HONG KONG—Hong Kong is ending some of its last pandemic restrictions on people arriving in the city, in a further rolling back of virus controls as China rapidly unwinds its zero-Covid policy. 

Hong Kong leader John Lee said the city would drop a rule banning arrivals from entering bars, restaurants and other establishments for three days after entry—curbs that have frustrated many travelers and hurt tourism, despite the relaxation of other restrictions earlier this year. 

The city will also end the use of a QR-code based app for entry to many establishments, he said. The app, known as LeaveHomeSafe, uses a color-coded system to log entry to establishments and enforce movement restrictions, with arrivals assigned an amber code that curtailed their activity for the first three days. The changes take effect on Wednesday, he said. 

“We made these two decisions because we have considered the data and the risks,” Mr. Lee said at a news conference. “One of the factors considered is that the risk brought in by imported cases is actually lower than the risk of local infection.” 

The retreat is the latest in a scaled phaseout of Hong Kong’s pandemic rules. The city previously enforced some of the world’s strictest virus-control regimes, including lengthy hotel quarantines for arrivals and mandatory isolation in quarantine centers for close contacts of people infected with Covid-19. 

But the financial center began scrapping many restrictions this year, including the end in September of the city’s hotel quarantine requirement. 

More recently, Beijing has been rapidly unwinding many of its own tough quarantine and movement restrictions following a wave of unrest, in spite of a record outbreak that had spread across the country. 

Beijing’s decision has given Hong Kong leeway to further relax its rules, including a decision last week to cut isolation requirements for people who test positive. 

Both Hong Kong and mainland China have kept many Covid rules in effect long after most countries in the West dropped their restrictions. Economists said many of the longstanding rules have hampered growth and curbed consumer sentiment. Many foreign executives have left Hong Kong and major multinational companies that operated in the city have weighed moving staff elsewhere, with Singapore becoming a popular alternative. 

Visitors to Hong Kong in the first nine months of the year numbered about 250,000, quadrupling from last year when hotel quarantine measures were in full effect, but well below the 47 million visitors during the corresponding period in 2019, according to government figures. 

Investors in Hong Kong reacted cautiously to Tuesday’s news, with the benchmark Hang Seng Index up 0.6% in afternoon trading. 

Mr. Lee said a number of Covid rules would remain in place. Visitors to restaurants and other venues would still have to show vaccine records to enter, he said. There was no indication the city would be dropping other rules, including outdoor mask mandates and requirements for arrivals to the city to take a series of Covid tests.

Hong Kong earlier this year endured an outbreak that led to one of the world’s highest death rates from Covid-19, highlighting shortcomings of the city’s tough quarantine and testing regime that proved unable to keep out the highly infectious Omicron variant. 

The effects of the outbreak fell disproportionately on the city’s large number of elderly, unvaccinated residents, leading to many hospitals being overrun with patients. 

Write to Dan Strumpf at Dan.Strumpf@wsj.com