Non-Bahamians can own freehold outright. A purchase under two acres that you will live in is registered after closing; two acres or more, or anything you intend to let out, needs a permit before closing. Conveyance VAT is a flat 10% for non-Bahamians at every price, customarily split with the seller, and buyer-side closing costs land between 7% and 12% all in. There is no capital gains, income or inheritance tax. Annual property tax depends on use, not on price alone. Register the purchase with the Central Bank so the proceeds are portable later.
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Land in or beside a settlement — Governor's Harbour, Rock Sound, Gregory Town, Tarpum Bay. Usually the way people start: buy the ground, sit on it, build when they are ready. Utilities, road access and whether the parcel percolates are the questions that decide the price, not the view.
The bulk of what changes hands. A house on the Atlantic side or the bank side, often already earning as a rental — which is worth knowing before you buy, because a house with a booking history is a different asset to one without.
Several structures on one title, or land with enough frontage to become that. This is where Eleuthera gets interesting and where the paperwork changes. Often sold quietly, often never listed.
Private islands off Eleuthera and around Harbour Island do trade. Rarely publicly, almost never quickly. Everything about the process is different: access, power, water, dockage, crown land boundaries, and who your neighbours in the anchorage are.
Every figure is current as of September 2026 and sourced. Two of them are widely printed wrong elsewhere and both are flagged.
Custom on a gross sale is a 50/50 split. It is a commercial term, not a legal one — so it is negotiable, and it belongs in the Agreement for Sale in writing.
This changes the annual tax band more than the price does. The three answers are three different schedules, not one schedule with a discount.
Estimate, current September 2026. Agent commission — 6% on developed property, 10% on vacant land — is normally the seller’s, but on a net sale it finds its way into your price. Have every figure confirmed in writing by a Bahamian attorney before you rely on it.
People say “Eleuthera” and mean four different property markets. Getting this wrong is the most common way a search wastes six months.
The most expensive dirt in the country outside New Providence, and the reason most people have heard of Eleuthera at all.
Harbour Island real estate →The lobster capital of The Bahamas, a working fishing town of around 1,500 people, and quietly one of the strongest small markets in the country.
Spanish Wells real estate →A private island off Eleuthera’s east coast, reached by its own bridge, with a controlled feel and a club at the centre of it.
Windermere Island real estate →Every figure carries its source and the tier of that source, because brokerage copy is demonstrably stale on these numbers and government pages occasionally contradict each other. Where we could not resolve a conflict, the entry says so instead of picking the friendlier number.
No restriction on a non-Bahamian owning property in their own name. No local partner, no leasehold-only regime, no nominee structure required. What changes with size and intended use is not whether you can buy — it is which government process applies.
Government of The BahamasInternational Persons Landholding Act 1993A permit is required where the land is undeveloped and two or more adjoining acres, or where the intended use is not owner-occupied. Note the second one carefully: buying a house you intend to let out commercially is a permit purchase even if it sits on a quarter acre. Declare that at the start, not at closing.
Government of The Bahamasbahamas.gov.bs — Permission to Purchase Real Property, Bahamas Investment AuthorityA non-Bahamian buying a condominium or a property to be owner-occupied applies to the Secretary to the Investments Board to register the purchase. The whole point of a Certificate of Registration is to let you acquire without prior approval. Your attorney files it once the sale completes. The same registration route covers a Permanent Resident, an inheritance, and undeveloped land under two adjoining acres bought to build a family home on.
Where this gets uncertainThe government page describing this still says stamp duty where the tax has been VAT on the conveyance for some years. The route is right; the tax name on that page is out of date, which tells you how carefully to read it.
Government of The Bahamasbahamas.gov.bs — Registering a Purchase or Acquisition of Real PropertyThis is the step most guides leave out. Registering the purchase with the Central Bank’s Exchange Control Department gives the investment Approved Investment Status. In the Central Bank’s own words, that status “guarantees non-resident investors that they will be permitted to repatriate, upon application, income derived from the sale of any real property or any income received therefrom (e.g. rental income).” Sale proceeds and rental income, on application, on documentary evidence. Confirm your attorney is doing it.
Where this gets uncertainYou will read elsewhere that this guarantees repatriation of capital appreciation, and in the currency of the original investment. Neither phrase appears in the Central Bank’s own text. They are brokerage boilerplate. What the Bank actually promises is the sentence quoted above.
