Total annual MPF an employer pays across the team, at 5 percent up to the monthly cap.
Total annual MPF cost
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Per employee per year
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Per employee per month
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Total monthly cost
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Headcount
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Your breakdown
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MPF is a real line in your headcount budget
When you hire in Hong Kong, the salary you offer is not the full cost. On top of every employee's pay you contribute 5 percent of their relevant income to a mandatory MPF scheme, and across a team that adds up fast. This tool is built for founders, finance leads and anyone modelling a payroll: it prices the employer share per head and multiplies by your headcount so you can see the annual commitment before you sign offer letters.
The employer 5 percent is capped, which keeps the cost predictable at the top end. The cap modelled here is $1,500 a month per employee, which is 5 percent of the $30,000 monthly relevant income ceiling. Once a staff member earns at or above that ceiling, your contribution for them stops rising. Take these limits as the figures the calculator applies and confirm the current thresholds with the MPFA, since they are reviewed periodically.
The quirk that catches new employers
Here is the rule people get wrong. The employee minimum relevant income, currently $7,100 a month, exempts the worker from contributing, but it does not exempt you. If a part-timer earns below that floor, they pay nothing, yet you must still contribute your 5 percent on their relevant income. So a low-paid hire is not MPF-free for the business. The exemption protects the employee's take-home pay, not the employer's bill. Build that into your costings for casual and junior roles.
Costing a team of ten on $25,000 each
Take the default: ten staff on an average monthly salary of $25,000. That is below the $30,000 ceiling, so each one attracts 5 percent of the full salary, which is $1,250 a month per employee. Over a year that is $15,000 per head, comfortably under the $18,000 annual cap because the salary sits below the ceiling. Multiply by ten and the firm's annual MPF cost is $150,000, or $12,500 a month across the team.
What the tool deliberately leaves out
This is a clean estimate, not a payroll engine. It assumes one average salary across the team, so a workforce that mixes a few high earners at the cap with several low earners will not match exactly. It also ignores the first-sixty-days exemption that can apply to new joiners in their initial period, and it does not model voluntary contributions some employers offer to compete for talent. For accurate filings, your MPF trustee or payroll provider calculates each employee individually. Use this for budgeting and headcount planning, then reconcile against the real schedule. As a structural note, the employer contribution is generally a deductible business expense against profits tax, which takes some of the sting out of the gross figure shown here.
A budgeting tip worth building into your model: MPF cost does not scale evenly with pay rises. Once a salary crosses the $30,000 monthly ceiling, the employer contribution for that person freezes at $1,500 a month, so giving a senior employee a raise from $35,000 to $45,000 adds nothing to your MPF bill, while the same dollar increase for a junior on $20,000 raises it. When you forecast a year of promotions and pay reviews, your MPF line grows fastest at the lower and middle of the salary band and flattens at the top. That makes a team of many mid-paid staff proportionally more expensive on MPF than a few highly paid ones, which is the opposite of what people often assume when they look only at total payroll.
Is the employer MPF contribution tax deductible for the business?
As a rule, mandatory employer contributions are an allowable deduction against profits tax, and voluntary contributions can be deductible up to a limit linked to staff remuneration. Confirm the current treatment and any caps with the Inland Revenue Department before you file.
Do I pay MPF for staff on probation or short contracts?
Usually yes once they pass the qualifying employment period, with a common exemption for the first sixty days of employment. Casual workers in industries like construction and catering can fall under industry schemes with their own rules, so check the arrangement that fits your sector with the MPFA.