The Bahamas rewrites VAT on real property: seven-year hold for zero-rated family transfers and a $2,500 flat rate for error exchanges

What changed in detail

The Value Added Tax (Amendment) Act, 2024 (No. 18 of 2024) amends the Value Added Tax Act, 2014 (Ch. 370A). It received assent on 26 June 2024 and was published in Supplement Part I of the Official Gazette No. 26 on 27 June 2024. Most of it came into operation on 1 July 2024.

• Section 4 restates section 6(2): real property supplies listed in the First Schedule are zero-rated, and any other supply of real property is charged at the rates in the Third Schedule.
• Section 14 rewrites First Schedule Part I item 9. An inter vivos transfer by an individual to themself, a spouse, parents, children or remoter issue, or to a company whose shares the transferor wholly owns, is zero-rated only if the transferee holds the property for at least seven years. The item also covers transfers between spouses or former spouses under an adjustment order under the Matrimonial Causes Act, co-operative credit-union loans and instruments, and the acquisition of no more than 10% of the shares in a registered real estate investment trust.
• Section 15 adds a flat $2,500 to Third Schedule item 6 for an exchange of real property made because of an owner’s error, where the unimproved values are similar and neither property exceeds $500,000.
• Section 11 inserts section 47B: companies notify their registered agent within fifteen days of acquiring or disposing of real property, and agents file an annual declaration with the Comptroller.
• Section 7, from 1 December 2024, sets the section 38D fine at 10% of the tax owed, or 15% where property worth more than $300,000 is stamped or paid more than six months late.
• Section 16 let instruments presented for late stamping between 29 May and 30 November 2024 be valued at market value when the conveyance was executed.

What it means

The core of this Act is still in force: section 6(2) and the rewritten First Schedule item 9 and Third Schedule item 6 stand. Parts of the package have since moved. The Value Added Tax (Amendment) (No.2) Act, 2025 (No. 45 of 2025, in force 1 July 2025) changed the section 47B declaration date to 31 January for the prior year, added a section 47C duty to declare any conveyance of a beneficial interest in real property within thirty days, and added section 38K fines for false statements on property transfers. The section 16 valuation amnesty is spent; it expired on 30 November 2024.

The seven-year hold is the change most likely to catch people out. A family transfer that used to be zero-rated on the relationship alone now depends on a condition that runs for seven years after the transfer. For conveyancers, the higher late-stamping fines since December 2024 make prompt stamping the cheaper path.