All Hong Kong restaurant licences will include national security clauses from September, Secretary for Environment and Ecology Tse Chin-wan has said. Secretary for Environment and Ecology Tse Chin-wan meets the press on January 26, 2024. Photo: Kyle Lam/HKFP. Tse made the remarks on Tuesday, nearly a year after the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department (FEHD) introduced the provisions for restaurant licence renewals in May.
“With restaurants renewing their licences gradually, we expect that by September this year, all restaurant licences will contain the clauses,” Tse told reporters, according to RTHK .
According to an FEHD letter sent to restaurants , entertainment premises, and other businesses last year, business licence holders and “related persons” who engage in “offending conduct” against national security or the public interest could see their licences revoked. “Related persons” include directors, management, employees, agents, and subcontractors, the letter read. Screenshot of the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department’s food business licence application form dated May 2025. Photo: Screenshot. An updated version of the FEHD’s food business licence application form, dated May 2025, invited applicants to sign beneath a paragraph that read: “I shall ensure that no act or activity engaged or involved in by me or any of my related persons… may constitute or cause the occurrence of an offence endangering national security under the National Security Law or other laws of the HKSAR, or conduct [that] is otherwise contrary to the interests of national security or the interest of the public (including public morals, public order and/or public safety) of Hong Kong.”
However, the paragraph was not present when HKFP checked the current form, dated November 2025. File Photo: Kyle Lam/HKFP. Tse said on Tuesday that no violations of the national security clauses had been detected so far.
Offending conduct ‘clearly stated’ – CE
Some eatery owners told Ming Pao last year that they feared the new conditions were too vague and that they could lose their licences over false allegations.
However, Chief Executive John Lee said the FEHD was bound by law to safeguard national security, and the “offending conduct” against national security is “clearly stated” in the conditions. Chief Executive John Lee at a press conference on January 27, 2026. Photo: Kyle Lam/HKFP. “Offending conduct means any offence that endangers national security, or acts and events that are contrary to national security and public interest in Hong Kong. It is very clear,” he said in June.
Government adviser Ronny Tong told HK01 in an interview published last year that it was “hard to say” if the new conditions were targeted at “yellow shops,” a term that refers to businesses that have expressed a pro-democracy stance. Beijing inserted national security legislation directly into Hong Kong’s mini-constitution in June 2020 following a year of pro-democracy protests and unrest. It criminalised subversion, secession, collusion with foreign forces and terrorist acts – broadly defined to include disruption to transport and other infrastructure. The move gave police sweeping new powers and led to hundreds of arrests amid new legal precedents , while dozens of civil society groups disappeared . The authorities say it restored stability and peace to the city, rejecting criticism from trade partners , the UN and NGOs .