Central Bank of The Bahamascentralbankbahamas.com — Exchange Control, Approved Investment StatusOn 1 October 2019 the Central Bank liberalised exchange control on residential property transactions involving non-residents, and delegated to the commercial banks the authority to sell foreign currency for repatriation of residential sale proceeds, on evidence that the beneficial owner is non-resident. Commercial property still needs Exchange Control approval, but only at the development stage. So the practical work has moved from a Central Bank application to keeping a clean documentary trail with your bank.
Central Bank of The Bahamascentralbankbahamas.com — Residential Property Liberalisation, October 2019There is no published penalty for failing to register, and we are not going to invent one. The risk is structural rather than punitive: the repatriation guarantee is expressly tied to the status, a non-resident may not operate Bahamian dollar accounts except to meet expenses here, and since 2019 the bank selling you foreign currency needs evidence of non-resident beneficial ownership. An unregistered owner arrives at resale with no designation to point to and has to make the case retrospectively, years later, on documents.
Where this gets uncertainThe conclusion in that last sentence is our inference from the Bank’s published rules, not a rule the Bank publishes. Anyone who tells you flatly that you “cannot take your money out” is going further than the sources do.
Central Bank of The BahamasAssembled from centralbankbahamas.com — Exchange Control FAQ and the 2019 noticeNone of them, on anyone. This is the structural reason the market here looks the way it does and why a lot of owners think in decades rather than exit multiples. It is also precisely why government collects at the transfer — the 10% is the trade-off, and it is a good one if you hold.
Government of The BahamasBahamian tax structureThe single most misreported number about buying here, and the regulator states it plainly: the graduated VAT scale is for Bahamian citizens and Permanent Residents only — all others pay 10% regardless of the value. There is no lower band for a foreign buyer at any price. If a guide shows you 2.5% on a small purchase, it is not describing your transaction.
Where this gets uncertainOne document could move this and we could not read it: the VAT (Supply of Real Property)(General)(Amendment) Rules 2025, in force 1 July 2025. Nothing we found contradicts the flat 10%, but that is the instrument capable of it. Worth one question to your attorney.
BREA — the regulatorbreabahamas.com — Taxes & Bahamas Real EstateBREA states the assessment as one half of the Government VAT to each side. That makes the buyer’s customary cost 5% of the price. It is a commercial term rather than a legal one, so on a net sale you can end up carrying all 10% — which is why it belongs in the Agreement for Sale in writing, and why it is one of the largest numbers still genuinely on the table when you make an offer.
BREA — the regulatorbreabahamas.com — Taxes & Bahamas Real EstateWorth knowing before it surprises you at signing. The deposit is provided to the vendor’s attorney when the Agreement for Sale is executed by the purchaser. This is not the buyer-side escrow arrangement a North American buyer will be expecting, and it is a reason to have your own attorney read the Agreement before you sign it rather than after.
Where this gets uncertainWe are not printing a customary percentage. Every brokerage page says 10%; no government, regulator or law-firm source we could reach states any figure at all. Treat the deposit as negotiated, not fixed.
Bahamian law firmAlexiou Knowles & Co — Purchase of Real EstateThe Conveyancing and Law of Property (Amendment) Act 2025 came into force 1 July 2025. A VAT invoice must now be obtained from the Comptroller of Inland Revenue prior to execution of the conveyance. Only the Comptroller collects conveyance VAT, and the documents go to them before the instrument is stamped and lodged at the Registrar General. If your timeline was built on pre-2025 practice, rebuild it.
Government of The BahamasConveyancing and Law of Property (Amendment) Act 2025, s.40Under the same reform, every person — financial institutions, lenders and vendors included — must verify that a VAT invoice was issued for the conveyance before disbursing funds or completing any loan or mortgage. This is genuinely under-published, and it is the reason a purchase can stall at the last moment on a document nobody in your team thought was theirs.
Bahamian law firmHiggs & Johnson — Conveyancing & Law of Property (Amendment) Act 2025They get conflated constantly, including by people who should know better. One: a permit expires if the holder fails, within 180 days of the grant, to pay the VAT on the conveyance and file notice with the Chief Valuation Officer. Two: the VAT invoice itself must be paid in full within 180 calendar days of the execution of the conveyance. Different start dates, different consequences. A permit is no longer something you obtain and sit on while you think about it.
