The Bahamas raises VAT on chewing gum, sweets, confectionery and sodas from 5% to 10% from 1 July 2025

What changed in detail

The Value Added Tax (Amendment) (No.2) Act, 2025 (No. 45 of 2025) received assent on 27 June 2025 and was published in the Extraordinary Official Gazette on 1 July 2025. Under section 1(2) it came into operation on 1 July 2025, apart from section 22(f).

Section 22 amends the Fourth Schedule to the VAT Act, the schedule of goods taxed at the reduced rate when sold unprepared by a food store. It renumbers the existing schedule as Part I and, in four entries, deletes 5% and substitutes 10%:

These items had been at the 5% reduced rate only since 1 April 2025, when the VAT (Amendment) Act 2025 (No. 3 of 2025) inserted the Fourth Schedule. From 1 July 2025 they returned to 10%, the standard rate.

What it means

This change is spent. The Value Added Tax (Amendment) Act, 2026 (No. 4 of 2026, assented 23 March 2026, in force 1 April 2026; official text) deleted the old Part I of the Fourth Schedule, which held these four entries, and moved unprepared food into a new exempt list for food stores.

The four items no longer sit together. Chewing gum, boiled sweets and other sugar confectionery are not on the new exempt list, so they stay at the 10% standard rate. Sodas under subheading 2202.10 do appear on it, so since 1 April 2026 they are exempt when sold unprepared by a food store or imported by one, and remain at 10% when sold by other businesses. A retailer should check each line against the 2026 Act rather than rely on the 2025 grouping.