{"id":9155,"date":"2017-05-12T13:36:16","date_gmt":"2017-05-12T13:36:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.investmentimmigration.com\/?p=9155"},"modified":"2019-02-12T14:02:13","modified_gmt":"2019-02-12T19:02:13","slug":"bahamas-investor-residence-government-aims-increase-threshold","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.investmentimmigration.com\/bahamas-investor-residence-government-aims-increase-threshold\/","title":{"rendered":"Bahamas Investor Residence: Government Aims To Increase Threshold"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A plan to increase the threshold of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.investmentimmigration.com\/bahamas-investor-residence-visa\/\">Bahamas residency-by-investment immigration<\/a> program has been rejected by the real estate industry.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"9156\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/www.investmentimmigration.com\/bahamas-investor-residence-government-aims-increase-threshold\/atlantis-692201_640\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/www.investmentimmigration.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/atlantis-692201_640.jpg\" data-orig-size=\"640,426\" data-comments-opened=\"0\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"Bahamas Investor Residence: Government Aims To Increase Threshold\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-medium-file=\"https:\/\/www.investmentimmigration.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/atlantis-692201_640-300x200.jpg\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/www.investmentimmigration.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/atlantis-692201_640.jpg\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-9156\" src=\"https:\/\/www.investmentimmigration.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/atlantis-692201_640-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"Bahamas Investor Residence: Government Aims To Increase Threshold\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.investmentimmigration.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/atlantis-692201_640-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.investmentimmigration.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/atlantis-692201_640-600x399.jpg 600w, https:\/\/www.investmentimmigration.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/atlantis-692201_640.jpg 640w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The Bahamas government wants to double the real estate investment threshold from BS $500,000 to BS $1 million.<\/p>\n<p>But a survey conducted by the Bahamas Real Estate Association indicated industry stakeholders are strongly against the idea.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h3>Bahamas Investor Residency: Investment Requirements<\/h3>\n<table cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td valign=\"top\"><strong>Current Threshold<\/strong><\/td>\n<td valign=\"top\"><strong>Proposed New Threshold<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td valign=\"top\">BS $500,000<\/td>\n<td valign=\"top\">BS $ 1 million<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<hr \/>\n<p>However, lawmakers may push ahead with the increase anyway, with foreign minister Fred Mitchell describing the current threshold as \u2018absolutely too low\u2019.<\/p>\n<p>Doubling the threshold was \u2018absolutely the right thing to do\u2019 Mitchell told the nation\u2019s parliament, in comments reported by the Tribune website.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are giving people permanent residency to stay in this country for BS $500,000,\u201d the Tribune reported Mitchell as saying.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat is absolutely too low. The cost of a work permit is BS $12,500 for someone who is a managing director of a bank for one year, and then you\u2019re giving permanent residency to someone because he could pay BS $500,000 for a house. Something is wrong with that.\u201d<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h3>Bahamas Investor Residence Visa: Benefits<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>Right to reside in the Bahamas without further renewal of permits.<\/li>\n<li>Right to enjoy all privileges enjoyed by citizens of Bahamas except for the right to vote.<\/li>\n<li>Right to purchase property in Bahamas<\/li>\n<li>Liberal tax regime.<\/li>\n<li>Easy travel to Commonwealth nations, members of the Caribbean Community and the members of the Organization of American States<\/li>\n<li>Eligible to apply for Citizenship of Bahamas after fulfilling residence requirements.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<p>The Bahamas promises priority processing for permanent residence where foreign investors have purchased property for more than BS $500,000.<\/p>\n<p>An candidate\u2019s spouse and dependent children can be included on the application.<\/p>\n<p>The proposed change does not have unanimous cabinet support in the Bahamian government.<\/p>\n<p>With the internal property market flat in the Bahamas, the economy relies on the second home market to generate sales, the bulk of which is funded by the investment immigration program.<\/p>\n<p>Any move to increase the investment threshold could push buyers to use one of the significant number of other programs that exist around the world.<\/p>\n<p>Such an impact could have a trickle down negative effect on the whole Bahamas economy.<\/p>\n<p><b>Further reading<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.investmentimmigration.com\/bahamas-developers-plan-double-investment-threshold\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Bahamas Developers Against Plan To Double Investment Threshold<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.investmentimmigration.com\/liberalized-investment-immigration-program-to-reduce-bahamas-unemployment\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Liberalized Investment Immigration Program to Reduce Unemployment in the Bahamas<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A plan to increase the threshold of the Bahamas residency-by-investment immigration program has been rejected by the real estate industry. The Bahamas government wants to double the real estate investment threshold from BS $500,000 to BS $1 million. But a survey conducted by the Bahamas Real Estate Association indicated industry stakeholders are strongly against the&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"footnotes":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[454],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8hnWW-2nF","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmentimmigration.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9155"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmentimmigration.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmentimmigration.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmentimmigration.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmentimmigration.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9155"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmentimmigration.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9155\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmentimmigration.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmentimmigration.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmentimmigration.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}