Bahrain 1 Jan 2019 VAT Bill passes
- Oct 6, 2018 | Richard Asquith
Updated 8th Oct: the parliaments, Upper House has passed the Bill tonight. Royal Assent is now a formality within the next week.
Bahrain’s parliament lower house has passed today the implementation of a 5% VAT regime from 1 January 2019. The House of Representatives approved a Gulf Arab agreement to introduce VAT after a royal decree ordered parliament to hold an extraordinary session on Sunday without giving details of the vote.
The Upper House will scrutinise the VAT Bill this week coming.
Bahrain is facing a challenging fiscal deficit, with the threat of a debt default, and has been offered $10 billion bailout from Saudi Arabia and the UAE. The Gulf state had signed up to implement VAT along with the five other member states of the GCC. To date, only Saudi Arabia and the UAE have introduced VAT at the start of 2018.