Government of The BahamasConveyancing and Law of Property (Amendment) Act 2025; Higgs & Johnson noteThe Value Added Tax (Amendment)(No. 2) Act 2025 disallows the input tax deduction on goods and services acquired for the construction, reconstruction or substantial renovation of real property. If your plan is to buy a lot and build, or to gut a house, that VAT is now a cost rather than something to be recovered. Price it in at the start.
Government of The Bahamaslaws.bahamas.gov.bs — Value Added Tax (Amendment)(No. 2) Act 2025Attorney’s fees run about 2.5% of the conveyed price plus VAT on the fee, each side paying their own. Add Registry recording fees and searches. Together with your share of the conveyance VAT, buyer-side closing costs commonly land between 7% and 12%. The calculator above does your number.
Bahamian law firmBahamian conveyancing practice, corroborated across law-firm sourcesThe scale nearly every guide prints — first $300,000 exempt, then 0.625%, then 1% — is the Bahamian owner-occupied scale. As a non-Bahamian you are assessed on what the property is used for. Let it out and you are in the foreign-owned rental and commercial band: 0.75% on the first $500,000, 1% to $2m, 1.5% above. Hold it as vacant land and it is $100 on the first $7,000 and 2% above — where a Bahamian would pay nothing at all on vacant land.
Where this gets uncertainAn archived copy of the older Act, still hosted on the same government domain, shows 7% on unimproved land held by a non-Bahamian rather than 2%. We believe 2% is the operative rate and 7% the historic one, but both live on gov.bs and we cannot prove which the assessor will apply. Ask.
Government of The Bahamasinlandrevenue.finance.gov.bs — Real Property TaxIf you intend to live in it, this is the live question and the honest answer is that the ground moved under it twice. From 1 July 2025 a foreign owner needed more than 90 days in the country for a partial owner-occupied exemption and more than 183 days for the full one. From 1 July 2026 the Real Property Tax (Amendment) Bill 2026 puts foreign-owned owner-occupied property into a separate regime with its own $200,000 annual cap, and removes the residency minimum for the general $150,000 cap.
Where this gets uncertainWe found the Bill and its long title, not the enacted Act, and the rate inside the new foreign regime is reported in the press but not confirmable against the statute. So the calculator on this page leaves that line blank rather than guessing. This is the first question for your attorney and the direction of the change appears to favour you.
Government of The Bahamasopm.gov.bs; laws.bahamas.gov.bs — Real Property Tax (Amendment) Bill 2026Real property tax is due 31 March each year, and paying the current year in full by that date earns a 10% discount. On a let villa assessed in the millions that is a genuinely material sum for doing nothing but paying early, and it is the easiest money on this page.
Government of The Bahamasinlandrevenue.finance.gov.bs — Payment of Real Property TaxVAT applies to vacation home rentals, and short-term rental owners are required to register with the Department of Inland Revenue through its portal, under the Vacation Rental section. This catches a lot of new owners who assumed letting the house a few weeks a year was a private arrangement. It is not.
Government of The Bahamasinlandrevenue.finance.gov.bs — Short-Term Rental OwnersThere is no state register of title. Ownership is proved by a chain of recorded deeds, traced back. That single fact is why the attorney matters more than the agent, why searches take real time, and why a gap in a chain forty years ago is your problem today.
Bahamian law firmLennox Paton — on priority in an unregistered land systemBahamian practice is a Bahamian attorney tracing that chain and giving an opinion you rely on — not the title-insurance culture North American buyers expect. The opinion indemnifies you up to the amount of the transaction. Do not economise here, and never skip it on a family-held or generational parcel. Those are exactly where the chain has a gap, and Eleuthera has a great many of them.
Bahamian law firmLennox Paton — Guide to purchasing property in The BahamasNot after the offer is accepted. A Bahamian attorney should review the offer letter, the purchase and sale agreement, any construction agreement and any loan facility letter before they are signed. The commonest expensive mistake here is signing a North-American-shaped document that assumes North-American-shaped protections.
Bahamian law firmLennox Paton — Guide to purchasing property in The BahamasAgents here are licensed under the Real Estate (Brokers and Salesmen) Act 1995 and regulated by BREA. Commission is 6% on developed property, 10% on vacant land, normally the seller’s. BREA also prohibits brokers from accepting net listings — the arrangement where an agent keeps everything above a figure the seller names. Ask anyone you deal with for their standing. The good ones expect it.
