Tax in the Bahamas
See what the Bahamas's tax rules do to your property portfolio.
What Freeholt models for property, income and retirement in the Bahamas, and what it does not.
Free to start. No card. Rules reviewed 22 August 2026.
Modelled here
- Tax on rental income
- Duty on purchase
- Annual property or land tax
- Income tax beyond the rent
- Dividends, interest and share sales
- Retirement savings
BSD · Rates as at 22 August 2026 · Estimates, not advice
No income tax and no CGT. Rental income is untaxed. Non Bahamians pay a flat 10% conveyance VAT on purchase and register under the International Persons Landholding Act; residency is available from a $750k purchase.
How rental income is taxed in the Bahamas
For a resident owner: There is no tax on residential rental income. For an owner living abroad and renting this out: There is no tax on residential rental income.
Capital gains on a sale
There is no capital gains tax on residential property.
Annual property tax while holding
About 1% a year on the property value.
What it costs to buy
About 2.5% of the price on purchase. A foreign buyer pays a further 7.5% on top. Non Bahamian buyers pay a flat 10% conveyance VAT (citizens are tiered 2.5 to 10%), typically split with the seller, plus legal fees.
Can a foreign buyer purchase here?
Foreign buyers can generally buy residential property here. Non Bahamians may buy freely under the International Persons Landholding Act. No permit is needed for a single family home or up to five acres held for owner occupation; larger or commercial holdings need one, and the purchase is registered with the Investments Board.
Where the tax actually lands
The Bahamas taking nothing does not mean nobody does. An owner who is tax resident somewhere that taxes worldwide income generally pays tax on the rent and any gain from this property THERE, at that country's rates, with credit for anything paid here. That makes the owner's country of residence the thing that decides the tax bill on this property, not the country the property sits in. Freeholt models the residence side separately, so setting a country of residence in the app shows the whole picture rather than a zero.
Income tax in the Bahamas, beyond the rent
No personal income tax. Figures in BSD, as verified 29 August 2026.
Dividends, interest and share sales
How the Bahamas taxes investment income. For dividends: Not taxed. For interest: Not taxed. For share sale gains: Not taxed.
Pensions and retirement savings
EEE. Untaxed at every stage. Contributions are made from money already taxed. No annual cap is modelled. Growth inside the fund is untaxed. Withdrawals can start from age 60. After that age, withdrawals are tax free.
Worth knowing about tax in the Bahamas
The Bahamas has no capital gains tax regime at all. This is not a 0% rate that could be turned up; it is the absence of a statute.
How Freeholt models the Bahamas
Every rate above is priced from Freeholt's own table for the Bahamas and runs through the whole projection: rental income, a modelled sale and the annual holding costs all use the same figures. They cannot be edited yet, so a position that differs from the defaults has to be read with that in mind. The estimate assumes an individual owner rather than a company or trust, and where a rule is not modelled it is listed below rather than quietly priced at zero.
What running this property costs
In the Bahamas this covers real property tax (~1% for non owner occupied, capped), insurance (hurricane cover is costly), maintenance and management; short term letting adds a business licence and VAT.
How borrowing works here
Local lending to foreigners is limited (LTV ~50 to 70%); many purchases are cash. The Bahamian dollar is pegged 1:1 to USD.
What actually happened here
We hold no measured run of our own for this country yet, so there is nothing to draw. We will not fill the gap from a neighbouring market.
What Freeholt models here
- ModelledTax on rental income
- Resident and non resident rates, with interest and losses treated under the local rule.
- None hereCapital gains on a sale
- No general capital gains tax; the page says what applies instead.
- ModelledDuty on purchase
- One off, on the way in, at the scale in force.
- ModelledAnnual property or land tax
- Charged every year the property is held.
- ModelledIncome tax beyond the rent
- Salary and other income, stacked with the rent.
- ModelledDividends, interest and share sales
- Investment income and gains, with the local allowances.
- ModelledRetirement savings
- Contributions, the fund and the way out.
- Not yetInheritance and what happens on death
- Not modelled for this country yet.
What Freeholt does not model here
- Inheritance and estate tax
- Treaty relief between this country and the owner's country of residence
What the figures above leave out (9)
- The Bahamas raises its revenue through customs and import duty, value added tax (VAT), an annual Real Property Tax, VAT on property conveyances and business licence fees rather than through a tax on income, and none of those is priced here. What is zero is the charge on income; the total Bahamian tax burden is materially higher than that zero.
- Letting a Bahamian property short term needs a business licence and brings the letting within value added tax (VAT). Neither is an income tax, so the nil income tax figure stands, but both are real costs on that letting and neither is priced, so a short term landlord's total burden is higher than shown.
- The zero here is what the Bahamas charges on a dividend, interest payment or gain, not a promise that the money arrives untaxed. If the investment is foreign, or the holder is tax resident somewhere else, withholding at source and the home country's own tax can still apply to the same receipt, and neither is modelled, so the total tax may be higher.
- Bahamian NIB is defined benefit social insurance, not a pot the member owns. This answers what the Bahamas charges on pension money (nothing), not how large the pension will be.
- The Bahamian NIB rate is given as 11.3% combined (6.65%/4.65%) without saying which side is the employee's, so no employee rate is used here.
- The Bahamian insurable wage ceiling is a weekly figure and the number of contribution weeks in a year is not stated, so no annual ceiling is applied.
- A Bahamian NIB pension can start at 60 but is paid at a reduced rate until 65, and that reduction is not applied; 60 is used only as the age from which a withdrawal is answered at all. The tax answer is nil at either age. The pension itself is smaller before 65, so a full rate amount entered for those years is overstated.
- Contributions to the Bahamas' National Insurance Board (NIB) scheme are shared between employee and employer, 11.3% in total, and only the employee's own share is priced here. The real inflow into the scheme on the employee's behalf is larger than the contribution figure shown, though because NIB pays a defined benefit pension rather than a pot, that inflow buys an entitlement rather than a balance the member owns.
- A pension from the Bahamas' National Insurance Board (NIB) needs a qualifying contribution record, and its size depends on that record. Neither is checked here: the figures take whatever pension amount is entered and answer only what the Bahamas charges on it (nothing), so a short contribution history could mean a smaller pension than the amount entered, or none yet at all.
Coverage deepens country by country. Every figure is an estimate, not advice.
Compare with another country
Each page is built from the same table the app runs on, so the figures line up side by side.
Compare the Bahamas with another country — rent, gains, annual tax and duty, side by side.
Questions people ask
- Does Freeholt model Bahamas property tax?
- Yes. Rental income tax, duty on purchase and annual property or land tax are priced from Freeholt's own rate table for the Bahamas. The Bahamas levies no capital gains tax, so there is nothing to price. The rates are not editable yet, so one that differs in a particular case cannot be overridden. Every figure is an estimate, not advice.
- How is rental income from the Bahamas taxed if I live somewhere else?
- There is no tax on residential rental income. Tax may also be due in the country of residence, with credit for what was paid here. Estimates only, not advice.
- What are the Bahamas figures as at?
- The rate table for the Bahamas was last reviewed on 22 August 2026. Freeholt date stamps every country rather than implying all of them were checked on the same day. Estimates only, not advice.
Model a property in the Bahamas alongside everything else you own: see the year your portfolio starts paying you back.