The waiting time for Hong Kong’s subsidized rental housing rose by 0.1 years to 4.8 years in the latest quarter over the last, but still remains lower than the records between 2018 and 2025, continuing to remain below 5.0 years, according to the Housing Bureau.

Compared with the highest level of 6.1 years before the current-term government took office, the composite waiting time (CWT) has been shortened by 1.3 years, the latest quarterly CWT, released on Thursday, shows.

The figure is calculated based on general applicants – family and elderly one-person applicants –housed in Public Rental Housing (PRH) or Light Public Housing (LPH) in the past 12 months as at end-June 2026, the bureau explained.

In the second quarter of this year, the Housing Bureau arranged for about 4,400 general applicants to be housed in PRH or LPH. These units included about 720 newly completed PRH flats, about 2,400 recovered PRH flats, and about 1,300 LPH units.

Among the general applicants housed in PRH and LPH units over the past 12 months, the proportion of those located in urban districts and extended urban districts reached 74 percent. Also, 81 percent of the recovered PRH units were located in urban districts and extended urban districts.

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The waiting time for urban districts and extended urban districts is generally over a year longer than that for the New Territories. When factored into the latest calculation, this resulted in a slight increase of 0.1 years in composite waiting time.

The waiting time for PRH units in the city’s urban districts during the past 12 months was about six years. During the same period, the average waiting time of general applicants housed in LPH was three years, while it was only about two years for LPH units in the New Territories.

Housing Bureau data also showed that the special administrative region government’s overall supply of PRH and LPH has risen to about 7,400 units per quarter, which is around double the average quarterly supply of 3,800 units during the three years before the current-term government took office.

As at end-June 2026, there were about 100,500 general applications for PRH, and about 81,000 non-elderly one-person applications under the Quota & Points System. Compared with the highest level of 156,400 cases and 143,700 cases of general applications and non-elderly one-person applications, the number of applications decreased significantly by over 30 percent and over 40 percent, respectively.

For the next five years from 2026-27 onwards, the overall public housing production, including subsidized sale flats, PRH and LPH, will be about 196,000 units, around 85 percent higher than when the current-term government took office. About 115,000 PRH flats will be completed, reaching the peak in supply.

About 19,130 LPH units have been completed, among which about 9,650 have been fully occupied, as of the second quarter of this year. Another 10,670 and 210 units will be successively completed in the remainder of 2026 and early 2027, steadily moving towards the target of completing the construction of about 30,000 LPH units by 2027-28, the bureau said.

As PRH applicants who have a longer waiting time are being housed in PRH, the short-term fluctuations in the average waiting time for PRH proved that the government is effectively tackling the long-standing backlog of waiting cases, it said.

The CWT will move towards the target of reducing it to 4.5 years in 2026-27, added the bureau.