Bahamas Travel Safety Guide

The emergency numbers

The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office instructs travelers to call 911 or 919 and ask for an ambulance. Two numbers rather than one is worth remembering under pressure. Save both before you need either.

Where the crime risk is concentrated

The official advice is specific about geography, and the specificity is the useful part. It records violent crime in residential and tourist areas of New Providence and Grand Bahama. Those are the two islands that carry most of the visitor infrastructure, and the inclusion of tourist areas is deliberate: the risk is not confined to places a visitor would never go.

⚠ The outlying islands run the other way. The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office records that the Family Islands, also called the Out Islands, have lower crime rates. If you have read the opposite somewhere, it is wrong, and it is the sort of mistake that sends people to the busier islands for safety reasons that do not hold.

Festivals raise the risk

The risk of crime increases during regattas and festivals. This is the one piece of safety advice that interacts directly with a travel calendar, because the celebrations are a reason people choose their dates. Go, and treat a festival night as a night to carry less, agree a meeting point, and keep the group together. Our festivals guide covers what happens when.

Water sports, and a specific warning

The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office records that the water sports industry is poorly regulated, and separately records reports of sexual assaults on foreign nationals by jet ski operators in Nassau.

Both belong in the same decision. Vet the operator, refuse anything improvised, stay visible, and never leave with an operator alone. Our transportation guide covers the practical side of booking on the water.

Sharks: one instruction, no exceptions

There have been fatal shark attacks in the Bahamas. The official instruction is unambiguous: never go into water that has been baited.

Baiting the water is a practice associated with feeding displays and with fishing, and the point of the instruction is that it changes the behavior of animals that are otherwise not looking for you. If you are offered an experience that involves bait, or you arrive at water where fish are being cleaned or fed, the answer is to stay out of it. This is not a risk to manage carefully. It is one to decline.

Medical care, and why the island matters

Treatment is recorded as being of a good standard but expensive. The distribution is the critical part: emergency medical facilities are limited on all the Family Islands, with serious cases transferred to Nassau or Freeport. The quiet islands with the lower crime rate are the same islands furthest from a hospital, and a trip that spends time on them should carry insurance that covers transfers.

Health preparation

Begin at least 8 weeks before you travel. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends hepatitis A for unvaccinated travelers one year old or older and lists typhoid as a vaccine to consider; both are food and water borne, and our food and water guide covers what that means day to day. On rabies, the same source records that dogs infected with rabies are not commonly found here and that rabies vaccines are typically available throughout most of the country.

The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office estimates that at least 7,600 adults aged 15 or over are living with HIV in the Bahamas. It is published as a health fact about the country and the precautions that follow are the ordinary ones, which apply everywhere and are worth stating once rather than implying.

What this guide does not tell you

It carries no neighborhood names, no crime statistics and no risk rating, because the advice it draws on does not publish them at that resolution and a guide should not invent a precision its sources do not have. Read your own government's current travel advice before you fly; it is updated when the situation changes and this page is not.

Sources

• UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office: Bahamas safety and security: violent crime in residential and tourist areas of New Providence and Grand Bahama, the record that the outlying Family or Out Islands have lower crime rates, the increase in risk during regattas and festivals, reports of sexual assaults on foreign nationals by jet ski operators in Nassau, fatal shark attacks and the instruction never to enter water that has been baited, the statement that the water sports industry is poorly regulated, the three month limit on a UK photocard driving license, left-hand drive hire cars on left-hand traffic, and a hurricane season running 1 June to 30 November. Accessed 18 September 2026.
• UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office: Bahamas health: the instruction to call 911 or 919 and ask for an ambulance, to begin health preparation at least 8 weeks before the trip, the record that medical treatment is of a good standard but can be expensive, that emergency medical facilities are limited on all the Family Islands with serious cases transferred to Nassau or Freeport, and the estimate that at least 7,600 adults aged 15 or over are living with HIV. Accessed 18 September 2026.
• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: Bahamas traveler health: hepatitis A recommended for unvaccinated travelers one year old or older, typhoid listed as a vaccine to consider, and the record that dogs infected with rabies are not commonly found and that rabies vaccines are typically available throughout most of the country. Accessed 18 September 2026.