Bahrain Golden Visa

The decision opens five routes, not one, and four of the five carry their own figure. Article 1 of Minister of Interior Decision No. 20 of 2022 allows the Nationality, Passports and Residence Affairs to issue an entry visa and a golden residence permit to five categories.

The first is a foreigner owning property registered in their own name in Bahrain, provided its price was not less than two hundred thousand Bahraini dinars at the time of purchase, as established in the title documents.

The second is a retired foreigner who worked in the government or private sector in Bahrain or outside it, provided the pension is not less than four thousand dinars a month or the equivalent.

The third is a holder of specialised talent, and that category deliberately carries no figure: the criteria are set by a separate decision of the Undersecretary for Nationality, Passports and Residence Affairs.

The fourth is a foreign worker in Bahrain, provided residence is not less than five years and the average basic salary received is not less than two thousand dinars over the last five years of residence.

The fifth is a retired foreigner who worked in the government or private sector in Bahrain for not less than fifteen years, with an average pension of not less than two thousand dinars over the last five years of residence.

The two retirement routes differ in a way that is easy to read past: the second takes twice the pension but requires no Bahraini service, while the fifth takes half and requires fifteen years of it.

The outcome is a ten-year residence permit, and Article 1 states plainly that it renews: the permit is valid for ten years and is renewable for similar periods. What decides its real value, though, sits in two provisions the promotional material rarely mentions.

Article 5 imposes a flat limit: a person granted a permit under this decision may not take employment in the government or private sector except after obtaining the necessary permits from the competent bodies — the card confers the right to stay, not by itself the right to work.

In exchange, Article 6 grants something many long-stay routes withhold: the holder may leave Bahrain and return throughout the validity of the permit, with no separate re-entry visa.

Article 3 adds something an applicant should know before budgeting: the application goes to the Visas and Residence Directorate on the prescribed form, and the application is subject to the assessment of the competent administration according to the circumstances of each case.

Meeting the conditions on paper is not the same as being granted.

And Article 10 reserves to the Minister of Interior the power to exempt some cases from those very conditions, again case by case.

Four time limits, and three of them are the holder's to watch rather than processing times. The first is the term: ten years, renewable for similar periods, under the closing sentence of Article 1.

The second is a presence obligation, set out in Article 8 as a ground for cancelling the permit: the holder must prove ninety days of residence in the country within one year, failing which the permit is cancelled.

The third is the departure window: under Article 9(a), where the permit is cancelled or expires without renewal, the foreigner together with spouse, children and parents is given fourteen days to leave Bahrain, and the Visas and Residence Directorate may extend that period so the applicant can wind up their affairs.

The fourth arises only on the death of the principal, and how it is drafted repays reading: under Article 9(b), all dependants receive a grace period to regularise their legal position, running until the permit expires in the tenth year or for one year, whichever is longer.

The decision sets no limit on processing time; Article 3 says only that the application is subject to the administration's assessment case by case.

The residence obligation on this route is ninety days a year, and it is drafted not as a condition but as a ground for cancelling the permit — Article 8(1): the permit is cancelled if residence in the country is not proven for ninety days within one year.

The burden of proof sits with the holder.

The three remaining grounds in the same article repay reading because two of them have nothing to do with time:

Where continued residence would harm security, public order or national interests; where it is established that the permit was obtained on false information or incorrect documents; and where any provision of the Aliens (Immigration and Residence) Act of 1965 has been breached.

Article 8 closes with a knock-on consequence: if the principal's permit is cancelled, the dependants' permits are cancelled with it. In the other direction, Article 6 grants the right to leave Bahrain and return throughout the validity.

Article 2 sets three conditions that are continuing, not merely conditions of entry:

Good conduct with no prior conviction for a felony or a crime against honour or trust, even where rehabilitated; health insurance in Bahrain throughout the validity of the permit; and a lawful source of income sufficient to support the holder and those they support.

