Private Client and Family Office

Private client and family office work in China

Private client work for Chinese families has changed character over the past decade. The first generation of entrepreneurs who built China's private sector is handing over to children who were often educated abroad, may hold foreign nationality and have different views on the family business. Wealth that was once concentrated in a single operating company now sits in listed shares, funds, property in several countries and offshore trusts. At the same time, tax transparency, foreign exchange rules and family law have become more demanding. Our practice brings these strands together for families, their companies and their advisers.

We work with founders and family principals, next-generation family members, family offices, and the trustees, banks and advisers who serve them. The common thread is cross-border complexity: assets in mainland China and abroad, family members in several jurisdictions, and decisions that touch company law, trust law, tax and family relationships at once. As a representative office, we focus on structuring, international and non-PRC law advice and coordination, working with licensed PRC law firms where mainland legal advice or proceedings are needed.

Who we work with

Our clients include first-generation founders planning a handover, next-generation family members taking on responsibility for the business or the family office, and families who have already moved part of their lives abroad. We also work with professional trustees, private banks, multi-family offices and accountants who need a cross-border perspective on Chinese families' affairs, and with international families who have assets, businesses or relatives in mainland China and need to understand how mainland rules affect their plans.

Engagements range from a single question, such as whether a Hong Kong will is enough for a Hong Kong account, to multi-year programmes covering a family office, several trusts, a listing and a governance process. We scale the team accordingly, and we are clear at the outset about which parts require licensed PRC law firms, notaries or tax advisers in other jurisdictions.

The private client regulatory landscape

There is no single private client statute in China. The relevant rules come from civil law, trust and financial regulation, company law, tax and foreign exchange. Understanding how they interact is the starting point for any plan.

Civil Code: family and succession

The Civil Code, in force since 1 January 2021, contains the rules on marriage, marital property, guardianship and succession. It recognises six forms of will, provides that where several wills conflict the last prevails, introduced the role of estate administrator and allows adults to choose a guardian in advance in case they lose capacity. The Supreme People's Court's second interpretation on the marriage and family book, effective 1 February 2025, addressed issues such as gifts between spouses and property arrangements, which bear directly on wealth planning.

Trust law and trust regulation

The Trust Law, in force since 2001, provides the legal basis for family trusts. Onshore family trusts are run by licensed trust companies, with a minimum of RMB 10 million under trust business classification rules effective 1 June 2023. The National Financial Regulatory Administration's Administrative Measures for Trust Companies, published in the State Council Gazette, took effect on 1 January 2026 and replaced the 2007 measures. Since Beijing launched the first pilot in December 2024, cities including Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Xiamen have piloted the registration of real estate as trust property, and Beijing and Shanghai have also piloted equity trust registration.

Company law and private enterprise

The revised Company Law took effect on 1 July 2024, with a five-year limit for paying in subscribed capital in new limited liability companies and stronger duties for directors, supervisors and senior managers. For family businesses, this affects holding structures, capital planning and the responsibilities of family members on boards. The Private Economy Promotion Law, effective 20 May 2025, sets out principles supporting private enterprises, including protection of property rights and the lawful rights of entrepreneurs.

Tax and transparency

Mainland resident individuals are taxed on worldwide income under the Individual Income Tax Law, which also contains anti-avoidance rules relevant to offshore companies. China exchanges financial account information under the Common Reporting Standard with more than 100 jurisdictions. In 2025, tax authorities in Beijing, Fujian, Guangdong, Xiamen, Shenzhen and Sichuan publicised cases of individuals who had failed to declare overseas income, signalling a sustained enforcement focus.

In July 2026 the Ministry of Finance and the State Taxation Administration issued rules on individual income tax for offshore trusts: a resident settlor is taxed on assets transferred into an offshore trust as a disposal at market value, and on the trust's income each year whether or not it is distributed. Mainland China has no inheritance or gift tax, but other jurisdictions where families hold assets may.

