Turn a day rate into annual profit, profits tax, MPF and net take-home.
Net take-home
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Gross billings
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Assessable profits
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Profits tax
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Self-employed MPF
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Your breakdown
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From a headline day rate to money in the bank
A day rate looks generous until you remember it is gross, billed only for the days you actually work, and earned by a self-employed person who pays their own tax and their own retirement contributions. This calculator walks the day rate through every deduction in order, so the number at the end is what you can genuinely spend or save. It is built for the unincorporated contractor: the consultant, the freelance developer, the project specialist invoicing clients directly rather than through a limited company.
The sequence is simple but easy to get wrong if you skip a step. Multiply the rate by realistic billable days, subtract business expenses to reach assessable profits, apply unincorporated profits tax, then take off self-employed MPF. What remains is take-home. The single biggest mistake is treating all 365 days as billable. Holidays, gaps between contracts, admin days and downtime all eat into the count, which is why the default sits at 220.
Where the money goes at $6,000 a day
Run the defaults: $6,000 a day across 220 billable days is $1,320,000 of gross billings. Knock off $80,000 of expenses and you have $1,240,000 of assessable profits. As an unincorporated contractor the profits tax this calculator applies is 7.5 percent on the first $2 million, so the whole $1,240,000 sits in the lower tier at $93,000. Self-employed MPF is 5 percent of relevant income, but the income that counts is capped at $360,000 a year, so the contribution maxes out at $18,000. Take both off the profit and net take-home is $1,129,000.
A note on the profits-tax cliff and expenses
The example sits entirely in the lower tier because profits stay under $2 million. Push billings high enough that profits cross that line and the slice above is taxed at 15 percent, so a contractor clearing $2.5 million pays the lower rate on the first $2 million and the higher rate only on the last $500,000. Expenses are the lever most contractors underuse: genuine, wholly business costs such as professional indemnity cover, a co-working desk, equipment and software reduce assessable profits directly, and at these income levels each dollar of legitimate expense saves you tax at your top profits-tax rate. Keep receipts, because the Inland Revenue Department can ask. The rates and the $360,000 MPF ceiling used here are this calculator's 2025/26 assumptions, worth confirming with the IRD and the MPFA.
Common questions
Should I set aside the tax as I invoice, or pay it at year end?
Set it aside as you go. Profits tax in Hong Kong is billed after the year ends, often with a provisional payment on account for the next year on top, so a contractor who has spent everything can face a doubled bill. A practical habit is to move a fixed slice of each invoice, enough to cover both profits tax and your MPF, into a separate account the day you are paid. On the example numbers that is roughly $111,000 of tax and MPF on $1,240,000 of profit, so reserving around one dollar in eleven of profit covers it with a little to spare.
Does a single big client make me an employee rather than a contractor?
It can. If you work set hours, use the client's equipment and have no other clients, the Inland Revenue Department may look through the contractor label and treat you as an employee, which changes how you are taxed and removes the expense deductions a genuine business enjoys. The badges of trade matter. If your working pattern looks like disguised employment, take advice before relying on the unincorporated treatment this tool assumes.