Hong Kong Government Transport Department Schedules 2026

The Hong Kong Transport Department does not run ferries. It issues the licences that allow other people to run them, and it publishes the consolidated timetable for all of them — which is why 1,635 departures across 63 routes are filed under this name here. Read it as the government’s master list, not as one company’s fleet.

Since 1 April 1999 almost nothing has been run by the government

From that date most ferry services passed to licensed ferry operators. As at 31 December 2024 there were 10 licensed operators running 21 regular licensed passenger services to the outlying islands and across the harbour. Two services remain franchised rather than licensed, and both belong to The “Star” Ferry Company: Central to Tsim Sha Tsui, and Wan Chai to Tsim Sha Tsui.

Nearly a third of this listing is one nine-minute crossing

Of the departures recorded here, 495 — about 30% — are Star Ferry between Central Pier No. 7 and Tsim Sha Tsui, in the two directions. That single franchise outweighs every outlying-island route combined. The crossing is timetabled at 9 minutes, runs from 06:30 to 23:30, and departs every 6 to 8 minutes at peak, 10 to 12 off-peak.

You pay fifty cents more to sit upstairs

Star Ferry charges by deck. Monday to Friday, excluding public holidays, the upper deck is HK$2.7 and the lower deck HK$2.2. On Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays it is HK$3.7 and HK$3.1. The gap between decks is HK$0.50 on a weekday, and the weekend surcharge is bigger than the deck difference. The published fare basis for this crossing has been in force since 15 July 2017.

Bicycles and freight have their own tariffs

The department publishes a full fare table per service, and the unusual lines are at the bottom of it. Carrying a bicycle costs HK$11 or HK$14 depending on the route. Freight is charged per cubic metre — HK$332.6 on the services that accept it. On the inner-harbour runs a monthly ticket is sold, HK$400 on North Point–Hung Hom, valid across more than one route. Children under three travel free, and anyone 95 cm or taller is treated as aged three or over unless they can produce an identity card proving otherwise.

A kaito is a legal category, not a kind of boat

Beyond the licensed and franchised services sit the kaitos, small craft serving remote coastal settlements. A kaito operates under a licence approved by the Commissioner for Transport under Section 28 of the Ferry Services Ordinance, Cap. 104. The same ordinance, at Section 4(1), makes it an offence to run any ferry service at all without either a franchise or a licence. So the word describes the paperwork, not the vessel.

The companies behind these departures

The department’s own service pages name the operators: Sun Ferry, Fortune Ferry, The “Star” Ferry Company, New World First Ferry, Park Island Transport, Coral Sea Ferry, Hong Kong & Kowloon Ferry, Tsui Wah Ferry, Chuen Kee Ferry, Discovery Bay Transportation Services and Peng Chau Kaito. Several of them have their own pages on this site, with their own departures listed separately. If a sailing appears twice, that is why: once under the licence holder and once under the licensing authority.

The scale of it

Ferry passengers in Hong Kong came to about 39 million in 2024. For a city with one of the densest rail networks in the world, that is a substantial number of people still choosing to cross the water.