HKIAC Publishes 2025 Statistics

Total amount in dispute rises by nearly 20% to record US$16.2 billion, average amount in dispute in administered arbitrations grows by 12% to US$53.7 million, and number of administered arbitrations hits historic high

The HKIAC broke new records for the total amount in dispute and the number of new administered arbitrations in 2025, according to the institution's statistical report for 2025 (published on 12 February 2026). The average amount in dispute in administered arbitrations, the total number of new cases and the total number of new arbitrations also approached historic highs.

Read on for key highlights and detailed analysis with year-on-year comparisons across key metrics.

Key highlights

• Record US$16.2 billion total amount in dispute in all arbitration cases (US$15.1 billion for administered cases).
• US$53.7 million average amount in dispute in administered arbitrations (second highest figure on record).
• Record number of new administered arbitrations, highest number of new cases since 2010, and highest number of new arbitrations since 2009.
• Nearly three quarters of new arbitrations filed in 2025 arose out of contracts signed from 2020 onwards.
• Cases featured parties from 61 jurisdictions, 17 different governing laws and arbitrators of 26 nationalities.
• Nearly half of arbitrations submitted in 2025 involved multiple parties / contracts, with increases in number of cases commenced as single arbitration under multiple contracts, and applications for consolidation and joinder.
• US$720 million of assets, evidence or conduct preserved by mainland PRC courts on application of parties to HKIAC arbitrations in 2025, and approximately US$6.4 billion since 2019, pursuant to interim measures arrangement between Hong Kong and mainland PRC.
• More than half of interim relief applications to mainland PRC courts in HKIAC arbitrations related to assets or evidence owned by non-mainland PRC parties.
• Increase in applications for emergency, expedited and early determination procedures.
• Average time taken by HKIAC to appoint emergency arbitrator was 15 hours and 11 minutes, and average time for emergency arbitrator to render decision was 12.1 days (in applications made in 2025).
• 39% of arbitrations concluded in 2025 were settled, compared with 61% concluded by final award.

Amounts in dispute

• The total amount in dispute in all arbitration cases increased by nearly 20% year-on-year to a record HK$126.2 billion (approximately US$16.2 billion).
• The total amount in dispute in all administered arbitration cases was HK$117.7 billion (approximately US$15.1 billion).

• The average amount in dispute in administered arbitrations increased 12% to HK$418.8 million (approximately US$53.7 million), the second highest figure on record after 2023, when the figure was HK$467,600 (approximately US$60.1 million).
  

Caseload and hearings

• The total number of new cases (comprising arbitrations, mediations and domain name disputes) grew by 16% to 582 (the highest figure since 2010).
• Two thirds of new cases were arbitrations, which increased 10% to 388 (the highest figure since 2009).
• Of the new arbitrations, the number which were administered by the HKIAC under its own rules, the UNCITRAL rules and other rules grew 13% to a record 281.
• The HKIAC hosted 95 hearings (down 22% from 122 in 2024), of which 34% were fully or partially virtual (down from 39% in 2024).
• 125 arbitrations were concluded in 2025, 61% of them by final award and 39% of them by party settlement.

Date of contracts

• Nearly three-quarters (72.2%) of new arbitrations filed in 2025 arose out of contracts signed from 2020 onwards, underscoring the continued popularity of HKIAC arbitration and Hong Kong as a seat.

Origin of parties

• Parties from 61 jurisdictions participated in the arbitrations submitted in 2025, up 15% from 2024 and close to the record of 63 which was recorded in 2022 and 2023.
• The top seven geographical origins of parties were unchanged from 2024: Hong Kong, the mainland PRC, the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, Singapore, the USA and the United Arab Emirates.
• The top 10 was rounded out by Indonesia, Brazil, and (in joint tenth place) Russia, Switzerland and the United Kingdom (which replaced South Korea, the Marshall Islands and the Philippines from the 2024 list).
• 84.3% of new arbitrations as a whole and 92.9% of new administered arbitrations were described by the HKIAC as "international" in nature (i.e. at least one party was not from Hong Kong), up from 76.4% and 86.1% respectively in 2024, and above the averages of 74.4% and 88.7% for all years for which data is available.
• Parties from the mainland PRC featured in 41.8% of new arbitrations, a slight increase from 40.6% in 2024.
• 13.7% of new arbitrations involved no Asian parties, down slightly from 14.5% in 2024.

