries its own gateway in paragraph 2(a): "it is not expressly provided by that or any other enactment that the demand shall be recoverable only in some other court." Where an enactment does confine recovery to some other court, this second head of jurisdiction is unavailable. Stating the head by subject matter plus the $75,000 cap alone makes it sound broader than the Schedule allows. The fee bands below are keyed to the amount claimed in the tribunal, not to paragraph 1 alone.

Fees (Small Claims Tribunal (Fees) Rules, Schedule, version in force 22 May 2025):

Serving documents is charged per address. Schedule item 10A:

That is $10 per address. It is a Small Claims Tribunal charge, not a Labour Tribunal one.

Item 5 — a copy of a document made in the registry of the tribunal, $4 per page — carries a note of no legislative effect:

The rule 4 that note points to is not merely an exemption. The exemption is only r. 4(2); r. 4(1) is the provision that determines the e-fees for the Small Claims Tribunal matters in its own Schedule column (subject to r. 4(2)), at 80% during the concessionary period, as set out in the section on electronic filing above — but it does not determine every e-fee under these Rules: r. 5 separately fixes an e-fee, again 80% of the prescribed fee during the concessionary period, for an application for a certified copy of a Hong Kong judgment under s. 33(1) of the Mainland Judgments in Civil and Commercial Matters (Reciprocal Enforcement) Ordinance (Cap. 645). Every row of the table above (the Small Claims Tribunal items) except item 10A falls within the r. 4 Schedule.

The Schedule is also not exhaustive. Item 18 provides that for any other matter or proceeding not referred to and for which no fee is specified, the fee is "such fee as the registrar may fix". Item 7 (translation) and item 13(a) (expert attendance) are likewise "in the discretion of the registrar".

Representation. The bar in s. 19(2) of Cap. 338 is not absolute. It denies barristers and solicitors a right of audience before the tribunal, but it carves out two cases: proceedings under s. 35A for insulting behaviour, and a barrister or solicitor acting on his own behalf as a claimant or defendant. Section 19(1)(d) then provides:

So the tribunal may permit a non-lawyer to appear for a party. "You must appear in person" is not the whole of the rule.

Labour Tribunal

Fees (Labour Tribunal (Fees) Rules, Schedule, version in force 1 February 2018):

Only one of these has an e-fee. Part 3 of the Schedule to the Court Proceedings (Electronic Technology) (District Court) (Electronic Fees) Rules (Cap. 638 sub. leg. E) contains a single entry — item 6 of this Schedule, registering an award or order with the District Court, which is $16 during the concessionary period. The $20 to $50 filing bands are not reduced.

That Schedule contains no per-address service charge. Its only bailiff's-expenses item is item 12, transportation or conveyance expenses and overtime, "in the discretion of the registrar". The $10-per-address charge belongs to the Small Claims Tribunal, above.

The fee bands have no top because the jurisdiction has no ceiling. The highest band simply reads "where the claim exceeds $10,000 50". The reason is in the Schedule to the Labour Tribunal Ordinance (Cap. 25), which sets out claim types with no monetary limit and instead carves out the Minor Employment Claims Adjudication Board — but only at the end of paragraphs 1, 4 and 5. Paragraph 2 (contribution under s. 26(2)), paragraph 3, paragraph 6 and paragraph 7 carry no such words. Paragraph 1 closes:

So the familiar line that the Labour Tribunal "hears claims over $15,000" is not a floor enacted in the Labour Tribunal Ordinance. It is the effect of where the Board's boundary sits.

Nor is that boundary one-way. Paragraph 6 of the same Schedule gives the Tribunal jurisdiction, notwithstanding paragraphs 1, 2, 4 and 5, over a claim transferred to it under s. 8(3) of the Minor Employment Claims Adjudication Board Ordinance (Cap. 453) or s. 7 or 10 of the Small Claims Tribunal Ordinance (Cap. 338).

That Schedule also carries an exclusion readers often miss, at paragraph 3:

Claims founded in tort are outside the Labour Tribunal.

Representation. Section 23(2) of Cap. 25:

Unlike the Small Claims Tribunal, the non-lawyer representative permitted by s. 23(1)(e) must hold a particular office:

Minor Employment Claims Adjudication Board

The Board, which sits under the Labour Department, has its own fee rules — the Minor Employment Claims Adjudication Board (Fees) Rules (Cap. 453 sub. leg. A), version in force 19 March 2020:

The boundary is in paragraph (c) of the Schedule to the Minor Employment Claims Adjudication Board Ordinance (Cap. 453):

The $15,000 and the 10 claimants are cumulative conditions: not more than 10 claimants, and not more than $15,000 each. Paragraph (b) of the same Schedule still governs earlier rights of action at not more than $8,000 per claimant and not more than 10 claimants — but it is bounded at both ends: the right of action must have arisen "wholly before 17 September 2021 (but not wholly before 25 June 1997)". A right of action arising wholly before 25 June 1997 is dealt with by paragraph (a), which carries its own figures: not more than 5 claimants, and not more than $5,000 per claimant.

District Court (civil)

There is a prescribed filing figure. Schedule Part 1, item 1 of the District Court (Fees) Rules (Cap. 336 sub. leg. C), on sealing:

An originating summons, an originating ex parte application and any other originating document are each 630.00 as well. Setting down a cause or issue for hearing, and setting down a civil appeal, motion or summons for hearing, are each 630.00.

Other items readers commonly meet:

Done electronically, each $630.00 above is $505 during the concessionary period, the search is $14, authentication is $100, and taxation is $4.00 for every $100 or fraction of $100. Bailiff service at $72.00 and the watchman's fee at $330.00 are not in Part 1 of the Schedule to the Court Proceedings (Electronic Technology) (District Court) (Electronic Fees) Rules, and are not reduced.

