{"schemaVersion":1,"passportCode":"BS","passportUrl":"https://multipassrank.com/passport/the-bahamas","scope":"Selected country-topic summaries; not a complete account of citizenship law or personal tax liability. These facts do not change mobility scores.","review":{"decision":"approved","reviewer":"/root","reviewedAt":"2026-09-22","recheckBy":"2026-12-21","candidateSha256":"2244200a9ac6912df6e8d766b28873d7eade4cc750d12e0da4abfd77be2cb5dd","notes":"Independently opened all 21 registered authorities and read their relevant operative material for six topics and 36 facts, with additional actual-read amendment/currentness checks. The author corrected Barbados tax locators and temporary-stay consent scope, Bahamas section 9's proviso locator, and Trinidad residence/language/tax locators; an unsupported historical repeal statement was removed. The unresolved Barbados language standard and source-edition/cohort limits are retained. Exact-byte approval; see matching review-notes. Publication and deployment are separate."},"reviewScope":"A common review is provided only when all topics share one approval. Otherwise consult each topic's review; no collection means no review.","reviews":[{"decision":"approved","reviewer":"/root","reviewedAt":"2026-09-22","recheckBy":"2026-12-21","candidateSha256":"2244200a9ac6912df6e8d766b28873d7eade4cc750d12e0da4abfd77be2cb5dd","notes":"Independently opened all 21 registered authorities and read their relevant operative material for six topics and 36 facts, with additional actual-read amendment/currentness checks. The author corrected Barbados tax locators and temporary-stay consent scope, Bahamas section 9's proviso locator, and Trinidad residence/language/tax locators; an unsupported historical repeal statement was removed. The unresolved Barbados language standard and source-edition/cohort limits are retained. Exact-byte approval; see matching review-notes. Publication and deployment are separate."}],"coverage":{"citizenship":"reviewed_scope","taxes":"reviewed_scope"},"topics":[{"code":"BS","topic":"citizenship","title":"Bahamas Citizenship Requirements","summary":"Ordinary naturalisation in The Bahamas requires a substantial residence or government-service history, English and civic knowledge, character and future-home conditions, and normally renunciation. Commonwealth registration and constitutional citizenship routes must be assessed separately.","scope":"Adult alien naturalisation under section 9 and the Second Schedule of the Bahamas Nationality Act, checked alongside the July 2026 amendment. This is not the constitutional, marriage, minor-child or Commonwealth registration route.","jurisdiction":"The Bahamas: citizenship","routeType":"naturalisation","facts":[{"id":"route","label":"Discretionary adult naturalisation","text":"Section 9 permits the Minister to naturalise a qualifying alien of at least 18 with legal capacity. Commonwealth citizens and British protected persons are instead addressed by registration provisions. Approval and the required oath, not residence alone, confer citizenship under this route.","state":"conditional","sourceIds":["ranks2140-bs-nationality-act"],"locator":"Sections 2, 3, 5 and 9"},{"id":"residence","label":"Final twelve months plus six of the preceding nine years","text":"The Schedule requires residence, government service or their combination throughout the final twelve months, plus six aggregate years during the preceding nine. In special circumstances the Minister may accept a final twelve-month period ending up to six months earlier. This is not a rule requiring ten full years of residence.","state":"conditional","sourceIds":["ranks2140-bs-nationality-act"],"locator":"Second Schedule paragraphs (a)-(b) and concluding ministerial discretion"},{"id":"language-character-home","label":"English, civic responsibilities, character and future home","text":"The applicant needs good character, sufficient English and knowledge of a citizen's responsibilities. The Schedule also requires an intention to continue residence or government service and make The Bahamas the permanent home. It does not specify a CEFR level for the English requirement.","state":"conditional","sourceIds":["ranks2140-bs-nationality-act"],"locator":"Second Schedule paragraphs (c)-(e)"},{"id":"renunciation","label":"Prior citizenship normally must be renounced","text":"Before naturalisation, section 9 requires renunciation of any other citizenship; where that country's law prevents renunciation, it instead requires the prescribed declaration concerning that citizenship. This ordinary route should not be advertised as unrestricted dual citizenship.","state":"conditional","sourceIds":["ranks2140-bs-nationality-act"],"locator":"Section 9 and its proviso concerning a foreign-law impediment"},{"id":"procedure","label":"Form 6 and immigration-status evidence","text":"The Immigration Department's checklist calls for the application in duplicate, identity and family