---
title: "Freeport Bahamas Property: Reform Timeline to 2028"
description: Freeport Bahamas property buyers face a rewritten legal framework by 2028. The consultation dates, what is not retroactive, and the five diligence points.
---

[Invest in Bahamas Real Estate](https://cphinvestmentgroup.com/en/blog)

# [Freeport Bahamas Property: Reform Timeline to 2028](https://cphinvestmentgroup.com/en/blog/freeport-bahamas-property-reform-timeline-to-2028)

 Written by [Christoph Albeck](https://cphinvestmentgroup.com/en/blog/author/christoph-albeck) | Nov 7, 2026, 10:44:09 PM

On 21 October 2026 the Bahamian government announced that the legal framework governing Freeport — the Hawksbill Creek Agreement, signed in 1955 and written to run until 2054 — will be replaced. A Green Paper is now in public consultation, with new legislation targeted for the first quarter of 2028. For anyone holding or buying Freeport Bahamas property, the practical question is narrow: which rights attach to the asset itself, and which depend on a concession regime that is now being redrafted.

## What was announced, in precise terms

Prime Minister Philip Davis said the question of whether to change Freeport's governance is "settled" and that the mechanism will be an amendment of the Hawksbill Creek Agreement plus a new statute. The proposed statute is a Grand Bahama Development Act applying island-wide — East and West Grand Bahama and the surrounding cays — rather than only to the roughly 230-square-mile Port Area administered by the Grand Bahama Port Authority (GBPA).

Two further elements were set out:

- A Grand Bahama Development Council to coordinate development, with seats for central and local government, GBPA licensees, labour, business and community representatives.
- A statutory review of the new Act every five years, which the Green Paper justifies as preventing the island from being "governed for decades by arrangements that no longer serve them."

Davis also stated that reform "must properly address vested interests, contracts and protect investments" and that "nothing will be done retrospectively." That sentence is the one that matters most to existing owners, and the section below sets out how far it reaches.

## The five dates that define the window

Unusually for a Bahamian reform process, the government has published a calendar. As of the start of consultation, the sequence is:

- **1 November 2026** — formal public consultation on the Green Paper opens, including town halls, sector meetings and written submissions to a Grand Bahama Reform Secretariat.
- **30 April 2027** — consultation closes.
- **1 July 2027** — target for a White Paper and consultation report.
- **31 December 2027** — target for draft legislation.
- **Q1 2028** — target for passage into law.

These are targets, not commitments, and the GBPA has publicly called the six-month consultation period "ambitious." The dates are still useful: the terms of any *new* concession on Grand Bahama are unlikely to be legally fixed before 2028, while the terms attaching to land already owned are a separate matter.

## What the Green Paper proposes to change

The Green Paper's substantive proposals concentrate on how future investment incentives are awarded, not on property ownership. Its stated principles include:

- Concessions tied to "measurable, verifiable commitments rather than asserted benefits."
- Relief "linked to productive use," explicitly not rewarding "the passive holding of land or other assets."
- Defined award periods with periodic review, rather than open-ended entitlements.
- Geographic eligibility based on where activity actually occurs, not a registered address — with the possibility of *enhanced* incentives for East and West Grand Bahama, outside the current Port Area.
- Bahamian participation conditions covering employment, training, supplier development and co-investment.

Exemption rates, award periods and the treatment of existing entitlements are expressly left open for consultation, and no figures have been published. The Green Paper also concedes that tax relief alone may not address the island's binding constraints, which it identifies as serviced land, skills, transport and reliable utilities.

## "Nothing retrospective" — and what it does not cover

The government's position is that a proposal for a new concession will not be treated as equivalent to an existing entitlement, and that existing entitlements will not be described as withdrawn before a legal measure takes effect. Reporting on the Green Paper indicates no development deadline for landowners and no plan to withdraw concessions already granted.

For a residential or small-scale investor the distinction is straightforward in principle. Freehold title, the right to buy as a non-Bahamian, and the absence of capital gains, inheritance and income tax are features of Bahamian law generally, not of the Hawksbill Creek Agreement. What sits inside the Agreement is the Port Area concession architecture: duty exemptions on imports, the licensing regime, and the GBPA's administrative powers. A buyer whose case depends on the second category has more to verify than one whose case rests on the first. Our note on [what buyers must verify in the Freeport free trade zone](https://cphinvestmentgroup.com/en/blog/freeport-free-trade-zone-what-buyers-must-verify) sets out those checks in order.

Residency is a third, separate track: it runs under the Immigration Act, not the Hawksbill Creek Agreement, and is not part of this reform. The [costs and requirements for Bahamas permanent residency](https://cphinvestmentgroup.com/en/blog/bahamas-permanent-residency-costs-requirements-2026) are unchanged by the Green Paper, including the absence of any minimum stay requirement for Freeport and the Grand Bahama zone.

