Company Incorporation in the Bahamas

There is no need to have local directors or shareholders to form your offshore company in the Bahamas. A company must have at least one director, but it can be yourself, irrespective of your country of citizenship, origin, or residence. The Bahamas welcomes foreign investors, so the company formation process is flexible for any nationality — you can establish a Bahamas company with directors and shareholders who are not residents of the Bahamas. One practical point at incorporation: the Memorandum must be subscribed by two persons, which we handle, after which the shares can be held by a single shareholder.

Nominee directors are no longer permitted. Since 19 January 2026, a person may not be appointed or serve as a director of a Bahamian company under any agreement or understanding to act on another person’s instructions, and the penalties for breaching this are significant for both the individual and the company. Nominee shareholders are still possible, but they are now a regulated and fully disclosed arrangement: the nominee must be identified as such in the Memorandum and the Share Register, execute a declaration of trust naming the beneficiaries, and disclose the beneficial owner under the Register of Beneficial Ownership Act. If director-level privacy is your priority, we will talk you through which jurisdictions still support it.

Partly. Your shareholders are not on the public record — the Share Register is kept at the registered office and is not filed with the Registrar — and beneficial ownership information is held by your registered agent and accessible to Bahamian authorities through a secure search system rather than published. Directors and officers are different: a copy of the register of directors and officers must be filed with the Registrar and is open to inspection. If you need company management kept off the public record, tell us early and we will recommend a structure or jurisdiction that achieves it.

A registered address in the Bahamas is required to form a company. It is a legal requirement, and without it we cannot proceed to file the documents with the registrar for your company’s incorporation. Vepapu already covers this service for you, so you do not need to have a physical office in the Bahamas to incorporate.

A Bahamas IBC pays an annual government fee to the Registrar, which runs on the calendar year rather than your incorporation anniversary — pay by 31 March and it stays at the standard rate, after which it increases and the company can eventually be struck off. Your registered agent also files an annual economic substance declaration. You must keep reliable accounting records for at least five years and keep the register of directors and officers filed with the Registrar up to date, but Bahamas IBCs do not file an annual return or financial statements, and no audit is required. Annual General Meetings are not mandatory — if you choose to hold one, it can be conducted anywhere and does not need to be in the Bahamas.

The Bahamas imposes no corporate income tax, personal income tax, capital gains tax, inheritance tax, or wealth tax. There are two important qualifications. First, the Bahamas does have indirect taxation: value-added tax at a standard rate of 10%, plus a business licence tax on turnover, stamp duty, and real property tax, which apply to business carried on in or from the Bahamas. Second, the Domestic Minimum Top-Up Tax Act, 2024 introduced a 15% minimum effective tax rate for multinational groups with consolidated revenue of EUR 750 million or more, for fiscal years beginning on or after 1 January 2024 — the first corporate income tax in Bahamian history, but one that only reaches very large groups. Your own country of tax residence may still tax the company’s profits, so confirm your position with a tax adviser there.