Hong Kong Island down to single travel documents office as Immigration Department headquarters moves to Tseung Kwan O in the New Territories

Change means sole travel documents office on Hong Kong Island will be in Central’s Harbour Building

Department officials say extra automatic machines for travel document applications and collection will be added in Tseung Kwan O and Central offices

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The Immigration Department is to move its headquarters from the Immigration Tower in Wan Chai to a new building in Tseung Kwan O on June 11. Photo: Wikipedia

Published: 4:20pm, 16 May 2024Updated: 11:32pm, 16 May 2024

People on Hong Kong Island will have only one office that issues passports and other travel documents from next month after the government moves the service from its Wan Chai office to a new one in Tseung Kwan O.

The change, part of a plan to transfer the Immigration Department’s headquarters from Wan Chai to Tseung Kwan O, will leave the Travel Documents Issuing Office in Central’s Harbour Building as the sole travel documents issuer on the island.

The other passport issuing centres, which also deal with identity documents for visas and re-entry permits, are in East Kowloon, West Kowloon, Sha Tin, Fo Tan, Tuen Mun and Yuen Long.

The department said that more automatic machines for travel document applications and collection would be added to the Tseung Kwan O and Central offices to cope with an expected rise in demand.

Immigration Tower in Wan Chai will be vacated by the department that bears it name when it moves its headquarters to the New Territories in June. Photo: Fung Chang

Kung Kwok-leung, an assistant principal immigration officer for documents, added about 11,000 passports and other travel documents already applied for through the Wan Chai office would have to be collected from the Central and Tseung Kwan O offices.

“We expect that rising demand will be logged in both the Central and Tseung Kwan O offices,” he said. “We will closely monitor and review the service at the two venues to decide whether we need additional personnel there.”