Unpaid Wages in Hong Kong: HK$15,000 Picks Your Forum, and Neither Allows a Lawyer
Applies in Hong Kong SAR
Direct answer: in Hong Kong unpaid wages are a money claim, and one number decides where it goes. HK$15,000 or less per claimant, brought by no more than 10 claimants, belongs to the Minor Employment Claims Adjudication Board — which will not take the claim until the Labour Department has attempted conciliation, and which loses jurisdiction 12 months after the right of action arose. Anything above HK$15,000 goes to the Labour Tribunal, where you book the filing appointment yourself on 2625 0056, pay HK$20 to HK$50, and get a first hearing 10 to 30 days later. Neither forum lets a lawyer speak for you.
Where does a Hong Kong unpaid-wages claim go?
Two months of unpaid salary is, for most people working in Hong Kong, already more than HK$15,000 — so most readers of this article are headed for the Labour Tribunal rather than the Board. It is still worth knowing both, because the line is drawn per claimant rather than per employer, and because the smaller forum is the harder one to enter.
- HK$15,000 or less per claimantMinor Employment Claims Adjudication Board (Cap. 453)
Up to 10 claimants. Labour Department conciliation first, and the right of action must have arisen within the last 12 months.
- More than HK$15,000Labour Tribunal (Cap. 25) — no upper limit
You book the appointment yourself. A claim that arose more than 6 years ago may be barred by the Limitation Ordinance (Cap. 347).
- Any sum, if the claim is founded in tortNeither — the Tribunal has no jurisdiction at all
Paragraph 3 of the Schedule to Cap. 25 removes any cause of action founded in tort, even one arising from a breach of contract.
Defined term: the right of action arises when the money fell due, not when you last asked for it.
One more point about that first rung, because it is the one people get wrong: the HK$15,000 is per claimant, not per claim. Ten kitchen staff owed HK$14,000 each — HK$140,000 between them — is still a Board case, not a Tribunal one.
The HK$15,000 line changes your deadline, not just your address
The forum with the smaller money limit has the shorter clock and the stricter door. That is counter-intuitive enough to be worth setting out side by side before you choose a route.
| Adjudication Board | Labour Tribunal | |
|---|---|---|
| Statute | Minor Employment Claims Adjudication Board Ordinance (Cap. 453) | Labour Tribunal Ordinance (Cap. 25) |
| Money limit | HK$15,000 per claimant, up to 10 claimants | More than HK$15,000, no upper limit |
| Time limit | 12 months from when the right of action arose (s.7(1)) | 6 years may bar it (Limitation Ordinance, Cap. 347) |
| Labour Department conciliation | Required before the claim is accepted | Not required |
| Legal representation | Not allowed on either side | Not allowed on either side (Cap. 25, s.23) |
| Filing fee | Not published by the Labour Department — ask the Board on 2927 8000 | HK$20 to HK$50, plus HK$10 per defendant's address |
| First hearing | Not published | Call-over hearing 10 to 30 days after filing |
The HK$15,000 figure applies where the right of action arose on or after 17 September 2021; rights of action that arose earlier carry lower limits. Under s.7(1) of Cap. 453 the parties may file a memorandum signed by them agreeing that the Board keeps jurisdiction past 12 months.
Do I have to go through Labour Department conciliation first?
For the Adjudication Board, yes, and the Labour Department states it without qualification: a direct request for adjudication without first going through conciliation by the Labour Relations Division will not be accepted. Conciliation is run by the Division's branch offices across Hong Kong, Kowloon and the New Territories, and it is free.
For the Labour Tribunal, no — and this is where a good deal of online guidance is wrong. The Judiciary's filing instructions ask you to produce your Hong Kong Identity Card and the referral number of the Labour Department (if applicable). The parenthesis is doing real work. The Tribunal's page on settlement says only that you may approach the Labour Relations Division before lodging a claim. Section 9 of Cap. 25 was repealed in 1999, and nothing replaced it with a certificate requirement.
