Hong Kong’s top political appointees, including ministers and other senior officials, will receive a 1.3 percent salary increase effective July 1, 2026, the Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Bureau confirmed on Monday. This adjustment follows an earlier announcement in June that civil servants will be granted a 2 percent pay raise this year.

The bureau said the salary revision for politically appointed officials is determined annually based on recommendations from an independent commission that reviews remuneration for lawmakers, Executive Council members, and other political appointees. The adjustment is tied to the average annual change in the consumer price index (CPI) category C, which represents approximately 10 percent of households with higher-than-average monthly expenditures.

The 1.3 percent rise corresponds to the inflation rate recorded for that CPI category over the 12 months ending in May 2026. Last year, the government implemented a pay freeze for the city’s chief executive, politically appointed officials, non-official Exco members, lawmakers, and civil servants as part of efforts to manage public expenditure and address the city’s budget deficit.

While the Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Bureau did not release precise salary figures, calculations based on 2024 data indicate that the chief secretary for administration, Hong Kong’s second-highest official, will see a monthly salary increase from HK$417,330 to HK$422,755. Similarly, the financial secretary’s monthly pay is estimated to rise from HK$403,215 to HK$408,457, and the secretary for justice’s from HK$389,580 to HK$394,645.

The three deputy secretaries’ monthly salaries are projected to increase from HK$382,990 to HK$387,969, while the 15 bureau chiefs’ remuneration will go up from HK$376,405 to HK$381,298. These changes occur amid legislative approval earlier this year of a 2 percent salary increase for civil servants. However, some lawmakers have criticized that raise as inadequate, arguing it falls short of recommendations from pay trend surveys and demands from labor unions. The civil service adjustment applies retroactively from April 2026.

The current salary mechanism, adopted with the endorsement of then-Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor in May 2022, relies on the independent commission’s annual assessments. Aside from pay freezes in 2020 and 2021 during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic and the freeze implemented last year, politically appointed officials’ salaries have steadily increased, with annual adjustments ranging from 1.8 percent to 4.1 percent between 2022 and 2024.

Over the past decade, these cumulative adjustments have raised the salaries of Hong Kong’s ministers and political appointees by approximately 27.8 percent.