How to buy Hong Kong shares in the UK
The Hong Kong market is overflowing with top stocks including Tencent, Alibaba and Bank of China. Learn how to buy and trade shares in Hong Kong-based companies if you live in the UK.
Five steps to buying Hong Kong shares in the UK
Choose whether you want to trade or invest in Hong Kong shares
There are two ways you can get exposure to Hong Kong stocks – you can either invest in them directly via our share dealing service - if they have a dual listing on a US stock exchange, or you can trade them using derivatives such as spread bets or CFDs.
When you invest, you put up the full value of the shares upfront to buy them outright. You then own the physical shares, meaning you can benefit if their price goes up. By owning shares, you could receive dividend payments if the company offers them, and you may also have voting rights in company matters.
Trading, on the other hand, only requires a deposit known as margin – which is a small percentage of the full value of the trade – to open a position. And, you can speculate on rising or falling share prices, because you don’t own the underlying asset. A popular benefit of shares trading is that you don’t pay tax on spread betting profits, and you can offset any profits from CFD trading against losses for tax purposes.1
Open an account
To start investing, you can open a shares account in just a few minutes. You can open your account online – on our website or via our app. If you’d prefer to trade on a share’s price movements, you can open a live trading account instead. Alternatively, you can build your confidence with a demo account, which offers £10,000 in virtual funds.
Understand the charges of buying Hong Kong shares in the UK
If you’re looking to invest in Hong Kong stocks (remember, they must be dual listed on a US stock exchange), you could qualify for our zero commission rate. You’ll have to place three or more trades in a particular month to pay £0 commission. Our standard commission rate is £10. We’ll automatically convert your pounds into HKD for just a 0.5% fee. There may be other charges and taxes including custody fees, additional services and physical share certificate costs.
How much does it cost to buy dual-listed Hong Kong shares from the UK?
| Standard commission | Best commission | Conversion fee | |
| IG | £10 | £0 | 0.5% |
| Hargreaves Lansdown | £11.95 | £5.95 | 1.0% |
| AJ Bell | £9.95 | £9.95 | 1.0% |
You’ll incur our standard costs when you trade derivatives on Hong Kong shares. There are no commission charges on spread bets, but you’ll pay commission on CFDs.
Buy Hong Kong stocks
Once you’ve created an account and you’ve decided which Hong Kong stocks you’re interested in, you can start buying shares. If investing via share dealing, you can buy shares ‘at quote’ or ‘on exchange’. If trading via derivatives, you’ll ‘buy’ the market to open a long position, or ‘sell’ to open a short one.
Whichever method you choose, you can monitor your open positions on your workspace from within our platform. Any running profit or loss will move in line with the underlying share prices. When you’re ready to close your position, you can click on the open position and select ‘sell’ or ‘close’.
Buying Hong Kong shares summed up
- You can buy or trade Hong Kong stocks if you live in the UK
- Investing in available Hong Kong shares outright requires a share dealing account, while speculating on their price requires a leveraged trading account
- When investing, you’ll put up the full value of the shares upfront. When trading with leveraged products like spread bets and CFDs, you’ll only put up a margin
- You could qualify for our zero commission rate when buying shares with us, or pay a standard commission of £10
- There are many notable Hong Kong stocks to trade, such as AIA Group, Ping An, Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent Holdings, Geely, Bank of China, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China and China Construction Bank
Footnote
1Tax laws are subject to change and depend on individual circumstances. Tax law may differ in a jurisdiction other than the UK.
This information has been prepared by IG, a trading name of IG Markets Limited. In addition to the disclaimer below, the material on this page does not contain a record of our trading prices, or an offer of, or solicitation for, a transaction in any financial instrument. IG accepts no responsibility for any use that may be made of these comments and for any consequences that result. No representation or warranty is given as to the accuracy or completeness of this information. Consequently any person acting on it does so entirely at their own risk. Any research provided does not have regard to the specific investment objectives, financial situation and needs of any specific person who may receive it. It has not been prepared in accordance with legal requirements designed to promote the independence of investment research and as such is considered to be a marketing communication. Although we are not specifically constrained from dealing ahead of our recommendations we do not seek to take advantage of them before they are provided to our clients. See full non-independent research disclaimer and quarterly summary.
Explore the markets with our free course
Learn how shares work – and discover the wide range of markets you can spread bet on – with IG Academy's free ’introducing the financial markets’ course.
Put learning into action
Try out what you’ve learned in this shares strategy article risk-free in your demo account.
Ready to trade shares?
Put the lessons in this article to use in a live account – upgrading is quick and easy.
- Trade on over 13,000+ popular global stocks
- Protect your capital with risk management tools
- React to breaking news with out-of-hours trading on 70 key US stocks
Inspired to trade?
Put your new knowledge into practice. Log in to your account now.