That does not make conciliation a waste of your time. It is free, it is faster than a hearing, and an employer who is disorganised rather than insolvent often pays at that table. But if the employer has already refused, or has stopped answering, you can book the Tribunal appointment yourself today.
When did my wages actually become due?
Before you can claim you need the date the money fell due, because that date starts the limitation clock and it is the first thing the Tribunal Officer will ask you to pin down. The Employment Ordinance (Cap. 57) answers it.
The statutory wage clock, in order
- Wages become due on the expiry of the last day of the wage period — normally the month you worked.
- The employer must pay as soon as practicable and in any case not later than 7 days after the end of that period. Miss that, and the employer must also pay interest on the outstanding amount.
- If wages are still unpaid one month after they became due, you may deem the contract terminated by your employer without notice, which entitles you to payment in lieu of notice on top of the arrears. Tell the employer in writing when you exercise that right.
- On termination, every termination payment except severance payment falls due not later than 7 days after the contract ends. Severance payment falls due not later than two months from the employer's receipt of your written claim for it.
Non-payment is also a criminal offence, and the penalty is not nominal. An employer who wilfully and without reasonable excuse fails to pay wages when they become due is liable on conviction to a fine of HK$350,000 and to imprisonment for 3 years; an illegal deduction from wages carries HK$100,000 and 1 year. Where a wage offence by a company is committed with the consent or connivance of, or is attributable to the neglect of, a director, manager or secretary, that person is guilty of the same offence and faces the same penalty.
The Labour Tribunal does not prosecute — that is the Labour Department's track, and it runs separately from your money claim. But it is why a Labour Relations Division officer takes a wage complaint seriously, and it is worth knowing that the director behind a company is not automatically out of reach.
How do I file a claim at the Labour Tribunal?
You cannot walk in. Filing happens at an appointment, and the appointment is booked before anything else.
Filing, step by step
- Book through the Labour Tribunal's 24-hour Telephone Appointment Booking System on 2625 0056, or on the Judiciary's website.
- Find the defendant's correct address before the appointment. For a limited company that is the registered office address, from the Companies Registry. For a sole proprietorship or partnership it is the principal place of business and/or the residential address of the proprietor or partners, from the Business Registration Office of the Inland Revenue Department. A P.O. Box is not a valid address.
- On the day, report to the Tribunal Registry with your Hong Kong Identity Card, the Labour Department referral number if you have one, and all your supporting documents — contract, pay records, rosters, messages.
- Meet the Tribunal Officer, who helps you formulate the claim and issues a Title to Claim (Form 1) and a Form of Claim (Form 2) setting out the grounds, the items and the amount.
- Sign Form 2. It is not sent to the defendant until you do.
What goes into Form 2 is fixed by section 12 of Cap. 25: the name and address of every party, the sum each claimant is owed, and particulars reasonably sufficient to tell the defendant the grounds for the claim and the manner in which the amount has been calculated. That last phrase is the one to prepare for. "Two months' wages" is not a calculation. "HK$18,400 a month for July and August, less HK$4,000 paid on 14 July" is.
How much does it cost, and how long does it take?
| Claim amount | Filing fee |
|---|---|
| HK$2,000 or less | HK$20 |
| HK$2,001 – HK$5,000 | HK$30 |
| HK$5,001 – HK$10,000 | HK$40 |
| Over HK$10,000 | HK$50 |
Plus HK$10 per defendant's address for serving the documents. The Judiciary publishes this table as at December 2017. Under the Labour Tribunal (Fees) Rules the Tribunal may reduce, remit or defer any fee where good and valid reasons are produced in writing to the Registrar.
In practice almost every Labour Tribunal claim costs HK$50 plus HK$10 per address, because the three lower bands describe sums the Adjudication Board would be hearing instead. The lower rows matter mainly for claims transferred in from the Board or the Small Claims Tribunal.
