State schools stopped taking newcomers' children in 2018, and citizenship requires 25 years of residence.
Bahrain was the first Gulf state to start dismantling the kafala system: since 2009 an employer no longer holds a worker in an iron grip. There is no exit permit, after 12 months of work you can move to another employer without the old one's consent, procedures are online, and there are no mandatory language or integration tests. The state delivers on its promises quickly: a permit comes through in days.
But the country leads nowhere. Permanent status does not exist, and naturalisation takes 25 years and a decision by the authorities. Since 2018 state schools have not admitted the children of most foreigners, leaving paid private schools. A family needs net income of at least BHD 400 a month, and a spouse on a family visa cannot work: they need a separate permit at the same price as the main one, though it takes only 2 working days.
The job market for foreigners is shrinking. Quotas for citizens apply in every sector, up to 50% in banking, healthcare and education, with a BHD 500 fine per permit for missing them, and fees are being raised explicitly to cut hiring from abroad. We found no campaigns against legal residents over the past year; LMRA inspections target violators. But if an employer reports that a worker has stopped turning up, the permit is cancelled, and detention, a fine and deportation may follow. Removal is an administrative decision and an appeal does not stop it. The scale: 82,941 inspections and 9,873 deportations over two years.
If you lose your job, you have 30 days to find a new employer, with another 30 available by extension. In the first 12 months you can change employer only with your employer's consent. The employer files the permit renewal online before expiry, and you may keep working until the decision.
Day to day everything hinges on the CPR card: no bank account until it is issued, and to get or renew a CPR you need an address certificate in your own name, a lease or a utility bill.
The index score ignores nationality. This is what changes for citizens of specific countries.
Tourist visa on arrival or an e-visa. Work follows the same route through a sponsoring employer.
Children of citizens of the Gulf Cooperation Council states keep access to free state schools. For nationals of Arab countries the residence requirement for naturalisation is 15 years instead of 25.
Tourist visa on arrival or an e-visa. Work only through an LMRA permit, as for everyone.
Tourist visa on arrival or an e-visa. When we checked official sources on 3 August 2026 we could not establish any documented nationality ban on work. A tourist visa gives no right to work.
Belarus is not on the visa-on-arrival list, but an e-visa is available. We found no documented nationality restrictions on work in official sources.
The place interval 44-63 shows where the country lands when the data is nudged and the index is recalculated. One place of difference in the table means nothing; a difference of a league means something.
The thin mark on each bar is the average across 97 countries
The strongest category here is Pressure on newcomers: 83 out of 100, against a 97-state average of 65.2. The weakest is Path to citizenship: 7 against 57.1. Above the world average: 4 out of 7.
All 97 states are calculated for one applicant: 35 years old, income of $2,500 and $3,856 a month before tax, passport not counted, the most accessible route that is actually in use.
Your passport, your income and your family do not change the table. They change which of its lines apply to you. A different income makes entry read differently, a family makes the family category read differently, and your passport makes everything read differently.
LMRA promises 3 working days for applications inside the country and 21 working days for applications from abroad. In practice the permit takes 5-10 working days, and the whole process to the CPR ID card 2-4 weeks.
No. There is no digital nomad visa, the self-sponsored permit was abolished in 2022, and Golden Residency requires property from BHD 130,000 or 5 years of work on a high salary.
The work permit is BHD 195 a year plus BHD 5, and by law the employer pays it, not the worker. A family pays BHD 90 + 5 for each member's residence permit; fees are rising from 2026.
Yes, your status depends on your job: after losing it you have 30 days to find a new employer, plus a possible 30-day extension. An employer's report that you stopped turning up leads to cancellation and can end in deportation.
There is no permanent residence: the 10-year Golden Residency is renewable but cancelled if you lose its basis. Naturalisation after 25 years of residence (15 for Arab nationals), with Arabic and at the authorities' discretion.
Politely and efficiently, but only for a while. The state is gentler with workers than its neighbours and puts little pressure on legal residents, yet it offers no path to permanent status and uses quotas to cut hiring of foreigners.
97 states, 26 indicators, seven categories, 2,522 scores. Every score has a source and a source class: primary means the texts of laws and government portals; reliable secondary means reports by international organisations, tax reviews by audit firms and specialist legal publications; weak means community posts and single secondary sources. The classes add up to a confidence level for the country, and a country with low confidence gets neither a score nor a place.
Every indicator is scored against a fixed ruler, not against its neighbours. Adding new countries therefore does not move the old ones, and a change in a score means a change in policy and nothing else.
A high place does not mean a good country. It means one thing: the state machine treats newcomers predictably and by the rules. Living there may be expensive, dull or hot; that is not our question.
Checked 01/10/2026. Facts come from the country's index card and official websites.
We make mistakes and we will go on making them: policy changes faster than any database. Our answer is not a pose of infallibility but a visible trail of corrections. Every correction is published: what it was, what it became, the source and the reason for the error. The corrections log opens with the second issue, together with the first block of changes.