Eligible universities under Hong Kong's Top Talent Pass Scheme increased to 200

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The annually updated aggregate list of eligible universities took effect on 1 January 2026.

The Hong Kong SAR Government has updated the aggregate list of eligible universities under the Top Talent Pass Scheme (TTPS), effective 1 January 2026.

At present, the aggregate list comprises:

• the top 100 universities/institutions in four world university rankings in the past five years:
  • the Times Higher Education World University Rankings,
  • the Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) World University Rankings,
  • the U.S. News and World Report's Best Global Universities Rankings, and
  • the Shanghai Jiao Tong University Academic Ranking of World Universities)
• the top five universities/institutions providing specialised hotel programmes on the QS World University Rankings in the discipline of "hospitality and leisure management" in the past five years;
• the top five specialised institutions on the QS World University Rankings in the discipline of "Art and Design" in the past five years; and
• the top 20 ranked Mainland universities under the Shanghai Jiao Tong University Best Chinese Universities Ranking in the past five years.

Following the changes to the above-cited university rankings, the number of eligible universities/institutions in the updated aggregate list has increased to 200. Newly added universities are:

• Adelaide University (Australia)
• University of Vienna (Austria)
• Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) (Germany)
• Politecnico di Milano (Italy)
• King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals (Saudi Arabia)

Meanwhile, Ecole Polytechnique, Université Grenoble Alpes, Universite Sorbonne Paris Cite-USPC and University of Freiburg have been removed from the list. From 1 January 2026, bachelor’s degree graduates from these four universities/institutions will no longer be eligible for applications under Categories B and C of the TTPS.

The TTPS aims to attract talent in the following three categories:

• Category A: persons with annual income reaching HK$2.5mn or above in the year immediately preceding the date of application;
  
• Category B: full-time bachelor's degree graduates of the universities/institutions prescribed in the aggregate list (eligible universities/institutions) with at least three years of work experience over the past five years immediately preceding the date of application; or
  
• Category C: full-time bachelor's degree graduates of eligible universities/institutions in the past five years immediately preceding the date of application with less than three years of work experience.