Bahamas
| Pros |
|---|
| Absence of personal income, corporate, capital gains, and inheritance taxes for residents. |
| Strategic proximity to North American markets combined with a robust offshore financial services framework. |
| High degree of personal freedom and a desirable tropical lifestyle for international entrepreneurs. |
| Cons |
|---|
| Elevated operational costs driven by expensive utility services and heavy reliance on imported goods. |
| Bureaucratic inefficiencies and slow administrative processes within government departments and licensing agencies. |
| Persistent security concerns regarding violent crime rates in specific urban neighborhoods of Nassau. |
Long story short: In the Bahamas, the state will never touch a cent of your income, capital gains or company profits: zero tax, full stop.
The catch: opening a bank account or getting your business license takes months, and without the right local connections you get sent in circles. Cost of living in Nassau stings hard, everything's imported and taxed on the way in.
Other than that: Lyford Cay and Old Fort Bay stay calm and safe, the conch and fresh fish are excellent, the turquoise beaches are worth the trip, and power cuts remain common even in the nicer neighborhoods.
Will your income be taxed?
Long story short: NO.
Bahamas doesn't tax personal income, and nobody comes sniffing around when you settle in. No withholding, no tax return, no centre-of-vital-interests trap waiting to snap shut.
Earn what you want: the taxman here simply doesn't know your name.
If you earn a year, you will pay .
Roughly effective, with a marginal rate of .
Will your wealth be taxed?
Long story short: NO.
Bahamas keeps its hands off what you hold. No capital gains tax, no annual wealth grab, no inheritance regime.
Your portfolio compounds in peace and leaves the way it came in; nobody's standing at the door with their palm out.
Easy to run a company there?
Long story short: YES.
Corporate tax in Bahamas sits at a low 15%, with no criminal liability for misuse of corporate assets and non-public registries.
Cheap to run, discreet about who owns what, and no prosecutor breathing down your neck. A clean place to operate.
A good fit for a holding?
Long story short: NO.
Bahamas has no treaty network at all, which buries the holding question, full stop.
Every dividend in or out eats the statutory withholding at full rate, and no domestic regime can patch a hole that sits on the source side. Don't park a holding here.
| Country | Status | Dividends | Interest | Royalties |
|---|---|---|---|---|
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| ∅ // no treaties match | ||||
Easy to come and go?
Long story short: LITTLE.
Coming and going from Bahamas costs you nothing worth mentioning. Territorial regime (foreign income stays foreign), no exit tax at the door.
You show up with your stuff, you leave with your stuff, plus whatever you earned abroad in between. Borders the way they should all work.
Is your money watched?
Long story short: YES, CLOSELY.
Yes, your money is watched here. Bahamas signed every major automatic-exchange framework: CRS, FATCA, CARF, MLI, MAAC. Open an account and it gets reported straight to your home tax authority (Americans: FATCA applies, no exceptions).
Corporate registries stay non-public, which saves a thin slice of ownership discretion. But your financial trail is made of glass.
Is it blacklisted?
Long story short: SOMEWHAT.
Bahamas is flagged by a few national tax administrations (drawn from FR/ES/PT/BR) and sits outside the FATF club.
The friction is selective: anti-abuse rules fire on specific corridors, and counterparties ask more questions than usual. Neither the FATF nor the EU has it on their lists, which keeps the damage contained: a nuisance, not a scarlet letter.
Do you feel free there?
Long story short:
Not enough data to tell how free you'd actually feel in Bahamas.
| Program | Status | Cross-border | Sources |
|---|---|---|---|
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Sand Dollar
The main goals of the Sand Dollar to modernise and streamline the country's financial system, reduce service delivery costs, increase transactional efficiency and improve financial inclusion.
Central Bank of Bahamas
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LAUNCHED | — | announce → |
Connected to the world?
Long story short: POORLY CONNECTED.
The two rails that matter are both dead in Bahamas. Stripe won't onboard you, so card payments mean a foreign structure or a local processor with its own rules. Amazon doesn't deliver either.
Some secondary services run (3/11), but for an online business this is swimming against the current.
Other jurisdictions worth comparing
Picked by similarity of strategic profile to Bahamas. No editorial ranking — neighbours in the same scoring space.