Estimating the number of Britons in Hong Kong, as with the rest of Asia, can be difficult for a variety of reasons. One reason is that not all
immigrants or visitors register with the
British Consulate-General in Hong Kong. Another is that a large part of the British population is transitory, working in the city for only a few months or years. Hong Kong's
Immigration Department estimated that there were 35,000 British citizens living in the
Special Administrative Region eight months after the
handover of sovereignty in 1997. (This number included many British-born ethnic Hong Kong and ethnic Hong Kong who obtained full British citizenship in the 1990s under the
British Nationality Selection Scheme in Hong Kong.) A large proportion of the British who were government employees left following the handover. There have been noticeably fewer native Britons emigrating to Hong Kong since the handover. During
British Hong Kong era, Britons wishing to live and work in Hong Kong were not subject to the immigration and
visa restrictions that would apply today. It was common for young Britons to go to Hong Kong to work in blue-collar occupations, particularly during economic downturns in Britain. This advantage ended with the handover: Britons applying for permission to work in Hong Kong must now prove they will have jobs that cannot be filled by local residents, which means blue-collar jobs in Hong Kong (e.g., in
retail or
construction) are for the most part no longer an option for Britons. In the decade before the handover around 3.4 million British Dependent Territories Citizens (BDTCs) of Hong Kong (mainly ethnic Chinese) acquired the status of
British National (Overseas) (BN(O)) by registration. They do not have the right of abode in the UK (just as BDTCs did not have that right), and China does not recognise Hong Kong-born ethnic Chinese BN(O)s as British nationals. However, BN(O) are considered British outside China. ==Migration history==