BREA — the regulatorbreabahamas.com — Sales Commissions, Rules Governing SalesThere is no minimum purchase price for the annual, renewable Home Owners Residence Card, which covers the owner, spouse and minor children and eases entry and re-entry. But the test is qualitative and one word in it does a lot of work: you must own a habitable residence here. A bare lot does not qualify. If you are buying land to build on, you have no card until there is a dwelling on it — which is rarely mentioned and occasionally matters a great deal.
Where this gets uncertainIt is a residence card, not a work permit, and separate from Permanent Residence. On the fee, two government sites disagree: the Department of Immigration, which issues it, says $200; a Ministry service page says $100 plus $500 on issuance. Take the issuing department’s figure and verify at application.
Government of The Bahamasimmigration.gov.bs — Home Owner IdentificationThe minimum investment for Economic Permanent Residence rose to USD $1,000,000 on 1 January 2025. A great many websites, and some agents, still quote the old $750,000. If someone quotes you $750,000, treat it as a signal and check what else of theirs is out of date.
Where this gets uncertainDo not confuse this with the $1,500,000 figure you will also see: that is the threshold for accelerated consideration of an application, which is a different thing from the minimum to qualify. A ten-year minimum holding period for the qualifying asset also appears on gov.bs and is worth confirming.
Government of The BahamasGovernment of The Bahamas — Bahamas Investment AuthorityThe genuinely Eleuthera-shaped incentive, and almost nobody mentions it. Under the Hotels Encouragement Act a property with as few as four guest rooms on a Family Island can qualify as a hotel — against a minimum of ten in New Providence — bringing duty-free entry of approved construction materials, furnishings and fixtures, plus real property tax relief. A four-bedroom Eleuthera property run as a licensed hotel may qualify where the same house in Nassau would not. Applications go to the Bahamas Investment Authority.
Where this gets uncertainWe are not printing the length of the tax relief. Two pages on the same government site give it as “the first twenty years” and as “ten years exempt then ten at a nominal rate”. Same tier, same domain, unresolved.
Government of The Bahamasbahamas.gov.bs — Bahamas Investment Authority, Hotels and ResortsThe Family Islands Development Encouragement Act waives customs duty on imported building materials for islands named in its Schedule. The current schedule published by Bahamas Customs lists eleven islands — Ragged, San Salvador, Rum Cay, Cat, Long, Mayaguana, Inagua, Crooked, Acklins, Long Cay and Andros. Eleuthera is not among them. Local reporting from years back says it was added; the operative government schedule does not show it, and the schedule is what Customs releases goods against.
Where this gets uncertainThe concession is also a rolling annual extension, most recently carried to 30 June 2027, rather than a standing entitlement — and it is described as applying to Bahamian citizens and business owners. Do not build a construction budget on getting it.
Government of The Bahamasbahamascustoms.gov.bs — Family Island Development Encouragement ActRoughly a hundred and ten miles long, about a mile wide, and something like eleven thousand people. Where on that ribbon you buy sets your airport — North Eleuthera, Governor’s Harbour or Rock Sound — your grocery run, your hurricane exposure, and whether your water is calm bank or open Atlantic. A house that is wrong for how you actually live is wrong at any price.
Whether it is “can I actually buy a cay” or “what does the 2026 tax change mean for me”, send it. It goes to one person. If it turns into a search, you get introduced by name to the licensed Bahamian brokerage that covers that end of the island, and you are never charged for it.
Not for the introduction, not for the guide, not for anything on this site. If a purchase or a sale completes, the receiving Bahamian brokerage may pay a referral fee out of its own commission. That does not change the price of the property and it does not come out of your pocket.
Under the bilateral agreement between the National Association of Realtors and the Bahamas Real Estate Association, a foreign agent may refer business to a BREA-licensed broker or salesman and receive a referral fee of up to 25%. That is the ceiling and we do not go near arrangements outside it.
The fee is paid by the Bahamian brokerage to eXp Realty, not agent to agent, and reaches the agent through their commission agreement. It is documented by an executed referral agreement before anything moves.
We are not a licensed Bahamian brokerage and we do not practise real estate in The Bahamas — doing so without a BREA licence is an offence under the Real Estate (Brokers and Salesmen) Act 1995. We introduce you to someone who is licensed, by name. Your own Bahamian attorney handles the conveyance and the opinion on title.
Nothing on this site is legal, tax or investment advice. Figures are checked against government, regulator and Bahamian law-firm sources and dated; rates move at budget, so have them confirmed in writing before you rely on them. If you would rather no referral fee were involved at all, say so in your message and the introduction is made anyway.