The whole instrument can switch itself off. Rule 1A:

Rule 1A of the High Court Fees Rules is in the same terms, substituting the High Court. This is why matrimonial proceedings heard in the District Court are charged under the Matrimonial Causes (Fees) Rules rather than the District Court's general scale.

Jurisdiction. The $3,000,000 in s. 32(1) of the District Court Ordinance (Cap. 336) is a ceiling; the Ordinance sets no floor. Section 32(2) then defines "the amount of the plaintiff’s claim" as a net figure, after admitted set-off, employees' compensation already paid under Cap. 282, and admitted contributory negligence. For equity proceedings involving land, it is not simply $7,000,000 across the board: where the proceedings only partly involve or relate to land and the non-land part exceeds $3,000,000, limb (ii)'s $3,000,000 applies instead. The $7,000,000 in limbs (iii) and (iv) is reached only where the proceedings wholly involve or relate to land (iii), or partly do so but the non-land part does not exceed $3,000,000 (iv). So $7,000,000 is not the general land-related equity ceiling — it is the ceiling only for wholly land-related cases, or partly land-related cases whose non-land part stays under $3,000,000. Limbs (i) to (iv) govern all of the subject matter listed in s. 37(2)(a) to (g), not limb (g) alone. Section 37(4) then removes jurisdiction in proceedings for recovery of land or relating to title to land where the annual rent, the rateable value or the annual value, whichever is the least, exceeds $320,000. The words "whichever is the least" do the work: it is not enough that one of the three exceeds $320,000; the lowest of the three must. Reading the $7,000,000 without the $320,000 gives the wrong answer.

Family Court (matrimonial causes)

Matrimonial Causes (Fees) Rules (Cap. 179 sub. leg. B), Schedule, version in force 12 November 2015:

Note the unit on item 10. The $18 is charged "for each document or file referred to or required" — per item, not a flat charge for inspecting a file.

Probate

Probate fees sit in the Second Schedule to the High Court Fees Rules (Cap. 4 sub. leg. D), headed Probate Jurisdiction, version in force 14 May 2026:

The $72.00 at item 6 is per page of engrossing. It is not a single $72 charge for the grant, and the total depends on the number of pages.

On the probate side the e-fee reaches two items only. Part 2 of the Schedule to the Court Proceedings (Electronic Technology) (High Court) (Electronic Fees) Rules (Cap. 638 sub. leg. K) lists item 7 (every search) and item 17 (filing inventory) of this Schedule and nothing else — $14 and $29 in the concessionary period. The $265.00 filing fee at item 1, the $72.00 per page at item 6 and every other row above are not reduced, even if the whole application is made electronically.

The old scale charged on the value of the estate is no longer in the live Schedule. Item 2 now reads only "(Repealed 21 of 2005 s. 30)", with an editorial note:

No current fee turns on the sworn value of an estate. The current Second Schedule prescribes none — and that holds even after its residual item, item 21, which charges "the same fee as charged from time to time in the First Schedule in respect of a similar matter or proceeding" for anything the Second Schedule does not specify. No fee in the First Schedule is measured by the value of an estate either. Item 21 does mean, though, that the table above is not a closed list: a probate step it does not name is charged at the First Schedule rate for the nearest equivalent.

High Court and bankruptcy

Under item 1 of the First Schedule to the High Court Fees Rules, sealing a writ of summons, originating summons, originating notice of motion, originating petition, originating ex parte application or any other originating document is $1,045.00 in each case — though no fee is payable on sealing an originating document by which proceedings are instituted pursuant to leave granted under s. 27A of the Ordinance. Setting down is likewise $1,045.00. Filed electronically, both are $835 during the concessionary period.

"High Court" here means the Court of First Instance and the Court of Appeal together — s. 3(1) of the High Court Ordinance (Cap. 4) constitutes it of both. There is no separate scale for the Court of Appeal; a filing there is charged under the same First Schedule.

The bankruptcy petition fee is in the Bankruptcy (Fees and Percentages) Order (Cap. 6 sub. leg. C), version in force 14 July 2025:

So $1,045.00, and that figure already absorbs the fee for answering a petition or setting down for hearing.

But $1,045.00 is not what it takes to present a petition. There is also a deposit payable to the Official Receiver, and its amount is prescribed — by r. 52 of the Bankruptcy Rules (Cap. 6 sub. leg. A), version in force 14 July 2025:

Two things follow. First, subrule (2) makes the deposit a precondition of filing: without the Official Receiver's receipt the petition is not received at all. So a debtor petitioning against himself needs $1,045.00 + $8,000 = $9,045.00, and a creditor needs $1,045.00 + $11,250 = $12,295.00. Second, the deposit is a deposit and not a fee: under r. 52(4) it is applied to cover the fees, charges and percentages prescribed in the Bankruptcy (Fees and Percentages) Order and payable to the Official Receiver, together with costs, charges and expenses incurred or authorised by him, and any unapplied balance is accounted for and returned under rr. 52(5) to (7). Rule 52(3) adds that after presenting the petition the petitioner must deposit such further sum as the court may, on the Official Receiver's application, from time to time direct — so $8,000 and $11,250 are the entry price, not a ceiling.

Costs are not filing fees

A filing fee is paid to the government. Costs are what one party may be ordered to pay another, and they run on a separate mechanism.

Section 24(1) of the Small Claims Tribunal Ordinance (Cap. 338):

Section 28(1) of the Labour Tribunal Ordinance (Cap. 25) is close in wording, and extends recoverable expenses to being interviewed by a tribunal officer:

Both are framed as "may award" — a discretion. Neither lists "filing fee" as a head in terms; each speaks of reasonable expenses necessarily incurred and lost salary or wages.