General Information » Entering Bahrain » Customs

There are three customs locations when entering Bahrain: Bahrain International Airport, Bahrain Port and the Saudi Causeway. At the airport all bags are checked electronically and some are checked manually (picked at random, or if anything suspicious has been discovered during the electronic testing). Sometimes video tapes are taken away to be checked before you can bring them into Bahrain. In this case, you either have to wait until the check is finished, or return to the airport the next day to collect your cassette.

Customs at the port, and in particular the causeway, range from a perfunctory manual scan to a thorough investigation of the luggage and the vehicle, though normally the customs checks are not onerous. In general no customs duty is imposed on the personal effects of people entering Bahrain, though there is a BD 300 ceiling on the value of personal items.

Forbidden items include firearms, items produced in Israel, pornographic material, drugs, ivory and cultured pearls. Another word of warning: for some obscure reason, codeine is a banned substance in Bahrain, even though it is available off the shelf in other countries. If you are taking any medication containing codeine and you have to bring it with you to Bahrain, make sure you have a doctor’s note.

The duty free allowances are generally: two litres of spirits, two litres of wine, and 2,000 cigarettes, but allowances differ depending on which country the visitor is coming from. Visitors are advised to check their allowances on www.bdutyfree.com/services/allowances before travelling. People in transit to Saudi Arabia via the causeway should note that no pork products, alcohol, pornographic material (which can include anything as seemingly innocuous as underwear adverts in women’s magazines, or family beach photographs), or non-Muslim religious objects or literature are allowed into Saudi Arabia and the consequences for attempting to bring them in can be severe.