The governments of Macau and Hong Kong have announced a new mode of immigration from this Friday 19 July whereby residents of either can use their cell phones to pass through customs without having to present physical documents.
The 300,000 eligible Macau residents who have registered to use “Hong Kong Express e-Channel Service” will be able to automatically generate a QR code for use in Hong Kong’s self-service immigration channels after updating the government’s mobile phone app “Macau One Account”.
As for Hong Kong residents, those who are eligible for self-service clearance can use the QR codes in the Hong Kong Immigration Department’s mobile application “Contactless e-Channel” to use the self-service channels in Macau.
The two governments said in a statement that they anticipate the new mode of customs clearance will speed up the movement of people between the two SARs and further enhance the quality of immigration services.
Hong Kong has long been an important source of tourists to Macau as its second largest source market after mainland China. According to the latest figures from the Statistics and Census Service, a total of 582,083 Hong Kong visitors entered Macau in May of this year.