Governing laws

• 17 different governing laws were applicable to the disputes submitted in 2025, up from 15 in 2024.
• Hong Kong law, English law and PRC law (in that order) were the most popular governing laws in disputes submitted in 2024, as has been the case in every year since 2015 apart from 2022 (when Jersey law was the third most popular).
• The rest of the top 10 comprised British Virgin Islands law, Cayman Islands law, Kazakhstan law, Singapore law, Swiss law, New York law (down from fourth place in 2024) and Russian Federation law.

Languages of arbitration

• 77.6% of the administered arbitrations commenced in 2025 were conducted in English, down from 79.3% in 2024, and slightly below the average of 80.6% since 2015.
• Chinese-language administered arbitrations comprised 16.7% of the total, up slightly from 15.9% in 2024 and above the average of 13.3% since 2015.
• Bilingual English/Chinese administered arbitrations comprised 5.3% of the total, up from 4.3% in 2024 and broadly in line with the average of 5.5% since 2015.

Arbitrator appointments and challenges

• The HKIAC made a total of 176 "direct" appointments of arbitrators in 2025, 126 (71.6%) of which were under the HKIAC Administered Arbitration Rules (HKIAC Rules) (covering situations such as a failure of the parties to agree upon a sole arbitrator, failure by a party to designate a co-arbitrator, failure of co-arbitrators to designate a presiding arbitrator, and appointment of an emergency arbitrator). Of the direct appointments: 59.7% were of sole arbitrators; 19.3% were of co-arbitrators; 15.9% were of presiding arbitrators; and 5.1% were of emergency arbitrators.
• The HKIAC confirmed 141 designations of arbitrators under the HKIAC Rules, of which 103 were made by parties and 38 were made by co-arbitrators.
• The HKIAC appointed 93 arbitrators based on the designations of parties or co-arbitrators pursuant to Articles 28.8 and 29.2 of the HKIAC Rules (which apply respectively where there is consolidation or a single arbitration under multiple contracts).
• There were four challenges to arbitrators in 2025 (approximately 1% of all appointments), all of which were dismissed.

Arbitrator characteristics

• Arbitrators of 26 different nationalities or geographic origins were appointed in 2025, down from 30 in 2024.
• Arbitrators from Hong Kong continued to appear most frequently, comprising 34.5% of arbitrators directly appointed by the HKIAC (up from 30.9% in 2024) and 38.4% of arbitrators appointed or confirmed pursuant to designations by parties and co-arbitrators (up from 35.3% in 2024).
• Arbitrators from the UK maintained second place but with a falling share of appointments, comprising 16.3% of arbitrators directly appointed by the HKIAC (down from 21.2% in 2024) and 18.6% of arbitrators appointed or confirmed pursuant to designations by parties and co-arbitrators (down from 24.1% in 2024).
• Australian arbitrators were the only other nationality with more than 10% of appointments of either type, comprising 12.9% of arbitrators directly appointed by the HKIAC.
• Female arbitrators made up 36.4% of direct appointments by the HKIAC (up from 34.7% in 2024), 24.1% of confirmations and appointments made pursuant to party designations (up from 19.1% in 2024), and 25% of confirmations and appointments made pursuant to co-arbitrators' designations (essentially level with the 2024 figure of 25.4%).
• Arbitrators not previously appointed over the last three years made up 20.5% of direct appointments by the HKIAC (down from 36.7% in 2024), 35.6% of confirmations and appointments made pursuant to party designations (down from 40.8% in 2024), and 33.3% of confirmations and appointments made pursuant to co-arbitrators' designations (down from 44.5% in 2024).

