Moving to Bahrain from New Zealand

Our residency index: 60/100, possible, with conditions. It is our own rating of how realistic long-term residency in Bahrain is for New Zealand citizens, based on the routes Bahrain publishes. Realistic long-term routes are self-sponsorship residence permits (property ownership, business investment, or a 15-year-career retiree on modest stable income) and the 10-year Golden Residency for property owners, high-income retirees, or long-serving professionals; working-age applicants without capital still need an employer sponsor.

The cheapest self-funded routes we track:

• Income: about $1,330 a month (Bahrain self-sponsorship Retired Foreigner residence permit, BHD 500/mo stable income (no property purchase needed but requires a retirement certificate showing 15+ years' service); BHD pegged at 1 BHD = USD 2.659 (CBB peg 0.376 BHD/USD); as of June 2026)
• Investment: about $133k (Bahrain self-sponsorship Property Owner residence permit, BHD 50,000 minimum real estate (cheaper than the BHD 130,000 Golden Residency property route reduced Dec 2025); also requires BHD 500/mo income; 1 BHD = USD 2.659; as of June 2026)

Check the official requirements before you apply: amounts, conditions and exchange rates change, and what a couple needs can differ from a single applicant's threshold.

For short visits, New Zealand passport holders can get a visa on arrival for a visit, according to the passport-index dataset. Short-stay entry covers visits; living there takes a residence permit.

Ranked by our match model for a typical couple who both hold New Zealand passports, using the preset answers of our best places to live list. Your own answers would change the order. We pick the cities, up to five, by how often English Wikipedia readers looked them up over the past year.

1. 1

   1. Manama

   60% match

   Est. cost

   €2,883/mo

   Avg temp

   27°C

   Safety index

   80/100

Our estimate for a couple living centrally in Manama is €2,883 a month. For comparison, we estimate €3,812 a month in Auckland. Use these figures to compare places rather than to set a budget.

Bahrain is in our zero or very low tax tier (little to no personal income tax); New Zealand is in our low to medium tax tier (moderate personal income tax). Tiers describe each country's own income tax. They do not cover tax you may still owe in New Zealand after you leave, or the treaty between the two countries, so check both with a tax adviser before you move.

• Best places to live in the Middle East and North Africa
• Best warm, dry cities to live in
• Best cities to live in with zero or very low income tax
• Warm, affordable cities to live abroad

• Moving to Bahrain from the US
• Moving to Bahrain from the UK
• Moving to Bahrain from Canada
• Moving to Bahrain from Australia
• Moving to Bahrain from Ireland

Every country and origin we cover

Every figure here comes from the datasets behind our city and country pages:

• Short-stay entry: the passport-index dataset (ilyankou, MIT license), which records the entry rule for short visits on each passport.
• Residency index, routes and thresholds: the OurNextCity residency dataset, hand-reviewed against published immigration rules, figures as of June 2026. It is a summary, not legal advice.
• City ranking: our match model, the one behind the quiz, run with a typical couple's preset answers and both partners holding New Zealand passports. It ranks up to five of the country's best-known cities: of the cities in our quiz (100,000 people or more, capitals and a few towns movers seek out, such as Faro), the five most read about on English Wikipedia over the past year. It folds suburbs into their main city and leaves out countries with a residency index under 40 and areas under a US State Department Level 4 advisory, as our best-cities lists do.
• Costs: our cost model, a country-level cost-of-living index scaled for city size, from our city dataset (last rebuilt June 2026).
• Tax tiers: three coarse bands we assign by hand from each country's top marginal personal income tax rate and overall tax reputation.