"After You Get the Licence: Hong Kong's CPD Requirements in One Read"

Last updated 2026-08-11

Many candidates put all their attention on the examination, assuming that once they pass and get licensed, they are done for good.

In reality, getting licensed is only the beginning. Individual licensees face an annual Continuing Professional Development (CPD) hours requirement — an ongoing obligation set out in the Insurance Authority's Guideline on Continuing Professional Development for Licensed Insurance Intermediaries (GL24, 2025 edition, effective from 1 August 2025).

First, the time frame: the assessment period

CPD is not counted by calendar year but by assessment period:

1 August each year to 31 July of the following year (both dates inclusive).

Every hours requirement is settled against this cycle. Getting the cycle wrong is the least worthwhile mistake to make — leave your hours until August, for instance, and they already count towards the next assessment period.

The core requirement: 15 hours, of which 3 in "Ethics or Regulations"

The core requirement under GL24 §3.1 is:

• An individual licensee must earn at least 15 CPD hours in each assessment period
• At least 3 of those must fall under the "Ethics or Regulations" category

Note the "of which" relationship: the 3 "Ethics or Regulations" hours count towards the 15-hour total — they are not an extra 3 on top.

Three special cases

Beyond the core requirement, GL24 makes different arrangements for three categories of people:

If you have not reached this stage yet — how to apply for a licence and what the conditions are — see the licence application process.

Two practical pitfalls

First, excess hours cannot be carried forward. Hours earned beyond the minimum in one assessment period cannot be rolled into a subsequent assessment period. "Do a bit more this year, a bit less next year" simply does not work — every assessment period must be met on its own.

Second, e-learning is counted in half-hour units per 30 minutes. Each 30 minutes of participation in an e-learning activity counts as 0.5 CPD hours (GL24 Annex 1). The conversion is straightforward — when choosing courses, match the course duration against the converted hours, rather than just counting the number of courses.

Where to find recognised activities

The IA publishes a list of recognised CPD activities on its website — before enrolling, check the official page to confirm the activity is on the list, as published at the relevant time.

The dividing line with the exam: one comes before entry, the other after

Lay the timeline out and it becomes clear:

• Before entry: satisfy the application prerequisites (passing the qualifying examination, being

appointed by a principal, and so on) → apply for the licence — for the relationship between the exam and the licence, see Does passing the IIQE mean you can sell insurance?

• After entry: complete the CPD hours requirement in every assessment period

The exam is taken once; CPD comes round every year. At the preparation stage you need not rush into the details of CPD, but you should at least know it exists — it is the "fixed annual routine after licensing", and part of the "ongoing requirements" within Hong Kong's insurance regulatory framework (the subject of Paper I Chapter 6).

Sources and currency

The CPD requirements in this article are drawn from the Insurance Authority's Guideline on Continuing Professional Development for Licensed Insurance Intermediaries (GL24), 2025 edition (effective from 1 August 2025); provision numbers follow that edition. Licensing and CPD are regulatory requirements and subject to change as the regulator amends them — the specific requirements are governed by what the IA publishes at the relevant time, and the list of recognised CPD activities is as published on the IA website at the relevant time. This article was organised and written by Mange and is not a complete restatement of the guideline's provisions.

Mange does not own, and does not claim to own, copyright in any official examination material; the content on this page is written by Mange. Nothing on this page is a promise about any examination outcome, nor does it constitute legal advice; the specific licensing and CPD obligations are governed by the IA's requirements as published at the relevant time.