Tang was born 6 September 1952 at early morning at Hong Kong Sanatorium & Hospital in Happy Valley, Wan Chai in British Hong Kong, His family operated in the textile industry and came from Wuxi, Jiangsu to Hong Kong in 1949 to escape the communists who were taking over the Chinese mainland. Henry Tang himself was born in what was then British Hong Kong in 1952. Tang went to Culford School in Suffolk in Britain before attending and graduating from Cranbrook Schools in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Michigan in 1975.