The Bahamas corporate tax rate
Standard corporate income tax rate on resident company profits. STRUCTURAL NULL: The Bahamas levies no general corporate income tax.
| Current value | structured — see the API |
|---|---|
| In force from | — |
| Official source | Ministry of Finance, Government of The Bahamas — 'Green Paper on Corporate Income Tax Strategies for The Bahamas' (May 2023), section 3.1 'Business taxation in The Bahamas': 'The main form of business taxation in The Bahamas is the BLF, which is based on gross turnover'; and section 3.3: 'in the absence of CIT in The Bahamas, a 15% top-up tax would, in principle, be payable on profits of a Bahamian subsidiary of such a multinational group ... to the tax authority where the ultimate parent company is resident' |
| Last verified | 2026-07-23 |
| Verification | primary — No verification limitation recorded — read from the official source cited. |
| Provenance | source fingerprint |
What this value means
NULL POSITIVELY ESTABLISHED, NOT ASSUMED. The authority saying so is the Government's own Ministry of Finance, which published a Green Paper in May 2023 CONSULTING ON WHETHER TO INTRODUCE a corporate income tax — a document that only makes sense because none exists. It states in terms that there is an 'absence of CIT in The Bahamas' and that the main form of business taxation is the Business Licence Fee. The Green Paper set out four options (Option 1: 15% on in-scope MNEs only; Option 2: adds ~10% for other firms; Option 3: 12% above B$0.5m turnover; Option 4: 15% for all except sub-B$0.5m firms at 10%). As at 23 July 2026 NONE of Options 2-4 has been enacted. Do not serve any of those rates. WHY THE BUSINESS LICENCE FEE IS NOT THE SUBSTITUTE: the BLF is levied on GROSS TURNOVER, not on profit. The Ministry of Finance's own criticism of it is that 'the BLF system does not account for the affordability of the fee to businesses in terms of annual profits'. A turnover levy is not an income tax and must not be reported in this field as if it were a headline CIT rate. WHY THE 15% DOMESTIC MINIMUM TOP-UP TAX IS NOT A GENERAL CORPORATE INCOME TAX. The Domestic Minimum Top-Up Tax Act, 2024 was enacted in November 2024 (assent 28/29 November 2024) and is deemed in force from 1 January 2024, applying to fiscal years commencing after 31 December 2023. It implements Pillar Two of the OECD/G20 two-pillar BEPS solution and imposes a top-up to a 15% effective rate. It is NOT a general CIT for four independent reasons, each of which alone disqualifies it: (1) SCOPE BY SIZE — it applies only to Multinational Enterprise Groups with consolidated annual revenue of at least EUR 750 million in the Ultimate Parent Entity's consolidated financial statements in at least two of the four fiscal years immediately preceding the test year; (2) SCOPE BY CROSS-BORDER PRESENCE — the Department of Inland Revenue states it 'does not apply to ... Standalone domestic entities or Purely domestic groups (i.e., groups with no foreign subsidiaries, joint ventures, or branches) — EVEN IF revenue exceeds EUR 750 million within The Bahamas alone', so a purely Bahamian business of any size is outside it; (3) IT IS A TOP-UP, NOT A CHARGE ON PROFITS — it computes the shortfall to a 15% GloBE effective tax rate rather than applying 15% to a domestic taxable-income base, and its base and computation are the OECD GloBE Model Rules, not a Bahamian income-tax code; (4) DEFENSIVE PURPOSE — the Government's stated rationale (Office of the Prime Minister, 'Introduction of a Domestic Minimum Top-Up Tax in the Bahamas', August 2024) is that 'if The Bahamas does not collect the tax, another country could do so', and the paper describes the DMTT as 'a first step' while explicitly deferring the decision on a broader income tax: 'developing and implementing an income tax system from the ground up is an enormous undertaking. More time is needed'. It is expected to raise about $140m/yr and the DIR states it 'does not apply to small businesses'. Practical dates: DMTT registration opened 1 June 2026; the transition-year filing deadline was extended to 30 September 2026, with NO extension of payment obligations (18 months after fiscal year end, e.g. 30 June 2026 for a 31 December 2024 year end). DIR FAQ: https://inlandrevenue.finance.gov.bs/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/What-is-DMTT-FAQ-1.pdf ; DMTT landing page: https://inlandrevenue.finance.gov.bs/dmtt/ ; Bill text: https://laws.bahamas.gov.bs/cms/images/LEGISLATION/BILLS/2024/2024-0076/2024-0076.pdf OTHER TAXES A CONSUMER MIGHT MISTAKE FOR A CIT: Business Licence Fee (gross turnover), VAT (10%), stamp duty, real property tax, customs import duties. None is a tax on company profits. ACCESS: laws.bahamas.gov.bs full-text search returns only the DMTT BILL, not the enacted Act — the portal's index lags. The enacted status is confirmed by the Department of Inland Revenue's own words on its DMTT page ('Pursuant to the recently enacted Domestic Minimum Top-up Tax Act 2024'). inlandrevenue.finance.gov.bs/domestic-minimum-top-up-tax/ 404s; the live path is /dmtt/.
Get it programmatically
curl https://usaref.dev/v1/bs/corporate-tax
# $0.001 per call — x402 on Base (USDC). No key, no signup.
# History: curl https://usaref.dev/v1/bs/corporate-tax/history?from=2020-01-01
# Provenance: curl https://usaref.dev/provenance/bs/corporate-taxOther The Bahamas series: policy interest rate · VAT rate · minimum wage · public holidays · inflation rate (CPI) · income tax rates