## The bottleneck the reform is aimed at

The Green Paper's case rests substantially on a gap between approvals and delivery. Its own figures for the Port Area show permitted construction value rising from US$66.8m in 2021 to US$268.5m in 2024, while recorded starts over the same period moved only from US$46.1m to US$66.9m. In 2024, starts were roughly a quarter of permitted value. The Green Paper is careful to note that permits, starts and completions can relate to different projects and years, so single-year ratios should not be over-read.

Practitioners attribute much of the gap to a two-stop approval process: GBPA sign-off first, then separate approvals from Nassau agencies — the Bahamas Investment Authority, Customs, Immigration, the Central Bank, Building Control and the environmental regulator — several of which lack Grand Bahama staff with decision-making authority. Evidence in the other direction also exists: the principal of Pirate's Cove Zipline & Water Park told the Tribune that a Nassau application sat four years without a decision, while the GBPA approved 19 of 20 requested items within two weeks of a first meeting. Whether a single island-wide regime removes that friction or relocates it to Nassau is the central open question of the consultation.

## The counter-argument

The dissent is substantive rather than procedural. The GBPA's position is that its rights under the Agreement — signed in 1955, running to 2054, amended by consent in 1960 and 1966 — can be altered only by agreement, not imposed unilaterally, and it disputes the government's reading of the February 2026 partial arbitration award. Davis has rejected any private veto and said the route is through Parliament. Separately, the US Ambassador published an op-ed arguing that "changes are coming, details to follow" is the most expensive signal a government can send to capital, and asking that existing commitments be honoured and the full framework published before changes take effect.

The demographics explain why both sides claim urgency. The 2022 census counted 46,740 residents on Grand Bahama, down from 51,368 in 2010, with nearly one in five homes recorded as empty. Against that, committed private capital continues to arrive: MSC Cruises' US$450m Freeport Harbour terminal, the Grand Bahama Shipyard investment by MSC, Carnival and Royal Caribbean, and Carnival's Celebration Key. The GBPA has announced a further US$1m of road resurfacing across 11 Freeport roadways, due by end-November 2026, taking its three-year road spend above US$2.6m. Our review of [the 2027–2029 build calendar](https://cphinvestmentgroup.com/en/blog/grand-bahama-property-investment-the-2027-2029-window) sets those projects against each other on timing.

## What a buyer should do between now and April 2027

Three things are actionable while consultation is open. First, separate the parts of an investment case that rest on general Bahamian law from the parts that rest on a Port Area concession, and price only the first as settled. Second, where a concession is material, obtain the specific instrument in writing with its stated term — not a summary. Third, licensees and owners can submit views to the Reform Secretariat until 30 April 2027, and the treatment of existing entitlements is one of the questions explicitly left open.

If you are assessing a specific property or plot on Grand Bahama and want the current legal position set against your own holding structure and timeline, we can walk through it with you directly. Requests from accredited investors are handled by Christoph Albeck, resident in Freeport.

*This article is for information only. It is not investment, tax or legal advice, and it is not an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy any security or any interest in any property. Figures are drawn from public sources as at 30 October 2026 and may change; the reform process described here is a consultation, not enacted law. Tax treatment depends on individual circumstances and must be confirmed with qualified legal and tax advisors in your own jurisdiction and in The Bahamas. Statements regarding Freeport and the Grand Bahama zone do not extend to other Bahamian islands.*

[View full post](https://cphinvestmentgroup.com/en/blog/freeport-bahamas-property-reform-timeline-to-2028)

```json
{
  "@context" : "http://schema.org",
  "@type" : "BlogPosting",
  "author" : {
    "@type" : "Person",
    "name" : "Christoph Albeck"
  },
  "dateModified" : "2026-11-07T22:44:09.674Z",
  "datePublished" : "2026-11-07T22:44:09Z",
  "headline" : "Freeport Bahamas Property: Reform Timeline to 2028",
  "image" : {
    "@type" : "ImageObject",
    "height" : 60,
    "url" : "/hs/hsstatic/content_shared_assets/static-1.4092/img/default-amp-logo.png",
    "width" : 60
  },
  "mainEntityOfPage" : "https://cphinvestmentgroup.com/en/blog/freeport-bahamas-property-reform-timeline-to-2028",
  "publisher" : {
    "@type" : "Organization",
    "logo" : {
      "@type" : "ImageObject",
      "height" : 60,
      "url" : "/hs/hsstatic/content_shared_assets/static-1.4092/img/default-amp-logo.png",
      "width" : 60
    },
    "name" : "Bahamas Real Estate"
  }
}
```