documents, immigration-status evidence, a recent police certificate, photos and notarisation. It also calls for advertisements in both named newspapers. Confirm the current checklist, translations and charges; a residence permit is not itself citizenship approval.","state":"conditional","sourceIds":["ranks2140-bs-naturalisation-form"],"locator":"PDF page 1: documents required for Form 6, including permits, certification and newspaper notices"},{"id":"amendment","label":"The 2026 amendment is a different, limited provision","text":"From 1 July 2026, new section 7A allows discretionary permanent residence on stated terms after refusal of a section 7 application and payment of the prescribed sum. It does not amend section 9's ordinary naturalisation requirements or automatically convert a refusal into citizenship.","state":"conditional","sourceIds":["ranks2140-bs-nationality-amendment"],"locator":"Amending Act sections 1-2, inserting section 7A only","effectiveFrom":"2026-07-01"}],"limits":["The principal Act is a separately published revised-law text; the 2026 amendment has been read separately. Constitutional registration, family and minor-child routes have different conditions and are not reduced to this naturalisation baseline.","Government service can count where the Schedule says so. No purchase-of-property entitlement, processing-time guarantee or general dual-nationality permission is inferred.","The application PDF has a 2019 upload path. Its supporting-document checklist is used, but printed fees and legacy oath wording are not asserted as current."],"review":{"decision":"approved","reviewer":"/root","reviewedAt":"2026-09-22","recheckBy":"2026-12-21","candidateSha256":"2244200a9ac6912df6e8d766b28873d7eade4cc750d12e0da4abfd77be2cb5dd","notes":"Independently opened all 21 registered authorities and read their relevant operative material for six topics and 36 facts, with additional actual-read amendment/currentness checks. The author corrected Barbados tax locators and temporary-stay consent scope, Bahamas section 9's proviso locator, and Trinidad residence/language/tax locators; an unsupported historical repeal statement was removed. The unresolved Barbados language standard and source-edition/cohort limits are retained. Exact-byte approval; see matching review-notes. Publication and deployment are separate."},"url":"https://multipassrank.com/passport/the-bahamas/citizenship","disclaimer":"General information, not legal advice or a finding of eligibility. Requirements depend on the route, applicant and filing date. Verify the official instructions before applying."},{"code":"BS","topic":"taxes","title":"Bahamas Personal Taxes and Residence","summary":"The Bahamas has no domestic personal income-tax regime, but that does not remove national-insurance, consumption or property obligations. Residence for a particular treaty or reporting purpose must not be confused with citizenship or a universal day-count rule.","scope":"Baseline obligations for individuals, using Finance, Inland Revenue and National Insurance authorities. This is not a corporate-tax, investment-residence, global tax-exit or tax-residence-certificate opinion.","jurisdiction":"The Bahamas: individual taxation and related contributions","facts":[{"id":"personal-income-tax","label":"No domestic personal income-tax regime","text":"The Ministry of Finance expressly states that The Bahamas has no domestic personal income-tax regime. This is a statement about personal income tax, not a claim that all taxes or foreign-country liabilities disappear on relocation.","state":"documented","sourceIds":["ranks2140-bs-japan-map"],"locator":"MAP guidance PDF page 6, Scope of the MAP: Limitations; reiterated on PDF page 22"},{"id":"treaty-residence","label":"Japan agreement: a specific domicile-and-status test","text":"For the Japan agreement covered by this guidance, Bahamian residence requires domicile in The Bahamas plus citizenship or permission to reside or remain under the specified Immigration Act provisions. Dual-residence rules then examine home and personal/economic connections. This treaty-specific test is not a universal 183-day rule.","state":"conditional","sourceIds":["ranks2140-bs-japan-map"],"locator":"PDF pages 5 and 7-8, Scope and Who can request a MAP: Covered persons"},{"id":"vat","label":"VAT still applies to consumption","text":"Inland Revenue describes VAT as a consumption tax applying to most imported and locally bought or sold goods and services, with defined exemptions and zero-rated supplies. Absence of personal income tax does not make ordinary purchases tax-free.","state":"conditional","sourceIds":["ranks2140-bs-vat"],"locator":"Value Added Tax: description of taxable consumption, exemptions and zero-rated supplies"},{"id":"property","label":"Property tax is a separate obligation","text":"Real property tax is separately assessed under the Real Property Tax Act. Ownership, classification, valuation and applicable exemptions matter; Inland