Finding the current CRS jurisdiction information
Current CRS jurisdiction information lives in two official places, and they answer different questions. The Hong Kong Inland Revenue Department publishes the jurisdictions that are reportable under Hong Kong law. The OECD publishes the bilateral exchange relationships that are currently activated for the automatic exchange of CRS information, direction by direction.
Read the first to find out what Hong Kong treats as reportable. Read the second to find out whether a specific sending-to-receiving relationship is switched on, and on what legal basis.
What the Hong Kong IRD page gives you
The IRD page is titled "Reportable Jurisdictions". It introduces its list in these terms: the following jurisdictions are reportable jurisdictions specified in Part 1 of Schedule 17E to the Inland Revenue Ordinance.
Two things follow from that wording. The list is a creature of Hong Kong legislation, so it tells you about Hong Kong's implementation and not about any other country's rules. And it is a single statutory list rather than a map of which counterparties are actually exchanging with Hong Kong at a given moment.
The same page states that Hong Kong has activated exchange relationships for AEOI with other jurisdictions on the basis of bilateral competent authority agreements or a multilateral competent authority agreement under the Convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters. That sentence describes the legal basis on which relationships are activated. To see whether a particular relationship is live, you have to look at the relationship itself.
What the OECD exchange relationships page gives you
The OECD page covers five instruments: the CRS MCAA, the CbC MCAA, the DPI MCAA, the CARF MCAA and the GIR MCAA. The CRS part displays the activated bilateral exchange relationships currently in place for the automatic exchange of financial account information under the CRS MCAA.
Four features matter when you read that table.
- Direction. Relationships are shown from a sending jurisdiction ("From Jurisdiction") to a receiving jurisdiction ("To Jurisdiction"). A relationship is not automatically symmetrical, so check both directions.
- Legal basis. Each relationship carries its legal basis, and where appropriate the effective date and/or the activation date.
- Non-reciprocal relationships. These are shown only in the "From Jurisdiction" column, for the non-reciprocal jurisdiction. If a pair appears once, it is not a mistake in the table.
- Coverage beyond the MCAA. The table also includes relationships based on EU law, and bilateral agreements for the exchange of CRS information under tax treaties or tax information exchange agreements, to the extent communicated to the OECD Secretariat.
The two sources answer different questions
| Your question | Where to look |
|---|---|
| Is this jurisdiction reportable under Hong Kong law? | IRD "Reportable Jurisdictions" page, Part 1 of Schedule 17E to the Inland Revenue Ordinance |
| Is a given exchange relationship shown as currently activated, and on what basis? | OECD exchange-relationships page, checking the actual directional CRS row and its stated legal basis |
| Is this specific account reportable? | The reporting jurisdiction's own rules; neither page settles it |
The most common error is treating one as a substitute for the other. A jurisdiction's presence in a statutory list does not tell you whether a particular pair is activated, and the activated-pairs table is organised by relationship, not by a single universal roll-up. The OECD table also depends on what jurisdictions have communicated to the OECD Secretariat, which is a different question from what a local statute specifies.
How to check, in order
- Open the IRD Reportable Jurisdictions page.
- Confirm whether the jurisdiction appears in Part 1 of Schedule 17E.
- Open the OECD exchange relationships page.
- Go to the CRS section of the table.
- Search for the sending jurisdiction.
- Read the receiving jurisdiction and the legal basis.
- Note any effective date or activation date shown.
- Check whether the pair appears in both directions or only under "From Jurisdiction".
- Apply the reporting jurisdiction's own rules to the account.
- Re-check both pages before you rely on the result.
What remains open
This article sets out no individual country pair, because no individual row of the OECD interactive table was read for it. Check the table live before treating any pair as active or inactive, and check the local authority's rules before drawing a conclusion about a specific account.
Neither page determines whether a particular account is reportable. That turns on the reporting jurisdiction's own rules on tax residence and account treatment, and on the facts of the account itself.