FinObservatory

Country profile / BHS

Bahamas

One canonical page for Bahamas’s financial profile, composed from the crisis atlas, IMF sovereign-debt data, the World Bank GFDD and Global Findex, the BIS credit, policy-rate and exchange-rate statistics, the external accounts (IMF balance of payments and international investment position, official reserves, capital-account openness and remittances), and the Penn World Table’s population and GDP scale. Each section links to its dedicated module and cites its own primary source; sections appear only where Bahamas has data.

Latest government debt
77.8%
2024 (Central govt (IMF GDD))
Financial crises on record
0
none in the five chronologies
Private credit by banks
62.0%
GFDD, 2020
BIS credit-cycle data
Not covered
BIS ~44-economy set only

Cross-border banking exposure: how much BIS-reporting banks lend to Bahamas.

Economic scale

Population, real GDP per capita, and total-factor productivity from the Penn World Table, 1950–2023. A scale reference for every other section on this page, not a financial-risk series in its own right.

Population
0.4023
millions
0.100.200.300.4019702023
Real GDP per capita (PPP)
3439323
2021 US$, chained
100002000030000400005000019702023
Total factor productivity
No data for this country

Source: Penn World Table 11.0 (Feenstra, Inklaar and Timmer 2015). License: CC BY 4.0. Methodology

Crisis history

No banking, currency, or sovereign-debt crisis is recorded for Bahamas in the five chronologies (Global Macro Database, Reinhart-Rogoff, Laeven-Valencia, JST, ECB/ESRB).

Source: Global Macro Database 2026_06 | Reinhart-Rogoff (HBS BFFS) | Laeven & Valencia (2020, 2026) | ECB/ESRB Financial Crises Database. License: non-commercial research (inherits GMD / JST); cite all five chronologies. Methodology

Financial depth and soundness

Depth (private credit, deposits) and soundness (Z-score, nonperforming loans, concentration) from the World Bank GFDD. GFDD values end in 2021 (the dataset’s last release year); a flat recent tail is the data stopping, not the sector standing still.

Private credit by banks
62.020
% of GDP
20.040.060.080.019692020
Bank deposits
81.920
% of GDP
20.040.060.080.010019692020
Bank Z-score
13.221
index (higher = sounder)
5.0010.015.020.025.020002021
Nonperforming loans
No data for this country
Bank concentration
60.421
% assets, top 3 banks
40.060.080.010020002021

Source: World Bank Global Financial Development Database (Sep 2022). License: CC BY 4.0. Values end 2021 (GFDD's last release year). Methodology

Financial inclusion

Bahamas is not surveyed in the World Bank Global Findex (162 economies covered), so no financial-inclusion series is available here.

Source: World Bank Global Findex Database 2025. License: CC BY 4.0. Survey waves; percent of adults age 15+. Methodology

Credit cycle

Bahamas is not in the BIS credit-statistics reporting set (a fixed group of around 44 advanced and major emerging economies), so no credit-to-GDP gap, debt-service ratio, or property-price series is available here.

Source: BIS credit and debt-service statistics | BIS residential property prices. License: free with "Source: BIS" attribution. Methodology

Policy rate and exchange rate

Bahamas is in neither the BIS central-bank policy-rate set (48 economies) nor the BIS real broad effective-exchange-rate set (63 economies), so no policy-rate or exchange-rate series is available here.

Source: BIS central bank policy rates | BIS effective exchange rates. License: free with "Source: BIS" attribution. Methodology

External accounts

Bahamas’s external position: the current-account balance (IMF, percent of GDP), the net international investment position and total official reserves (both shown as US-dollar levels, in billions, because the IMF IIP and World Bank reserve series carry dollar values rather than ratios), the degree of capital-account openness (the Chinn-Ito index, 0 closed to 1 open), and remittance inflows. A positive current account or net-IIP reading is a surplus/creditor position; a negative one is a deficit/debtor position. Each panel appears only where Bahamas has that series.

Current-account balance
-9.9525
% of GDP
-30.0-20.0-10.00.0010.019802025
Net international investment position
No data for this country
Total reserves
2.6324
US$ billion
0.001.002.003.0019682024
Capital-account openness
0.002023
index, 0 = closed, 1 = open
annual, 1977 to 2023
Remittance inflows
0.072024
US$ billion
annual, 2020 to 2024

Remittance inflows are shown as external-flow context (household income received from abroad), not a FinObservatory risk score.

Source: IMF Balance of Payments and IIP Statistics | World Bank, Total reserves (FI.RES.TOTL.CD). License: IMF and World Bank, free with attribution ("Source: IMF"; World Bank reserves CC BY 4.0). Current account and net IIP: IMF BOP/IIP, to 2025. Reserves: World Bank FI.RES.TOTL.CD, to 2025. Methodology

Source: Chinn-Ito index of capital-account openness (Chinn and Ito 2006). License: research use with citation only (Chinn-Ito); not for commercial redistribution. Capital-account openness ends 2023. Methodology

Source: World Bank / KNOMAD Migration and Remittances Data. License: CC BY 4.0 (World Bank / KNOMAD). Remittance inflows end 2024; shown as context, not a risk score. Methodology

International debt securities

Outstanding international debt securities issued by Bahamas’s residents, by issuer sector, from the BIS: bonds and notes placed outside the home market (residence basis), in US-dollar billions. These are international issues only: domestic-market issuance is excluded, so this is not a country’s total debt-securities outstanding and is far smaller than its whole bond market. “All issuers” is the total; the government, financial-corporation and non-financial-corporation lines are its components, each shown only where the BIS reports it.

All issuers
$12.1B
2026-Q1
General government
$3.9B
2026-Q1
Financial corporations
$7.5B
2026-Q1
Non-financial corporations
$0.71B
2026-Q1
All issuersGeneral governmentFinancial corporationsNon-financial corporations
$0.00B$5.0B$10.0B$15.0B$20.0B19751980198519901995200020052010201520202025AllFinGovtNon-fin

Source: BIS debt securities statistics (international debt securities). License: free with "Source: BIS" attribution. International issues only (residence basis); domestic issuance excluded. Quarterly, 1973-Q1 to 2026-Q1. Methodology

Latest government debt 77.8% of GDP (2024, Central govt (IMF GDD)). Peak 89.4% in 2021. This is below the 80.7% median at which 2000+ sovereign crises began (a comparison, not a prediction).

Latest debt
77.8%
2024
Peak debt
89.4%
2021
Sovereign crises
0
none on record

Source: IMF Global Debt Database | IMF World Economic Outlook. License: IMF, free with "Source: IMF" attribution. Methodology

Reading this profile

  • This page composes existing FinObservatory layers; it introduces no new data. Every figure is reproducible from the source cited in its section. See the methodology for the composition and each source’s coverage and staleness.
  • The layers stop at different dates: the World Bank GFDD depth and soundness series end 2021, but the IMF FSI soundness panel is current (annual through 2024–2025 where reported); the Global Findex inclusion series are surveyed in waves and reach 2024; the crisis chronologies end around 2016–2021; IMF debt runs to 2024; the Penn World Table runs 1950–2023; and the BIS statistics are the most current (credit through 2025, residential property to 2026Q1, and the policy rate and effective exchange rate into 2026 where reported). The external accounts reach 2025 (IMF balance-of-payments and reserves), 2024 (remittance inflows) and 2023 (capital-account openness). A quiet recent tail in one section can simply be where that source stops.
  • Sections are shown only where Bahamas has data. An absent section means the underlying dataset does not cover this country, not that the value is zero.