I'm going to be moving to Hong Kong next month. What do I need to know?
The way to find the apartment is to find the neighborhood you want to live in, and walk into a real estate agent for that neighborhood.u00a0 Hong Kong is pretty compact, so it doesn't make that much difference if you live on the island.u00a0 I know a few people that live in Shenzhen (much, much cheaper) and commute to Central every day.Bank account:u00a0 go into a bank with your passportPhone: You can get your iphone unlocked at which point there are all sorts of competitive cell plansInternet: Also lots of competition.u00a0 Cost of living: It can very widely.u00a0 The big cost is rent, and where you want to live and how much you want to pay is up to you.u00a0 Expat things tend to be more expensive.The only thing that I haven't been able to get in Hong Kong are tamales.Some random things....1) The most annoying thing is to find schools for the kids.u00a0 One thing that I found out was that you should e-mail the schools to see if there are any places open before filling out any applications.u00a0u00a0 That will save you a lot of time, and if a school doesn't respond to your e-mails, that means they aren't interested.Also you'll find that people will keep their space in a school until the last minute.u00a0 We were put on a lot of wait lists, and the day before school started we got calls seeing if you are interested.2) The housing reimbursement program is not a separate account.u00a0 You fill out a form saying that you want X of your income to go to housing, and that gets set up tax-free.u00a0 I was confused because I thought it was like an account in the US where the money goes into a separate account.3) Pensions work differently in HK.u00a0 One big mistake that I made was because pension matches are subject to US tax, I minimized my pension match since I assumed that I wouldn't have access to the funds until I was retiring.u00a0 What I didn't realize was that outside of the minimum contribution, you get the full pension benefit in cash when you switch employers.u00a0 If I realized this I would have maximized my employer match.4) If you are a US citizen/resident, you will need a tax accountant for the first year.u00a0 The taxes are low, but you will have to fill out a ton of forms.u00a0 Once you know how to fill out the taxes, then you can just copy them over to future years.5) If you have a choice you want to get paid as a HK employee and not a US employee, the tax rules are different and in particularly as an HK employee you do not have to pay US social security taxes.u00a0 The income tax is about the same, but as an HK employee you don't have payroll withholding.