An ordinary shopping trip by Mr. Chen, a Hong Kong citizen, sealed a new moment of cross-border consumption between Shenzhen and Hong Kong.
This week, after he purchased the drone and completed the payment, he operated his mobile phone under the guidance of the staff. In less than 5 minutes, the departure tax refund was credited to the WeChat Pay HK account in real time. There was no need to run offline or fill out cumbersome forms during the whole process. It became the first transaction in the country where the departure tax refund could be “refunded immediately upon purchase” through cross-border payment and directly transferred to the overseas wallet.
As the only city in the country that has covered all types of departure tax refund ports by sea, land and air, Shenzhen has currently opened 6 departure tax refund ports, covering the main connection points between Shenzhen and Hong Kong from east to west, providing basic convenience for overseas tourists to consume.
The implementation of the cross-border payment tax refund has pushed this convenience to a new level – relying on the cross-border payment system promoted by the central banks of mainland China and Hong Kong in 2025, Shenzhen has realized the entire process of departure tax refund from application to fund arrival online and cross-border, allowing the consumer finance boundary between Shenzhen and Hong Kong to continue to dissolve through the collaborative innovation of technology and system.
On-site: It only takes five minutes to upgrade the tax refund service without any sense
At the Shenzhen Shenzhen Shangcheng Duty Free Shop, the reporter saw the newly posted “Departure Tax Refund, Buy Now” guide board next to the cashier, which was particularly eye-catching. The four operation steps were clearly marked on it. There were no complicated process instructions, only simple mobile phone operation instructions.
The reporter saw a Hong Kong couple experiencing such a tax refund service for the first time in Shenzhen. Previously, he had to fill in cross-border payment information when shopping in Shenzhen, and he also had to wait for several days to receive the payment. Sometimes there was also a handling fee. “Tax refund is more like an additional benefit, and I always find it troublesome.”
This time, the experience was completely different.
With the assistance of the staff, he opened the “Tax Easy to Get” WeChat applet and only needed to take photos and upload the Mainland Travel Pass and shopping receipts for Hong Kong and Macao residents, and the system would automatically identify the relevant information without manual input. On the payment method selection interface, he directly clicked “WeChat Pay HK”, checked the account information and clicked Confirm. The bank background completed the review immediately, and the tax refund was credited to his account in seconds.
A payment notification pops up on the phone screen.
After a Hong Kong customer applied for a tax refund, he couldn’t help but show it to his friends: “The money will be in the Hong Kong wallet right away. It can be used at any time when shopping and buying things, without any delay.”
The whole process takes less than 5 minutes, with zero movement, zero forms, and zero handling fees. The full tax refund goes directly to the overseas wallet. This is the most intuitive experience of this cross-border payment tax refund service.
The staff told reporters that after the first order was placed, many Hong Kong customers have taken the initiative to ask about the tax refund process. “In the past, the tax refund procedures were cumbersome and not many people asked. But now it can be done with just a few clicks on a mobile phone. Everyone’s enthusiasm is obviously higher.”
This “unfeeling” convenience has transformed the departure tax refund from an “icing on the cake” benefit into a “hard starting point” to enhance the attractiveness of consumption in Shenzhen. It has also added a Bay Area-like lifestyle to the forefront of Shenzhen-Hong Kong consumption integration.
Core: Innovation through multi-party collaboration, implementation of cross-border payment scenarios
This five-minute convenient experience is not an attempt by a single entity, but a top-down, multi-party collaborative innovation of systems and technologies. Behind it is the underlying support of the cross-border payment system, as well as the precise connection between taxation, financial institutions, and payment platforms.
In 2025, the People’s Bank of China and the Hong Kong Monetary Authority will jointly promote the launch of cross-border payment channels, realizing the interconnection of the mainland and Hong Kong fast payment systems for the first time, and building an efficient channel for cross-border fund settlement between Shenzhen and Hong Kong. The implementation of this departure tax refund scenario is an extension of this financial innovation from basic functions to people’s livelihood applications.
Under the guidance of the Shenzhen Taxation Bureau of the State Administration of Taxation and the Shenzhen Branch of the People’s Bank of China, the ICBC Shenzhen Branch, as the core bank for the cross-border payment pilot, assumed the core work of system docking and fund settlement, and upgraded and launched the one-stop cross-border payment service in the departure tax refund scenario; WeChat Pay HK opened up the last link of the overseas payment wallet and innovatively opened the Shenzhen departure tax refund service entrance, allowing tax refunds to truly be “directly at your fingertips”.