Revenue warns that an exemption is not necessarily automatic. A no-income-tax description should not be read as a blanket property-tax exemption.","state":"conditional","sourceIds":["ranks2140-bs-property-tax"],"locator":"Real Property Tax: liability, assessment and exemption guidance"},{"id":"insurance","label":"Employment and self-employment can require contributions","text":"National Insurance contributions apply to insured employment and self-employment, subject to statutory exclusions. NIB's guidance requires employee deductions from the first salary payment, including probation, and a reasonable projected income basis for self-employed contributions. These obligations are separate from personal income tax.","state":"conditional","sourceIds":["ranks2140-bs-national-insurance","ranks2140-bs-national-insurance-act"],"locator":"NIB Contributions: Employed Persons and Self-Employed Persons; Act sections 12-18"},{"id":"general-residence","label":"No general tax-residence certificate rule established here","text":"The reviewed sources do not establish a general personal tax-residence certificate procedure or universal domestic residence day count. Inland Revenue's tax-compliance certificate verifies compliance for specified dealings; it should not be presented as proof of residence for every foreign tax authority or treaty.","state":"not_established","sourceIds":["ranks2140-bs-japan-map","ranks2140-bs-tax-compliance"],"locator":"MAP guidance's limited treaty scope; Tax Compliance Certificate: purpose and compliance requirements"}],"limits":["The Japan-specific guidance is not expanded to other treaties, automatic-exchange reporting or a universal tax-residence test. Foreign countries can still apply their own income, residence or citizenship-based rules.","No VAT, property-tax or contribution rate is quoted. National-insurance exceptions, property exemptions and any business obligations require the current rules for the person's circumstances.","The Finance guidance has a 2024 upload path and remains publicly supplied. This profile does not repeat an older broad claim that The Bahamas has no direct-tax laws; corporate and personal tax scopes are distinct."],"review":{"decision":"approved","reviewer":"/root","reviewedAt":"2026-09-22","recheckBy":"2026-12-21","candidateSha256":"2244200a9ac6912df6e8d766b28873d7eade4cc750d12e0da4abfd77be2cb5dd","notes":"Independently opened all 21 registered authorities and read their relevant operative material for six topics and 36 facts, with additional actual-read amendment/currentness checks. The author corrected Barbados tax locators and temporary-stay consent scope, Bahamas section 9's proviso locator, and Trinidad residence/language/tax locators; an unsupported historical repeal statement was removed. The unresolved Barbados language standard and source-edition/cohort limits are retained. Exact-byte approval; see matching review-notes. Publication and deployment are separate."},"url":"https://multipassrank.com/passport/the-bahamas/taxes","disclaimer":"General information, not personal tax advice. Nationality, tax residence and source of income are different questions. Consult the tax authority or a qualified adviser for your circumstances."}],"sources":[{"id":"ranks2140-bs-nationality-act","publisher":"Government of The Bahamas / Laws of The Bahamas","title":"Bahamas Nationality Act, Ch. 190: published principal Act","url":"https://laws.bahamas.gov.bs/cms/images/LEGISLATION/PRINCIPAL/1973/1973-0018/1973-0018.pdf","language":"en","retrievedAt":"2026-09-22"},{"id":"ranks2140-bs-nationality-amendment","publisher":"Government of The Bahamas / Official Gazette","title":"Bahamas Nationality (Amendment) Act, No. 32 of 2026","url":"https://laws.bahamas.gov.bs/cms/images/LEGISLATION/AMENDING/2026/2026-0032A/2026-0032A.pdf","language":"en","retrievedAt":"2026-09-22"},{"id":"ranks2140-bs-naturalisation-form","publisher":"Department of Immigration of The Bahamas","title":"Form 6: certificate of naturalization application and supporting documents","url":"https://www.immigration.gov.bs/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/CITIZENSHIP-FORM-VI-CERTIFICATE-OF-NATURALIZATION.pdf","language":"en","retrievedAt":"2026-09-22"},{"id":"ranks2140-bs-japan-map","publisher":"Ministry of Finance of The Bahamas","title":"Bahamas–Japan Mutual Agreement Procedure guidance","url":"https://cdn.bahamas.gov.bs/tenant/tenantministryoffinance/documents/All%20Documents/BAHAMAS-JAPANMAPGUIDANCEDOCUMENT-20240718120503.pdf","language":"en","retrievedAt":"2026-09-22"},{"id":"ranks2140-bs-vat","publisher":"Department of Inland Revenue of The Bahamas","title":"Value Added Tax","url":"https://inlandrevenue.finance.gov.bs/value-added-tax/","language":"en","retrievedAt":"2026-09-22"},{"id":"ranks2140-bs-property-tax","publisher":"Department of Inland Revenue of The Bahamas","title":"Real Property Tax","url":"https://inlandrevenue.finance.gov.bs/real-property-tax/","language":"en","retrievedAt":"2026-09-22"},{"id":"ranks2140-bs-national-insurance","publisher":"National