Speed is the Tribunal's real selling point. The call-over hearing is fixed for a date between 10 and 30 days from the date the claim is filed, and the Judiciary's performance pledge is to list it not later than 30 days. The call-over is not the trial: it checks that both sides have filed enough documentary evidence and explores settlement, and if there is no prospect of one, the Presiding Officer gives directions for further evidence and adjourns to a mention or trial date.
In between, the Tribunal Officer keeps investigating. The defendant is asked to meet the officer and to file a defence by way of a witness statement with supporting evidence; you may be asked to reply to the employer's version; and the officer then prepares a Summary of Facts for the Presiding Officer setting out the issues in dispute. Getting your own documents to the other side is your job, not the court's — if court staff have to copy them, you pay, and the Judiciary warns that copying is very expensive.
Why can't I bring a lawyer, and how much does that hurt?
Section 23 of Cap. 25 lists who has a right of audience: a claimant or defendant, a tribunal officer, an authorized officer, an officer or servant of a company or a member of a partnership where that business is a party, a public officer appearing for the Secretary for Justice, and — with the leave of the tribunal — an office bearer of a registered trade union or of an association of employers authorised in writing. A barrister or solicitor has a right of audience only when acting on their own behalf as a party. Your solicitor may sit in the public gallery and watch.
The symmetry is the point. Your employer cannot send counsel either. A company appears through one of its own officers or employees, on the same footing as the person suing it.
Nor is the tribunal a passive referee. Section 20 requires the hearing to be conducted in an informal manner, and section 20(3) provides that the Presiding Officer shall investigate any matter which he may consider relevant to the claim, whether or not it has been raised by a party. That is an inquisitorial power no ordinary civil court has. Together with a Tribunal Officer who drafts the claim and investigates before the hearing, the whole design assumes that neither side has counsel.
What none of it gives you is advice. The Judiciary is explicit that the Tribunal does not provide any legal advice to the parties in respect of their claims. Officers help you state your case; nobody there will tell you whether it is a good one. That gap — between help with the form and help with the argument — is the one a self-represented claimant has to close before the hearing, not during it.
What the Labour Tribunal cannot do
- Hear a claim founded in tort. Paragraph 3 of the Schedule excludes any cause of action founded in tort, whether it arises from a breach of contract or a breach of a duty imposed by common law or by any enactment. An injury claim is not a wage claim.
- Hear a claim that has aged out. A claim that arose more than 6 years ago may be barred by the Limitation Ordinance (Cap. 347).
- Keep a case it thinks belongs elsewhere. Under section 10 the tribunal may decline jurisdiction at any stage and transfer the claim to the Court of First Instance, the District Court or the Small Claims Tribunal.
- Advise you. It drafts your claim form; it does not build your argument.
I lost, or nobody turned up. What are my deadlines?
Almost every door out of a Labour Tribunal decision closes in 7 days. This is the table to read before the hearing, not after it.
| Situation | What you file | Fee | Deadline |
|---|---|---|---|
| Your claim was struck out because you were absent | Form 18, Application for Restoration of a Claim, in duplicate | HK$45 | 7 days after the hearing, or such further period as the Tribunal may allow |
| An award or order was made against a party in their absence | Form 19, Application to Set Aside an Award/Order, in duplicate | HK$45 | 7 days after the hearing, or such further period as the Tribunal may allow |
| You want the Presiding Officer to think again | Application for review under s.31 | Not published | 7 days; the officer's own power to review runs 14 days from the award |
| You say the award is wrong in law | Application to the Court of First Instance for leave to appeal under s.32 | Not published | 7 days after the award was served on you, or such extended time as the Registrar of the High Court allows on good cause |
Leave to appeal is available only where the award, order or determination is erroneous in point of law or outside the tribunal's jurisdiction — not because you disagree with the facts found. A refusal by the Court of First Instance to grant leave is final.
Two things follow from that table. First, a review under section 31 can re-open and re-hear the claim wholly or in part and take fresh evidence, which is far more than an appeal can do — so it is the right route when the problem is evidence rather than law. Since 2014 the Presiding Officer may order the applicant to give security for the award where the review application is devoid of merit or made to delay the process, and may dismiss the application if that order is ignored.