Hong Kong and other hubs

Hong Kong offers a 0% profits tax concession for qualifying family-owned investment holding vehicles managed by single family offices, and a 2026 amending bill proposed to widen it from the year of assessment 2025/26, subject to passage. The New Capital Investment Entrant Scheme offers residence for investments of at least HK$30 million. Singapore, the UK, Canada, the US and Australia are also common destinations, each with its own tax and succession rules.

Our private client services

The private client group covers nine connected areas. Most families need several of them at once, and the boundaries between them are porous; we start with the family's objectives and then bring in the relevant pieces.

Family office structuring

Family office structuring covers the design of the entities, governance and tax position through which a family manages its wealth, usually combining an onshore coordinating company with a Hong Kong or Singapore investment platform. We look at FIHV conditions, licensing boundaries, substance and the mainland tax and foreign exchange position. We also help families decide whether a dedicated office is justified at all, or whether a multi-family office or a small coordinating team would serve them better.

Family trusts

Family trusts explains onshore trusts run by trust companies, offshore trusts in Hong Kong and elsewhere, and how the two fit together. Topics include funding, registration pilots, protectors, letters of wishes and the risks of sham control or contested funding. We also cover insurance trusts, trusts holding pre-IPO shares, and the interaction between trusts and marital property, which is often where structures are tested in practice.

Succession and estate planning

Succession and estate planning deals with wills, statutory succession, estate administrators, incapacity planning and multi-jurisdiction probate, alongside lifetime tools such as gifts, insurance and trusts. For founders, the plan must also deal with company articles and shareholder agreements, because shares often form the largest and least liquid part of the estate.

Family governance and constitutions

Family governance and constitutions covers family charters, councils, assemblies, employment and dividend policies and education programmes for the next generation, so that decisions are made through agreed processes rather than personal authority alone. Good governance documents are short enough to be read, specific enough to be used and linked to the legal instruments, such as trust deeds and articles, that give them effect.

Family enterprise control structures

Family enterprise control structures addresses how a family keeps control of its business across generations: holding companies, limited partnerships, voting agreements, weighted voting rights where permitted, and articles that govern transfers on death or divorce. Where the business is listed or preparing to list, control arrangements must also satisfy exchange disclosure and stability-of-control expectations.

Family enterprise crisis response

Family enterprise crisis response covers sudden events such as the death, incapacity or detention of a founder, a liquidity crunch or a public dispute, and the steps to stabilise control, banking relationships and communications. Preparation is the best response: emergency powers, deputy signatories, a contact list of advisers and a plan for the first seventy-two hours.

Cross-border inheritance and marriage

Cross-border inheritance and marriage looks at conflicts of law, foreign probate, prenuptial and post-nuptial agreements, and the recognition of marriages, divorces and wills between jurisdictions. Families with members of different nationalities, or who marry abroad, often discover that their assumptions about marital property do not hold in the country where a divorce or death is dealt with.

Family disputes

Family disputes covers succession claims, trust disputes, shareholder conflicts within families and divorce-related asset disputes, with an emphasis on mediation and arbitration where they can protect privacy and relationships. We coordinate strategy across jurisdictions and work with licensed PRC law firms for any mainland court proceedings, and with arbitration counsel where disputes are referred to institutions in Hong Kong or Shenzhen.

Global asset planning

Global asset planning addresses how families hold investments, property and bank accounts internationally, with attention to tax residence, CRS reporting, foreign exchange rules and the choice of holding jurisdictions. Diversification is increasingly about legal and political risk as well as investment risk, and families want structures that remain workable if one jurisdiction becomes difficult.

Cross-border private client themes

A few themes run through almost every private client matter for Chinese families. Recognising them early prevents costly surprises.