Multi-party / multi-contract arbitrations

• The 388 arbitrations submitted in 2025 involved a total of 1,233 parties (an average of approximately three per arbitration) and 578 contracts (an average of approximately 1.5 per arbitration).
• Nearly half (47%) of arbitrations submitted in 2025 involved multiple parties or contracts, up from 38% in 2024.
• Nearly one quarter (24%) of cases were commenced as a single arbitration under multiple contracts, up from 14% in 2024.
• Consolidation was requested in 14 cases (double the number in 2024), with 12 of those requests (86%) being granted and two rejected.
• Joinder of additional parties was requested 13 times (up from two in 2024), with nine of those requests (69%) being granted, three rejected and one pending as at the end of 2025.

Interim measures arrangement with mainland PRC

• The HKIAC processed 34 applications made to 13 different mainland PRC courts (down 15% and 38% respectively) under the interim measures arrangement between Hong Kong and the mainland PRC, pursuant to which the mainland PRC courts can grant interim relief in support of arbitrations seated in Hong Kong and administered by the HKIAC and other qualifying institutions.
• Those applications sought to preserve evidence, assets or conduct worth RMB 10.9 billion (approximately US$1.6 billion).
• Notably, the majority (approximately 55%) of the applications related to assets or evidence owned by non-mainland PRC parties (namely, parties from Australia, the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, Hong Kong, Italy, Japan, Singapore, Taiwan and the USA). The remaining approximately 45% of applications related to assets owned by mainland PRC parties.
• The HKIAC states that it is aware of 17 orders by the mainland PRC courts in response to those applications, preserving RMB 5 billion (approximately US$719.8 million) (a success rate by value of approximately 46%).
• Approximately 92.1% of the applications were made by non-mainland parties from the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, Hong Kong, Singapore and the USA.
• Since the interim measures arrangement came into force in 2019, the HKIAC has processed a total of 178 applications in respect of RMB 45.3 billion (approximately US$6.4 billion) in assets. The HKIAC states that it is aware of 133 decisions issued by mainland PRC courts up to 2025 in response to those applications, of which 126 granted the applications upon the provision of security by the applicants (a success rate of 95%) and preserved assets worth RMB 30.8 billion (approximately US$4.6 billion) (a success rate by value of approximately 68%).
• These figures underline the significant potential value of Hong Kong as a seat of arbitration for international parties contracting not just with mainland PRC counterparties but also with other international parties with PRC assets, as a result of the access to mainland PRC court-ordered interim measures which is provided by the interim measures arrangement.

Emergency, expedited and early determination procedures

• Nine emergency arbitrator applications were submitted in 2025 (up from five in 2024), with 49 having been submitted in total since the emergency arbitrator procedures were introduced in 2013.
• The average time taken by the HKIAC to appoint an emergency arbitrator in the nine applications was 15 hours and 11 minutes, and the average time for the emergency arbitrator to render a decision was 12.1 days.
• 35 applications for the expedited procedure were submitted in 2025 (up from 24 in 2024), of which 32 (91%) were granted.
• Five applications for early determination were submitted (up from three in 2024), of which one was granted, three were rejected and one was still pending as of the end of 2025. A total of 21 applications for early determination had been made up to the end of 2025.

Funding of arbitrations

• One disclosure of third party funding (which has been permitted for arbitration in Hong Kong since a new legal regime came into force on 1 February 2019) was made in 2025, unchanged from 2024.
• Seven disclosures of outcome-related fee structures (which have been permitted for arbitration in Hong Kong since 16 December 2022) were made in 2025 (up from six in 2024), with six of the disclosed agreements having been concluded after the commencement of arbitration.

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