Second, if you have won, the other side applying for leave to appeal does not freeze your award. The Judiciary puts it plainly: there is no automatic stay of execution, so you may enforce unless a court orders otherwise.
The employer has folded. What can the Fund pay?
If the employer is insolvent rather than merely unwilling, an award may be worth less than the paper it is printed on, and the route changes. The Protection of Wages on Insolvency Fund — financed by a levy on each business registration and administered by the Labour Department's Wage Security Division — makes ex gratia payments covering the same categories a Tribunal would award.
- Only wages for services rendered in the 4 months before your last day of service count towards the arrears figure.
- Apply within 6 months of your last day of service for wages and untaken statutory holidays, and within 6 months of the date of termination for untaken annual leave, wages in lieu of notice and severance payment.
- Payment normally requires that a winding-up petition has been presented against a company employer, or a bankruptcy petition against an individual employer. The Commissioner for Labour may waive that where the employer had fewer than 20 employees and a petition would be unreasonable or uneconomic, or where section 6(2)(a) of the Bankruptcy Ordinance blocks a petition because the total owed does not exceed HK$10,000.
- If you are or have been a registered director of the company, the application will generally be refused. Providing false information or documents is an offence carrying a fine of HK$50,000 and 3 months' imprisonment.
| Category | Ceiling |
|---|---|
| Arrears of wages | HK$80,000, or 4 months' wages, whichever is less |
| Wages in lieu of notice | One month's wages or HK$45,000, whichever is less |
| Severance payment | The first HK$200,000 plus 50% of any excess entitlement |
| Pay for untaken annual leave and untaken statutory holidays | HK$26,000 for the two together |
The ceilings were raised with effect from 17 June 2022 — arrears of wages from HK$36,000 to HK$80,000, wages in lieu of notice from HK$22,500 to HK$45,000, and untaken leave and holidays from HK$10,500 to HK$26,000. The severance ceiling was raised again, from the first HK$100,000 to the first HK$200,000 plus 50% of any excess, with effect from 21 March 2025.
Tell the Labour Relations Division early if you think the employer is going under. The warning signs it names are concrete: machinery or raw materials removed without warning, the workplace shut with no notice, an employer who cannot be found at home or at business, goods suddenly seized by court bailiffs. The Division can refer you to the Legal Aid Department so that a petition is presented promptly, and will help you lodge the Fund application at the same time.
Before you book the appointment
Trial AI lets you rehearse the hearing you will have to run yourself: the claim as a Presiding Officer will read it, the questions an employer will put to you, and the calculation you will be asked to justify out loud. It is not legal advice and it does not replace the Labour Relations Division. It is practice for the one room where nobody may speak for you.
- Write down the date each unpaid amount fell due — the end of the wage period, or the date of termination. Every deadline in this article is measured from those dates, not from the day you last chased the money.
- Get the defendant's correct registered or business address first. A claim that cannot be served does not move.
- Bring the calculation, not the total: rate, period, days worked, minus anything already paid.
- If the claim is HK$15,000 or less per claimant and already more than a year old, deal with the Board's 12-month limit before you spend weeks in conciliation.
- If the employer looks insolvent, remember the Fund deadlines run from your last day of service, not from the day a court decides anything.
Sources: Judiciary — Labour Tribunal, Labour Tribunal Ordinance (Cap. 25), Minor Employment Claims Adjudication Board Ordinance (Cap. 453), Labour Department — Minor Employment Claims Adjudication Board, A Concise Guide to the Employment Ordinance (PDF), Protection of Wages on Insolvency Fund Board Annual Report 2023–24 (PDF). Figures are those published by the Judiciary, the Labour Department and Hong Kong e-Legislation at the time of writing. Fee schedules, jurisdiction limits and Fund ceilings change — confirm the current figures before you file. This is general information, not legal advice.