Bahamas Tariff Search
2023-2024

What is a Bahamas Tariff Search?

A Bahamas Tariff Search is the process of looking up the import tax rate for an item entering The Bahamas. It involves using documents or tools provided by The Government or private entities. Depending on one’s experience with tariff matters, it can be a tedious process.

How To Do A Bahamas Tariff Search?

There are multiple ways to conduct a Bahamas Tariff Search. Each method has its pros and cons. One’s experience with tariff matters may also dictate which approach is better.

Importable Tariff Search Tool

Importable is a private tool that allows you to do a tariff search using keywords. The primary search shows results that are easy to understand (often matching the search keyword directly) as compared to the other tariff search options.

Clicking on a result will show the tariff description and related information such as excise rates and environmental levy if applicable.

This tool was created because of the limitations of the existing government-provided tariff search options and most people will find it easier to use.

Bahamas Customs Tariff Search Tool

The Customs Department of The Bahamas has a free tool available on its website for tariff searches. It’s powered by 3CE by Avalara.

The Customs Tariff Search tool allows you to enter keywords, click Classify, and then show the results or a prompt for additional information. Sometimes the tool suggests keywords as you type.

The search result of this tool is the heading/sub-heading of the tariff code that best matches the keywords entered. You may have to scroll over to see the corresponding rate.

It’s not immediately clear if the search results accurately match the keywords entered. Some interpretation is necessary. For example, searching cell phone at the time of this writing returns the tariff code  8517.1400 with the description “Other telephones for cellular networks or for other wireless networks.”

Notice that the description doesn’t explicitly say “Cell Phone”, but instead provides a general description for a cell phone.

Bahamas Tariff Schedule PDF

Another way to do a Bahamas tariff search is to download The Bahamas Tariff Schedule PDF document available on The Bahamas Customs website. Using the search functionality of the PDF reader, keywords for the desired item can be entered and step by step each highlighted portion of the document can be reviewed for relevance.

Alternatively, the desired item can be found by navigating the structure of the document. The Bahamas Tariff Schedule is broken down into Sections, Chapters, Headings, and Sub Headings.

Sections group items at a high level, for example, “Vegetable Products” or “Mineral Products”. Chapters break the group down to another level, for example, the Vegetable Products” section has chapters related to “Live trees” and “Edible fruit and nuts”.

Once in the right chapter, it’s usually quick to find the desired item tariff by looking at the heading/sub-heading.

A Common Tariff Search Mistake

A common mistake people make when searching the Tarif Schedule PDF or using The Bahamas Customs Tariff Search tool is thinking that an item that shows as duty-free is truly duty-free.

In some cases, items listed as free in the Tariff Schedule have an excise rate linked to them. That rate is found in a separate document called the Excise Act.

There are two asterisks next to the tariff code in the Tariff Schedule to denote tariff codes that have an excise rate associated with them. Whenever you see it, check the Excise Act for the rate to use.

Bahamas Customs Tariff Search V.S. Importable Tariff Search

After recognizing the limitations of the Tariff Search and there not being any good alternative for a country that relies so heavily on imports, Importable was created in 2020 to make finding tariffs for The Bahamas easier.

Like the Tariff Search, you can enter keywords to search, but unlike the Tariff Search, the results are presented as you would expect. That is when searching for computers, the result states “Computers”.

Importable is also based on the Tariff Act. After all, the Tariff Act is the source of truth. But rather than copying the tariff act contents directly, rates for tariffs are mapped to the common terms people use to search and results are displayed simply.

Being dependent on the Tariff Act also means there is a delay between updates to Importable and the release of the updated tariffs each year. That delay is short, however, only days or weeks after the Tariff Act is released to the public.

Importable also takes things a few steps further by including the Excise Rates and Environmental levies eliminating the need to refer to additional documents.

There is also a quick way to calculate the amount you can expect to pay for customs and freight based on a particular tariff.

Finally, The Bahamas Customs Tariff Search Tool is also not mobile-friendly while Importable is. While you can get away with using Customs Tariff Search on a mobile device, depending on the screen size, a lot of scrolling and additional clicks may be necessary.

To learn more about Tariffs in general, see the article: Understanding Bahamas Tariffs.