Hong Kong’s population edges up 0.3% but births fall below 30,000 for first time

Hong Kong’s population edges up 0.3% but births fall below 30,000 for first time Midyear population provisionally stood at 7,518,300, an increase of 19,400, but births fell by 15.6 per cent to 29,700 Hong Kong’s population rose slightly by 0.3 per cent year on year to more than 7.5 million by mid-2026 but the number of babies born fell by 15.6 per cent to below 30,000 for the first time on record, despite government incentives to boost the birth rate. The government on Tuesday attributed the slight population increase to “various measures for talent attraction and labour importation” that continued to bring people from around the world to Hong Kong, which offset the impact of natural population decline. But the statement did not address the steep drop in births. Provisional data released by the Census and Statistics Department on Tuesday also showed that Hong Kong’s midyear population provisionally stood at 7,518,300, an increase of 19,400, or 0.3 per cent, compared with the same period last year. Hong Kong’s population had declined to 7,498,900 in mid-2025, marking the first time the mid-year population dropped below 7.5 million since 2023. Between mid-2025 and mid-2026, Hong Kong recorded 29,700 births, down 15.6 per cent from the 35,200 recorded during the same period a year earlier.