Business
Full foreign ownership in most sectors, with no local partner requirement
Bahrain permits one hundred per cent foreign ownership across most of the economy without a local partner, and has done so longer than its neighbours.
Key rules
- Jurisdiction — Commercial courts and the BCDR. Bahrain Chamber for Dispute Resolution administers arbitration under Model Law rules.
- Deadline — 30 days to challenge a shareholder resolution
- Deadline — 30 days to apply to set aside an arbitral award
Governing law
- Commercial Companies Law, Decree-Law 21 of 2001
- Law 1 of 2018 amending the Commercial Companies Law
- Arbitration Law 9 of 2015
- Reorganisation and Bankruptcy Law 22 of 2018
In practice
Bahrain's early liberalisation of foreign ownership was a deliberate strategy to compete as a regional financial centre before Dubai and Doha built their free zones, and it means Bahrain achieves the same result onshore that its neighbours achieve inside enclaves, with no separate legal jurisdiction to navigate. Company formation is comparatively quick and the Central Bank of Bahrain is a single unified financial regulator. The 2018 Bankruptcy Law introduced a Chapter 11 style reorganisation procedure that was the first of its kind in the region.