The Bahamas exempts unprepared food sold or imported by food stores from VAT from 1 April 2026

What changed in detail

The Value Added Tax (Amendment) Act, 2026 (No. 4 of 2026) received assent on 23 March 2026 and was published in the Extraordinary Official Gazette the same day. Under section 1(2) it came into operation on 1 April 2026.

Section 3 amends the Second Schedule to the Value Added Tax Act (Ch. 370A), the schedule of exempt supplies and imports:

• a new exempt supply, item (19): the wholesale and retail supply of goods listed in Part III if sold unprepared by a food store;
• a new exempt import, item 10: the import of Part III goods by a food store;
• a new Part III, a list by tariff code of goods that are exempt if imported by a food store and sold unprepared. It runs from tariff chapter 02 to 22: meat, fish, dairy (including milk packaged for infants), vegetables, fruit, cereals and flour, fats and oils, preserved meat, sugars, cocoa and some beverages, including aerated waters under 2202.1010.

Section 4 amends the Fourth Schedule. It deletes Part I, which held the 5% list of unprepared food introduced in 2025, renumbers Part II (medical supplies) as the new Part I, and heads it as chargeable at the reduced rate of 5%.

Section 2 deletes the words “if sold unprepared in a food store and” from section 6(1)(b), so the remaining 5% list no longer depends on who sells it.

What it means

This change is in force in November 2026. It replaced the 5% reduced rate on unprepared food that applied from 1 April 2025 (5% VAT on unprepared food). The later VAT (Amendment) (No. 2) Act, 2026 (No. 19 of 2026, assented 30 June 2026) amends Second Schedule items 16 and 16A, but under its section 1(3) that amendment comes into force on a date the Minister appoints by Gazette notice, not with the rest of the Act on 1 July 2026. It leaves item (19) and Part III alone.

The exemption follows the seller, not only the goods. The same item sold by a business that is not a food store stays at the 10% standard rate. The 2026 list is also not a copy of the 2025 one. Sodas under 2202.10 are on it, while chewing gum and most sugar confectionery are not and remain at 10% (confectionery and sodas). The medical supplies list now carries 5% whoever sells it (5% VAT on medical supplies). Check each tariff line against the 2026 Act.