Parliament to review bill introducing sugar-based excise tax on higher-sugar beverages

TDT | Manama

Email: mail@newsofbahrain.com

Sweetened drinks in Bahrain would be taxed by sugar level under a draft law now before Parliament, introducing a per-litre charge for higher-sugar products while tobacco and energy drinks stay at 100 per cent.

The same bill would shift the excise-tax role from the Ministry of Finance to the National Bureau for Revenue (NBR), putting the NBR’s chief executive officer in place of the minister across several powers in the law.

The amendments were referred to the Council of Representatives under Decree No. (78) of 2025, issued on 31 December 2025, following a letter from His Royal Highness Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, the Crown Prince and Prime Minister.

Comments

The Council of Representatives Speaker Ahmed bin Salman Al-Musallam is being asked to refer the draft to the Financial and Economic Affairs Committee as the lead committee, with the Legislative and Legal Affairs Committee invited to give its comments.

The draft changes who runs the system.

It replaces references to ‘the Ministry’ with ‘the Bureau’, defined as the NBR, and swaps ‘the Minister’ for ‘the Chief Executive’ in a number of articles, defining that post as the Chief Executive Officer of the NBR.

Schedule

The bill also rewrites the excise schedule for sweetened drinks. Tobacco would still be taxed at 100 per cent, and so would energy drinks.

Sweetened drinks, however, would move to a sugar-based scale. Sugar-free drinks that contain only artificial sweeteners would be taxed at zero dinars per litre, as would drinks with total sugar below five grams per 100 millilitres.

Charges

Above that, the draft introduces two per-litre charges.

Drinks with total sugar from 5 to 7.099 grams per 100 millilitres would be charged at BD0.079 per litre, while drinks with eight grams or more per 100 millilitres would be charged at BD0.109 per litre.

The text also keeps a clause allowing other excise goods to be added under the relevant GCC agreement through a Cabinet-approved decision.

A transitional rule deals with sweetened drinks already inside the Kingdom where excise tax has not been paid.

Conditions

Tax would fall due once three conditions are met: the goods are not under a tax-suspension status, they are held for trade, and the tax due exceeds BD500.

Holders would have 30 days from the law taking effect to work out the tax under the law and its executive rules, file a transitional return, and pay the amount to the NBR.

The draft also adds a new provision on refunds, allowing extra refund cases to be set under the agreement through a Cabinet-approved decision.

Activities

Businesses and others carrying out activities listed in Article (7) of the current law would be allowed to register with the NBR before the amendments take effect.

The bill leaves the start date to be inserted and says it will be published in the Official Gazette.