• Several legal systems at once: a mainland founder with a Hong Kong trust, a Canadian daughter and a London flat may face four sets of succession and tax rules. Plans must be tested against each.
• Tax residence of the next generation: children who become resident in the US, UK, Canada or Australia can bring trust and company income into those tax systems, sometimes with harsh results if structures were not adapted in advance.
• Transparency: CRS, beneficial ownership registers and bank due diligence mean that structures must be explainable and documented, with a clear source-of-wealth narrative.
• Foreign exchange: mainland rules on outbound transfers shape what can be funded from onshore assets and what must come from offshore liquidity.
• Family relationships: the most sophisticated structure fails if the family does not understand or accept it. Governance and communication are part of the legal work.

The next generation

Succession is often framed as a question of documents, but the harder question is usually people. Many second-generation family members have built careers outside the family business or live abroad. Some want to run the company; others want a fair share of value without operational responsibility. Plans that separate ownership, control and management, and that offer realistic paths for both groups, tend to last longer than plans that assume every child will join the business. Education programmes, gradual exposure to board decisions and clear rules on family employment all help to prepare successors and to manage expectations within the wider family.

How a private client engagement works

Every family is different, but most engagements follow a similar path. The timeline depends on the number of jurisdictions, the assets involved and how quickly the family can reach decisions.

Throughout, we coordinate with the family's existing advisers, including tax advisers, trustees, private banks and, for mainland matters, licensed PRC law firms and notaries. Our role is to keep the plan coherent across jurisdictions and to make sure that each document does what the overall design requires.

A worked example

A Shenzhen technology founder plans a Hong Kong listing within two years. Her husband is a mainland resident, their elder son studies in the UK and their younger daughter is at school in Shenzhen. Discovery shows informal nominee holdings in two onshore subsidiaries, no wills and an articles of association that would pass her shares to all statutory heirs equally. The design phase recommends regularising the nominee holdings, settling pre-IPO shares into an offshore trust with a Hong Kong trustee, a post-nuptial agreement confirming the treatment of marital property, coordinated mainland and Hong Kong wills, and a voluntary guardianship agreement.

Because the son may become UK resident, the trust is reviewed with UK tax advisers before it is settled. After listing, a Hong Kong single family office is considered once liquidity is available, rather than in advance. Each step is sequenced against the listing timetable, so that disclosure in the prospectus describes the final structure accurately and no restructuring is needed after the offering, when lock-ups and market scrutiny make changes far harder and more expensive to carry out.

Related practices

Private client matters often connect with our other practices. Tax questions are covered in private client tax and offshore trusts and individual income tax. Families with fund platforms may find institutional asset and wealth management relevant, and families preparing listings should read about A-share, Hong Kong and US IPOs.

Common private client mistakes

In our experience, the same mistakes recur across families of very different sizes and backgrounds.

1. Relying on informal arrangements: nominee shareholdings and verbal understandings that heirs cannot prove.
2. One document for everything: a single will intended to cover assets in several countries.
3. Ignoring incapacity: no plan for a founder who is alive but unable to make decisions.
4. Structures nobody understands: offshore chains set up years ago with no current documentation or explanation.
5. No review: plans that are never updated after marriages, divorces, births, listings or moves abroad.
6. Overlooking tax residence changes: family members moving abroad without advice on how existing structures will be taxed.
7. Leaving the family out: structures imposed without explanation, which heirs later challenge because they never understood or accepted the reasoning behind them.

How TRW & Co helps private client families

TRW & Co's Shenzhen representative office advises Chinese and international families on cross-border wealth, succession and governance. We advise on Hong Kong and other non-PRC laws where our lawyers are qualified, design structures that work across jurisdictions, prepare and negotiate trust, company and governance documents, and manage implementation with banks, trustees and tax advisers. Where mainland legal advice, notarisation, filings or court proceedings are needed, we coordinate closely with licensed PRC law firms. We aim to give families one coherent plan rather than a collection of separate documents. To discuss your family's situation in confidence, please contact us.