Summary of the Key Rules

  QFII RQFII Unified QFII and RQFII (January 2019 CSRC Consultation Paper)
Entry Requirements Certain type of institutional investors with certain AUM and operation experience General operation and compliance requirements General operation and compliance requirements
Investment Scope
  • Stocks, bonds and ABS on stock exchanges, including stocks listed on the SSE STAR market
  • Fixed income products on the domestic interbank bond market
  • Publicly offered securities investment funds
  • Stock index futures
  • FX derivatives for hedging purpose only
  • Subscription for new share issuance, convertible bond issuance, secondary share offerings, and share allocations on stock exchanges
  • Stocks, depository receipts, bonds, bond repurchases, and ABS on stock exchanges, including securities listed on the SSE STAR market
  • Shares transferred on the national equities exchange and quotations (NEEQ)
  • Eligible products traded on the domestic interbank bond market
  • Publicly offered securities investment funds
  • Financial futures contracts listed and traded on the china financial futures exchange (CFFEX)
  • Commodity futures contracts listed and traded on futures exchanges approved by the CSRC
  • Options listed and traded on futures exchanges approved by the state council or the CSRC
  • Eligible FX derivatives
  • Subscription for new share issuance, bond issuance, secondary share offerings, and share allocations on stock exchanges and the NEEQ
  • Margin trading and securities lending in stock exchanges
  • Private investment fund whose investment scope conforms to first two types of products listed above
  • A qualified investor can appoint its associated domestic private securities investment fund manager as its investment adviser
Custodians Each qualified investor can only appoint one custodian Restriction on the number of custodians engaged by a qualified investors is removed. If there are more than two custodians, the qualified investor shall appoint a principal custodian
Quota Limit
  • Individual QFII: maximum USD 5bn or minimum USD 20m for basic quota
  • Aggregated market level: USD 300bn
  • Individual RQFII: no limit
  • Aggregated market level: different limit for each RQFII market
Quota limitation was cancelled
Quota Application Within Basic Quota: Filing with SAFE Exceed Basic Quota: Application with SAFE Investment quota of individual qualified foreign investor will no longer need to be approved

  QFII RQFII
Multiple Brokers
  • Onshore
  • Can notify custodian to conduct FX conversion 30 working days prior to actual investment
Offshore
Injection Period SAFE may revoke part or all of its unused investment quota if QFII/RQFII fails to effectively utilize the quota within 1 year since filing or approval
Repatriation
  • Open-ended funds: daily remittance or repatriation for net amount of subscription and redemption
  • Other products or assets: no restriction in remittance or repatriation frequency
  • For repatriation of profit, need to obtain tax clearance and audit financial report for profit
Trading Restrictions
  • Buy/sell the same stock on the same day that might lead to unfair transaction or transfer of interest is prohibited
  • Short-selling is prohibited
  • Same-day turnaround trade is prohibited in exchange market except for bonds and warrants
Foreign Ownership Limit
  • Shareholding by a foreign investor in a single listed company shall not exceed 10% of the total number of shares of the listed company
  • Aggregate shareholding of A shares by all foreign investors in a single listed company shall not exceed 30% of the total number of shares of the listed company
  • Foreign ownership limitation shall be monitored at combined QFII and RQFII level
Eligible Investors
  • Institutional investors with QFII/RQFII Licenses
  • QFII: certain type of institutional investors with certain AUM and operation experience
  • RQFII: institutional investors meet general operation and compliance requirements
  • Entry requirements to be simplified and unified, quantitative criteria to be cancelled
All Hong Kong and overseas institutional and individual investors
Investment Scope
  • Primary and secondary market, including the SSE STAR Market
  • Almost all exchange-listed or traded financial products, including equities, bonds, funds, futures and derivatives
  • Further investment scope expanding under evaluation
  • Secondary market only, excluding the SSE STAR Market
  • Eligible A shares listed in SSE and SZSE
Quota Control
  • Individual-level quota
  • Filing and approval required
  • Quota limitation and approval management to be abolished
  • Market-level Daily quota
Key Features
  • Onshore mechanism
  • Close to domestic institutional investor treatment with access to wide range of financial products
  • Offshore mechanism
  • Relatively flexible with limited range of eligible financial products

Taxation Rules

  Exchange Market China Inter-bank Market (CIBM)
Capital Gain
  • On 14 November 2014, Ministry of Finance (MOF), State Taxation Administration (SAT) and CSRC jointly issued a notice regarding the tax treatment on capital gains for QFII and RQFII
  • It was advised that QFII and RQFII will be temporarily exempted from corporate income tax (CIT) for the capital gains derived from transferring stocks and other equity investment
    in Mainland China effective from 17 November 2014, and the capital gains derived before 17 November 2014 shall pay corporate income tax
  • http://www.chinatax.gov.cn/chinatax/n362/c484890/content.html (Chinese)
  • On 8 November 2017, PBOC released Operational Procedures for overseas institutional investors to Enter
    CIBM and stated that the capital gain realized from bond sales is temporarily exempt from CIT
Dividends and Coupon Interest