We were residents of HKG, immigrating to US years ago. We surrendered our HKID cards because at the time the law required one to surrender the ID cards if one did not intend to return. Husband was a HKG Government employee and obeyed the law to the letter, so we turned in our HKID Cards.

Fast forward, now we would like to get our HK ID cards back as this seems to be more convenient for visiting mainland China. I was born in HKG. Husband was from China but held a Naturalized British Passport before. He is on HKG Pension Payroll. (in my mind, by this virtue he should be eligible to get back his HK ID Card...) We are US Citizens.

So, what are the procedures we need to go through? How long it normally takes? given one has a birth certificate, one is a government pensioner, would it help to speed up the process?

We may visit Hong Kong between November and February. How many days we need to be in Hong Kong in order to take care of the applications and such?