Bahamas
Customs Duty Rates
As a country that depends heavily on imports, customs duty rates are a topic most, if not all persons living in The Bahamas should be familiar with. In this article, we’ll look at various aspects of customs duties such as the amount, related fees, calculations, duty rate updates, and finding duty rates.
Customs Duty Rates For 2024-2025
Bahamas customs duty rates for the year 2024-2025 are between 0% and 220%. The average rate of duty is 5% to 35%. In addition to the duty rate, VAT, environmental levies, and processing fees should also be considered to determine import costs.
The customs processing fee is 1% with a minimum of $10 and a maximum of $750. The environmental levy is based on the item and ranges from a fixed amount of $1 to $500. In some cases, it’s a percentage of the item’s landed cost. VAT in The Bahamas is currently 10%.
Customs Duty-Free
In The Bahamas, some items are duty-free. Duty-free means the item has a duty rate of 0%. Don’t be fooled, however. Although those items are duty-free, they may still be subject to other customs costs such as environmental levies, processing fees, and value-added tax (VAT).
Some of the most frequently imported duty-free items are Baby Clothing, Computers, Books, and Medicine.
Finding Customs Duty Rates
There are multiple ways to find customs duty rates in The Bahamas. The source of truth for duty rates is the Tariff Act and its amendments. Although it’s the source of truth, it’s not the easiest to navigate. Additionally, the item may not be described in a way that you are familiar with.
Customs Tariff Search
To make searching the Tariff Act easier. You can use the Tariff Seach tool on The Department of Customs’s website. The tool isn’t mobile-friendly and may take some time to get comfortable with. Like the PDF, the items may not be described as desired, but it seems like the correct sections are tagged so when you search for a common term, it shows the right section even though that term isn’t in it.
Frequently Imported Items
Another place to find customs duty rates is the Bahamas Customs Frequently Imported Items document. The Department of Customs usually releases an updated copy of it each year.
According to Bahamas Customs, some of the frequently imported items and their duty rates are listed in the following table.
| Items | Rates |
|---|---|
| Clothes | 20% |
| Reading Books | 0% |
| Auto Parts | 60% |
| Toys | 20% |
| Generators | Free |
| Christmas Lights (Non-LED) | 35% |
The latest Frequently Imported Items document released by The Department of Customs was for 2022-2023. See the Frequently Imported Items page to download a copy if you are interested.
Importable
Last but not least, you can find customs duty rates on this website. Our mission is to make finding customs duty rates and estimating import costs easier. So in addition to our duty calculators, we list rates in the terms they are normally described.
Customs Duty Calculations
Calculating customs duty in The Bahamas is simple. However, calculating it in addition to other fees such as value-added tax (VAT) is a little complicated. You don’t have to worry about the complexity though. Importable does calculations for you.
Customs duty is calculated by multiplying the duty rate against the item’s value. Calculating import costs on the other hand requires first calculating duty, environmental levy, processing fee, storage fee, etc. Then those amounts must be totaled and multiplied against the VAT rate. To get more details with an example or to access the calculator, visit the duty calculator page.
To calculate customs and shipping costs, see the Import Calculator.
Updates To Customs Duty Rates
The duty rates in The Bahamas are usually updated once a year to be effective on July 1st. The rates are updated depending on a variety of reasons such as encouraging or discouraging the import of certain items. The updates are published in a Tariff Amendment and the motivation for the changes is usually stated at the end of the document.
Customs Duty Rate 2022-2023 Updates
On May 25th, 2022, the government of The Bahamas released the 2022 duty rate updates. In general, many rates were reduced or became duty-free. Food items, in particular, were the focus of many duty rate reductions. Most already were at a low rate, but have now been made duty-free.
The reduction of rates for food items is likely due to the cost of goods increasing around the world. On the other hand, some duty rate reductions were a surprise. Electronics such as computer parts were reduced from their already low rate of 5% to duty-free.
The most surprising and one of the most significant duty rate reductions for 2022 was headphones. Headphones went from 45% to duty-free. Unlike the food items, it isn’t immediately clear why headphones were reduced so much, but considering that duty rates for other computer-related items were reduced also, it might be because of the rise in remote work/conferencing.
For a list of all the Importable duty rates that were updated as a result of the 2022 tariff amendments go here.
To be clear, although the updates are considered for 2022, they are actually for 2023 up until the government releases new updates.
Customs Duty Rate 2023-2024 Updates
On July 1st, 2023, the Bahamas Tariff Act 2023 came into effect. As a result, the duty rates for some items were updated. For the most part, the duty rates for many common items were decreased.
For a list of all the Importable duty rates that were updated based on the release of Tariff Act 2023 go here.
Customs Duty Rate 2024-2025 Updates
On July 1st, 2024, the Tariff Amendment Bill 2024 came into effect. As a result, the duty rates for some items were updated.
For a summary of what was changed go here.
Customs Duty Rates PDF
Whenever the customs duty rates are updated, The department of customs usually releases a document known as the Frequently Imported Items PDF. In addition to showing the frequently imported items and their rates, it usually contains information on custom calculations, customs fees, and exemptions. If you are interested in viewing them, you can quickly download them on our Frequently Imported Items PDFs page.
Conclusion
In this article, we looked at various aspects of customs duty rates in The Bahamas. Most people will be interested in finding rates for the items they want to import and possibly estimating the cost of importing items based on it. But if you read everything, hopefully, the details of this article were still valuable to you.
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