The Bahamas’ Summary of Findings of the Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing Risk Assessment on Legal Persons and Legal Arrangements 2025
Published: Wednesday July 29th, 2026
The Bahamas’ Summary of Findings of the Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing Risk Assessment on Legal Persons and Legal Arrangements 2025
In conjunction with the Office of the Attorney General’s Office and the Identified Risk Framework (“IRF”) Steering Committee, The Central Bank of The Bahamas (“the Central Bank”) is pleased to share The Bahamas’ Summary of Findings - Money Laundering (“ML”) and Terrorist Financing (“TF”) Risk Assessment on Legal Persons and Legal Arrangements 2025.
The aim of this assessment is to document The Bahamas’ understanding of ML and TF risks associated with legal persons and legal arrangements at the national level. The scope of this assessment addresses legal persons formed in The Bahamas under Bahamian law, including companies, foundations, and exempted limited partnerships (ELPs), companies limited by guarantee, investment funds, and other relevant structures. Trusts and comparable legal arrangements administered in or from The Bahamas are also included.
The assessment was conducted in three (3) phases: i) Mapping; ii) Threat Assessment; and iii) Vulnerabilities Assessment. A detailed entity-specific risk assessment, including inherent and final ML/TF risk ratings for each legal person and arrangement type across sectors, is provided in a supplemental annex. In alignment with the Financial Action Task Force (“FATF”) standards, the methodology conducted for this assessment systematically identify, assess, and examine ML and TF risks associated with corporate and fiduciary structures.
SFIs are expected to fully understand the ML and TF risks associated with legal persons and arrangements in The Bahamas. They must ensure that their risk-based programs and frameworks are sufficiently robust to safeguard against, maintain high levels of beneficial ownership compliance and ensure ongoing verification of ultimate beneficial owners; and continue risk-based supervision and enhanced due diligence for complex, cross-border, or high-value structures without unduly restricting legitimate activity.
We request that all SFIs thoroughly review both documents, and where appropriate update their operational risk assessments, policies, guidelines, guidance notes, procedures and other relevant documents.
Comments or Queries to this notice should be addressed to:
The Analytics Unit
Bank Supervision Department
Central Bank of The Bahamas
