The Housing Bureau today released the latest quarterly Composite Waiting Time for Subsidised Rental Housing (CWT).

As at end-December 2025, the CWT for general applicants that were housed in public rental housing (PRH) or Light Public Housing (LPH) in the past 12 months has continued to remain at 5.1 years, again the lowest record since the first quarter of 2018.

Compared with the highest level of 6.1 years before the current-term Government took office, the CWT has been shortened by a full year.

The number of applicants housed in PRH in 2025 has maintained a high level of over 20,000 cases, nearly 6,300 cases more than the newly registered general applications of 14,500 cases in the same year.

The bureau said this has cleared up a certain amount of long-standing backlogged applications.

It added that the number of general applications allocated PRH each year has far exceeded the number of new applications registered in the same year for two consecutive years, the first time since records became available for the Housing Authority.

In the fourth quarter of 2025, the bureau has arranged a total of about 8,800 general applicants to be housed in PRH or LPH, including about 3,600 newly completed PRH flats, about 3,800 recovered PRH flats, and about 1,400 LPH units.

The bureau noted that the huge housing supply has effectively shortened the PRH waiting list.

Among the general applicants housed in PRH, about 70% were housed in the urban and extended urban districts, while more applicants, as compared with the last quarter, were housed in flats in the New Territories.

The bureau explained that since the urban and extended urban districts are very popular among applicants, their waiting time is about two years longer than that for the New Territories, thus when their waiting time has been taken into account, the CWT has not decreased.

On the other hand, since the first LPH project began allocation in the first quarter of 2025, the waiting time of general applicants who were housed in LPH is only 3.2 years on average.

The bureau highlighted that LPH has played a key role in shortening the waiting time for PRH.

It also noted that with its multipronged approach to expedite the turnover of PRH flats, the number of PRH general applicants has further decreased.

As at end-December 2025, there were about 106,300 general applications for PRH, and about 81,500 non-elderly one-person applications under the Quota and Points System.

As 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 has been reduced significantly by more than 30% and over 40% respectively.

In addition, the number of non-elderly one-person applicants aged below 30 recorded an even sharper decline of 60% over the 10-year period, from about 74,500 to about 29,500 as at end-December 2025.

Looking ahead at the five years starting from 2026-27 onwards, the bureau said the overall public housing production will reach over 195,000 units, more than 80% higher than when the current-term Government took office.

Among these, about 115,000 PRH flats will be completed during this period, reaching the peak in supply.

Regarding LPH, the bureau said about 9,500 units have been gradually completed in 2025, and about 20,300 and 200 units will be successively completed this year and early next year respectively, gradually moving towards the target of completing the construction of about 30,000 units by 2027-28. 

The target of reducing the CWT to 4.5 years by 2026-27 remains unchanged, the bureau added.