Nominations for Hong Kong's upcoming legislature election are set to kick off on Oct 24 and run until Nov 6, government officials announced on Friday.

The 2025 Legislative Council General Election, slated for Dec 7, will return a total of 90 lawmakers to the city’s legislature comprising 20 members from the geographical constituencies, 30 from the functional constituencies, and 40 from the Election Committee constituency.

According to a government gazette, nominees must be registered electors aged 21 or above, must have ordinarily resided in Hong Kong for the three years immediately preceding nomination, and must be Chinese permanent residents of Hong Kong with no right of abode in any foreign country.

However, an exception is in place for 12 specified functional constituencies that are permitted to accept nominations of non-Chinese residents or Hong Kong permanent residents who hold right of abode overseas. These constituencies include legal, accountancy, engineering, real estate and construction, and tourism.

A Registration and Electoral Office spokesman said that functional constituency nominees must be registered electors for the relevant functional constituency or have a close connection with it. For the Election Committee constituency election, nominees are not required to be members of the Election Committee.

ALSO READ: Six EC subsectors in HK to hold by-election polls on Sept 7

Each geographical constituency nominee must be subscribed by 100 to 200 registered electors in the constituency while each functional constituency requires subscription from 10 to 20 registered electors of that constituency. Nominees from all three categories will also need to have nominations from 10 to 20 Election Committee members, with at least two but no more than four from each of the five subsectors of the Committee.

Nomination forms can be obtained from the REO offices in Cheung Sha Wan and Kwun Tong from today, or from the relevant constituencies’ Returning Officer offices, any of the district offices, or downloaded from the election website.

Members of the public can inspect copies of the nomination form at the Returning Officers’ offices after the nomination period begins; they can also inspect copies of the functional and Election Committee constituency election nomination forms at the REO office in Kwun Tong.

Contact the writer at: stacyshi@chinadailyhk.com