Immigration Department to end visitor passport stamps

Visitors to Hong Kong will no longer have their passports stamped by border control officers from next month, the Immigration Department said on Friday.

Instead, they will be issued a small slip of paper explaining the conditions of their stay in the city.

The switch from a half-a-century-long tradition of stamping to a system of computer-generated slips at all border points is to improve efficiency and prevent mistakes, the department said.

The new HK$30 million system will save each visitor, on average, three seconds at the border when entering the city, Assistant Immigration Director (Information Systems) Corrado Chow said.

“Three seconds may seem very short. But considering there were 47 million visitors last year … [much] time will be saved,” he said.

The slip of computer-generated paper will carry the visitor’s name, travel document number, arrival date and the date the visitor permitted to remain until. Printed out after officers scan the passport at the border, it will be stapled to the visitor’s passport.