The precise collaboration of the three parties has solved the core pain points of tax refunds for overseas tourists before departure. In the past, most tax refund funds were transferred to mainland accounts, and Hong Kong tourists had to go through additional processes such as currency exchange and cross-border transfers. However, this service has achieved four core breakthroughs: a smooth experience, no need to fill in cross-border collection information; efficient remittance, with funds arriving in seconds; preferential fees, with zero cross-border clearing fees; and convenient consumption, tax refunds can be used immediately.
The essence of this innovation is to transform the interconnection of financial infrastructure into practical convenience in people’s livelihood services.
As an important carrier of financial integration between Shenzhen and Hong Kong, Cross-border Payment Pass has gradually become an important way for cross-border fund settlement between Shenzhen and Hong Kong since its launch. The departure tax refund scenario this time has allowed this system to go beyond the counters of financial institutions and enter business districts and markets, becoming an important support for serving the daily consumption of residents in the Greater Bay Area.
This is also the distinctive feature of Shenzhen’s financial innovation: it is always guided by people’s livelihood needs, and the exploration of institutional openness is implemented in actual scenarios that are visible and tangible to the masses.
Observation: From data growth to service upgrades, the inevitable trend of consumer integration in the Greater Bay Area
The implementation of the first cross-border payment tax refund is not an accident, but an inevitable demand as the cross-border consumer market in Shenzhen continues to heat up.
Data from the Shenzhen Branch of the People’s Bank of China shows that in 2024, there will be 240 million entries and exits in Shenzhen, and 146 million non-cash payment transactions by foreigners in Shenzhen, worth 19.887 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase respectively.
62% and 78%, of which Hong Kong residents made 104 million transactions and 12.273 billion yuan in Shenzhen, a year-on-year increase of 72% and 81% respectively. The two major areas of shopping malls and restaurants attracted about 60% of Hong Kong residents to spend money in Shenzhen.
Behind the increasing data is the deep integration of Shenzhen and Hong Kong’s “one-hour living circle” and the urgent need for cross-border consumption convenience among residents of the Greater Bay Area.
In recent years, Shenzhen has built a comprehensive payment demonstration area around “cards, codes, coins and packages”. Innovative payment methods such as “external card binding” and “outsourcing internal use” have rapidly become popular, making the payment process for overseas people in Shenzhen more and more convenient.
The upgrade of the tax refund service has completed the “last link” of cross-border consumption – the entire process from payment to tax refund has been facilitated, making the consumption experience of Hong Kong residents in Shenzhen more complete and further activating the consumption vitality of the Greater Bay Area.
From a more macro perspective, this innovation is an important step in Shenzhen’s high-level opening up and financial integration in the Greater Bay Area.
As the innovation frontier in the country’s departure tax refund services, Shenzhen has been continuously exploring policy optimization and service upgrades. From port expansion to process simplification, to the implementation of this cross-border payment scenario, Shenzhen has gradually made departure tax refund services more in line with the consumption habits of overseas tourists.
It is understood that after the first order is launched, as the number of cross-border payment service institutions continues to increase, the tax refund channel will also cover the overseas accounts of dozens of mainstream banks in Hong Kong and the United Arab Emirates, allowing this convenience to benefit a wider group of overseas travelers.
In the future, Shenzhen will continue to expand tax refund links such as overseas electronic wallet refunds and international card tax refunds, and enrich processing channels such as WeChat, Alipay mini-programs, and self-service machines.
This means that Shenzhen’s departure tax refund innovation will not only continue to deepen the consumption integration between Shenzhen and Hong Kong, but also move towards a higher level of opening up to the outside world, providing financial support for Shenzhen to build an international consumption center city.
Hong Kong consumers consume in Shenzhen and then use Alipay to get tax refunds. This is a microscopic slice of the financial integration between Shenzhen and Hong Kong, but it reflects the clear direction of the high-quality integrated development of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.
From the first tax rebate through cross-border payment to the continuous implementation of various cross-border facilitation services, Shenzhen is using pragmatic innovation to make the “city-wide” life in the Greater Bay Area more concrete.
When financial innovation continues to be closer to people’s livelihood, and when the opening up of the system continues to empower consumption, the flow of factors in the Greater Bay Area will become smoother, and residents’ sense of gain will become stronger. This is the most solid foundation for the construction of the Greater Bay Area.
