Hong Kong civil service pension costs top HK$500 billion, may peak in mid-2030s
Hong Kong's civil service and judicial pension spending exceeded HK$500 billion in 2025-26, up 18 per cent from five years earlier, with the government projecting gradual declines from the mid-2030s. The actuarial liability stood at HK$924.8 billion as of March 2025, though officials ruled out issui
Hong Kong's civil service and judicial pension spending has risen sharply, reaching more than HK$500 billion in the 2025-26 financial year from about HK$422 billion five years earlier, according to a government reply to a legislative question published on 28 October 2026. The number of pension recipients grew from about 150,000 to more than 160,000 over the same period, an increase of 9 per cent.
For the 2025-26 financial year, newly retired civil servants and judicial officers received an average monthly pension of about HK$20,200, while those already retired received about HK$17,700 per month. A 2.1 per cent cost-of-living adjustment added about HK$370 per month per pensioner.
The government said the defined-benefit pension scheme applies only to staff hired before 1 June 2000. It expects annual pension expenditure to keep rising for some years before gradually declining from the mid-2030s. The Civil Service Bureau estimated that virtually all remaining scheme members would have retired by around 2040, though it could not provide precise figures.
As of 31 March 2026, about 160,000 retired civil servants and judicial officers were drawing monthly pensions. The number of active scheme members was not disclosed in the reply. The Treasury does not maintain a readily available breakdown by gender for either group.
The statutory actuarial liability for future pension payments stood at HK$924.8 billion as of 31 March 2025, with about 40 per cent attributable to serving staff and 60 per cent to retirees. The government stressed that this is the present value of projected cumulative payments spread over 40 to 50 years or more, not a sum requiring immediate provision.
Asked whether the government would consider issuing about HK$650 billion in inflation-linked bonds to lock in pension costs, the authorities rejected the idea. They said the pension is part of employment contracts for pre-2000 hires and that, as a responsible employer, the government should not unilaterally alter payment terms. Existing pension laws require payments from general revenue, and the government has no plans to change the amount or method of pension disbursement.