Source: Hong Kong Government special administrative region
The Commissioner of Customs and Excise, Mr Chan Tsz-tat, chaired Customs’ 2025 year-end press conference held at the Customs Headquarters Building today (February 12) to review the department’s efforts in the past year. The department continued to spare no efforts in guarding the southern gateway to the country, intercepting various smuggling activities on all fronts, combatting illicit cigarette and dangerous drug activities, and preventing prohibited/controlled items into or out of Hong Kong, as well as strengthening collaboration with the Chinese Mainland, different countries and regions in implementing various measures to facilitate trade and clearance. All these help Hong Kong proactively capitalise on its role as a bridge linking the country and the world, hence contributing to the high-level opening up and high-quality economic development of the country.
Overall enforcement situation
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In 2025, Customs detected a total of 38 869 cases, an increase of 24 per cent from the 2024 figure. About 75 per cent of the cases are related to illicit cigarettes, followed by cases related to dangerous drugs and intellectual property rights infringement.
Illicit cigarettes
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On the anti-illicit cigarette operation front, 29 037 cases were detected and 28 580 persons were arrested in 2025, increases of 36 per cent and 39 per cent from 2024 respectively, with 604 million cigarettes seized, which was about the same as the 2024 figure.
The significant increase in the number of cases and arrestees mainly stemmed from a huge surge in cases of inbound persons bringing in cigarettes exceeding the duty-free concessions by imposing a penalty on offences compoundable at passenger clearance channels, in which about 27 000 inbound persons were involved. This showed an increase of 41 per cent from 2024. Customs also noticed that syndicates exploited travelers and adopted an “ant-moving-home” approach to smuggle tobacco products into Hong Kong.
In addition, 2 600 cases involving alternative smoking products, with seizures of about 9.35 million pieces of relevant products, including electronic cigarettes and heat-not burn products, were detected last year. 2 559 persons were also arrested.
Illicit fuel
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In 2025, 961 drug cases were detected, which was a decrease of 29 per cent from 2024. A total seizure of about 7.5 tonnes of drugs was made, representing an increase of 19 per cent from 2024.
Smuggling
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A total of 286 smuggling cases were detected last year, an increase of 22 per cent from 2024, with a seizure value of $4.217 billion in total made, representing a drop of 2 per cent from 2024.——————–
Customs last year detected 12 money laundering cases with 24 persons arrested and $12.8 billion involved. The number of cases showed an increase of 9 per cent while the number of arrests and amount involved dropped 27 per cent and 33 per cent respectively.
Intellectual property rights
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Customs detected 723 intellectual property rights infringement cases last year with about 970,000 infringing goods seized. The seizure value of infringing items increased 35 per cent to around $420 million as compared to the figure for 2024.———————————————————–
Clearance
(1) The Single E-lock Scheme was extended to the Fuzhou Customs District in July last year, increasing the number of Customs clearance points under the scheme to 99. Thousands of cross boundary routes were provided to the industry and a “green lane” for facilitating logistics flows between Hong Kong and Guangdong was built.———————————————————-
Hong Kong Customs last year continued to reinforce connections with both the Mainland and the world, promoting regional and global exchanges and co-operation.
New uniform
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To enhance occupational safety, work efficiency, and the department’s professional image, Hong Kong Customs has designed a new uniform. The new design fully considers feedback from frontline staff, meeting their needs for comfort, functionality, and aesthetics. Customs has been replacing the uniforms of 4 500 frontline officers with the new ones starting last June, and the full implementation will be completed in the second quarter of this year, hoping to give the department a refreshed image while improving the work efficiency of staff.——————
Conclusion
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Mr Chan said that the department will embrace changes and be bold in promoting trade and clearance measures, as well as in executing daily tasks, so as to pursue the most ambitious goals.