The dependant class covers three groups, and the third is one most comparable routes withhold.

Article 4 allows an entry visa and a non-working dependant residence permit to be granted to the spouse, to the children, and to the parents of a foreigner holding a permit under this decision, on an application made by that person to the Visas and Residence Directorate on the prescribed form.

Three provisions tighten around the class.

First, the dependant's permit carries the words non-working in the provision itself, so taking employment is a different matter, not an added formality.

Second, Article 8 imposes a knock-on consequence: when the principal's permit is cancelled, the residence permits of spouse, children and parents are cancelled with it.

Third, Article 7 charges per head: each dependant's residence permit attracts a separate fee equal to the principal's.

Where the principal dies, Article 9(b) gives all dependants a grace period to regularise their legal position lasting until the end of the permit's validity in the tenth year or one year, whichever is longer. The decision sets no age limit for children and imposes no financial-dependency test on parents.

The status this programme grants, whether a visa or a residence permit, does not replace the holder's passport. The holder still travels on the passport of their own country, so the figure below belongs to the Bahrain passport and becomes the holder's only once they are issued a Bahrain passport.

According to the Passport Index of Prosperous Intelligence, on data dated 30 September 2026, the Bahrain passport reaches 94 destinations without applying for a consular visa in advance. The figure combines three forms of entry and does not count an e-Visa that must be obtained beforehand:

It is therefore a measure of how easily the holder travels, not a count of visa-free countries in the narrow sense.

For comparison, on the same source and the same method of counting, the Vietnamese passport reaches 44 destinations. The two lists of destinations do not nest inside one another, so the difference is an indication rather than a list of places newly opened.

Prosperous Intelligence dates its data and advises checking with the destination’s official authorities before travelling.

At the authority that issues the programme, the content of the Golden Residency page of the Nationality, Passports and Residence Affairs department has not been verified, and the national services portal lists five procedures without a single word about tax.

What follows is second-tier material from the National Bureau for Revenue, and the most important point is that the residence permit does not by itself create tax residence.

To obtain a certificate of tax residence, an individual must be physically present in the Kingdom of Bahrain for one or more periods amounting in aggregate to not less than 183 days in the year for which the certificate is sought.

The revenue authority states plainly that its International Tax Relations Directorate will verify this directly with the Nationality, Passports and Residence Affairs department, and that an application failing this condition is rejected.

The residence permit is merely one of the documents to be filed, and applies only to natural persons who are not Bahraini nationals.

The file must further identify the specific article of the tax treaty or of the other country domestic law being relied on, accompanied by the opinion of a suitably qualified independent legal adviser, and must include evidence of amounts subjected to withholding tax where the other revenue authority asks for the sums to be confirmed.

One sentence must be kept to its proper scope.

The list of taxes this authority currently publishes comprises three, namely value added tax, excise tax and the domestic minimum top-up tax under Decree-Law No. 11 of 2024 applying to multinational groups with global revenue of 750 million euros or more.

That is to say there is no personal income tax in that list, which is not the same statement as Bahrain having no personal income tax.

The fee on this route is three hundred Bahraini dinars, and that figure has to be read together with the way it multiplies.

Article 7 provides that a residence permit under this decision is granted against a fee of three hundred Bahraini dinars, and that a further fee of three hundred Bahraini dinars is charged for each residence permit for each dependant.

A family of four — the principal with a spouse and two children — therefore pays one thousand two hundred dinars, not three hundred.

The decision adds no other charge, but it does impose two financial obligations that budgets tend to leave out:

Article 2 requires health insurance in Bahrain throughout the validity of the permit, that is for ten years rather than once at application; and the same article requires a lawful source of income sufficient to support the holder and their dependants.

The decision prints no separate renewal fee, and does not refer the renewal to the general fee schedule of the Nationality, Passports and Residence Affairs in Decision No. 196 of 2014 — so the cost of a second ten-year term cannot be read from this instrument.