Insurance Board of The Bahamas","title":"Contributions: employed and self-employed persons","url":"https://www.nib-bahamas.com/contributions","language":"en","retrievedAt":"2026-09-22"},{"id":"ranks2140-bs-national-insurance-act","publisher":"Government of The Bahamas / Laws of The Bahamas","title":"National Insurance Act, Ch. 350: published revised-law text","url":"https://laws.bahamas.gov.bs/cms/images/LEGISLATION/PRINCIPAL/1972/1972-0021/1972-0021.pdf","language":"en","retrievedAt":"2026-09-22"},{"id":"ranks2140-bs-tax-compliance","publisher":"Department of Inland Revenue of The Bahamas","title":"Tax Compliance Certificate","url":"https://inlandrevenue.finance.gov.bs/other/tax-compliance-certificate/","language":"en","retrievedAt":"2026-09-22"}],"indicators":{"scope":"These describe the publisher's statistical geography, not benefits acquired by holding its passport. Values from different years are not a like-for-like ranking. No combined quality-of-life score is calculated.","review":{"decision":"approved","reviewer":"/root/review_pass412","reviewedAt":"2026-09-22","recheckBy":"2026-12-21","candidateSha256":"39a387a50a2aabd1d22f731ee6cac6f5c5ca947272add45f874774511443a18c","notes":"Independently fetched the exact UNDP CSV, complete World Bank series and geography-registry responses, and parsed them using Ruby standard CSV/JSON rather than the author's parser. All 146 outcomes across 73 geographies match: 140 exact native values with provider names and years, and six explicit source-specific nulls (MC/MO HDI; VA/TW both). All ISO mappings and non-aggregate scopes checked, with absent registry entities explicitly qualified. Verified HDR2025/2023 latest HDI, WDI2024 observations and 2026-07-13 update, source licences, attribution, rounding disclosures and no endorsement. The initial candidate's decoded-text UNDP hash was held; this replacement preserves all independently checked observations, records explicit encodings and matches the independently downloaded original bytes: UNDP 61ed82e5b66c88dfca8ff9fac775c63981ecab6a254862af97acacc41c143117, WDI 19be3c9b22cbba7a453233aa0f98f86f0ca1437667a57e91e899d9d43e8a5784, registry d29d57f8adf954c5e2a1520a02fb2c7b45575d8db3bd327a9dff47d66914231c. Approval binds only these replacement candidate bytes; historic approvals remain unchanged."},"coverage":"reviewed_scope","observations":[{"code":"BS","providerEntityCode":"BHS","providerEntityName":"Bahamas","geographicScope":"Publisher-reported national statistical geography; not every overseas territory or citizen abroad","metric":"hdi","sourceId":"undp-hdr2025","period":"2023","value":0.82,"availability":"available","definition":{"label":"Human Development Index","unit":"0–1","precision":3,"description":"UNDP's development measure; not a passport or relocation score."},"source":{"id":"undp-hdr2025","publisher":"UNDP","attribution":"UNDP Human Development Report 2025, composite indices time series. Selected observations; display rounded to three decimals. No endorsement implied.","title":"Human Development Index","url":"https://hdr.undp.org/data-center/documentation-and-downloads","dataUrl":"https://hdr.undp.org/sites/default/files/2025_HDR/HDR25_Composite_indices_complete_time_series.csv","licenceUrl":"https://hdr.undp.org/terms-use","licence":"CC BY 3.0 IGO","edition":"Human Development Report 2025","sourceSha256":"61ed82e5b66c88dfca8ff9fac775c63981ecab6a254862af97acacc41c143117","dataEncoding":"windows-1252"}},{"code":"BS","providerEntityCode":"BHS","providerEntityName":"Bahamas, The","geographicScope":"Publisher-reported national statistical geography; not every overseas territory or citizen abroad","metric":"life_expectancy","sourceId":"wb-life","period":"2024","value":74.71,"availability":"available","definition":{"label":"Life expectancy at birth","unit":"years","precision":1,"description":"Population-level period estimate; not an individual prediction or healthcare-access rating."},"source":{"id":"wb-life","publisher":"World Bank","attribution":"World Bank: World Development Indicators, SP.DYN.LE00.IN; UN World Population Prospects, national statistical offices and Eurostat. Selected observations; display rounded to one decimal. No endorsement implied.","title":"Life expectancy at birth, total","url":"https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.LE00.IN","dataUrl":"https://api.worldbank.org/v2/country/all/indicator/SP.DYN.LE00.IN?format=json&date=2020:2026&per_page=20000","licenceUrl":"https://data.worldbank.org/summary-terms-of-use","licence":"CC BY 4.0 with World Bank additional terms","edition":"World Development Indicators, updated 2026-07-13","sourceSha256":"19be3c9b22cbba7a453233aa0f98f86f0ca1437667a57e91e899d9d43e8a5784","dataEncoding":"utf-8","geographyUrl":"https://api.worldbank.org/v2/country/all?format=json&per_page=400","geographySha256":"d29d57f8adf954c5e2a1520a02fb2c7b45575d8db3bd327a9dff47d66914231c"}}]}}