Regulation 3(2) of Bermuda's Exchange Control Regulations 1973 deems an exempted company not to be resident in Bermuda. Regulation 3(2C) deems it resident again if eighty per cent or more of its issued share capital is beneficially owned by Bermudians. Regulation 8(1)(b) then reaches payments made to a resident on the order of someone outside the area.
On most corridors the difference between a business payment and a personal one is what the payment is for. Bermuda draws the line somewhere else. Its Exchange Control Regulations 1973 decide the question by what the recipient is, and they decide it by deeming rather than by application.
Key Takeaways
- Regulation 3(1) deems resident any person ordinarily resident in Bermuda or who has a place of business there.
- Regulation 3(2) deems an exempted company not to be resident in Bermuda.
- Regulation 3(2C) reverses that where eighty per cent or more of the issued share capital is beneficially owned by Bermudians.
- Regulation 8(1)(b) covers a payment made in Bermuda to a resident on the order of a person outside the exchange control area.
- Regulation 9(1) governs how a price is quoted and settled in Bermuda, applies only where the payee is resident in the area, and is not a rule about an inbound transfer.
The status is deemed, not granted
The distinction worth getting right first is how the status arises. Secondary descriptions of Bermuda's regime often say that an exempted company is designated non-resident by the authorities, which reads like a decision made on an application. The instrument says something else.
The Regulations are made under section 2 of the Exchange Control Act 1972. Regulation 3(2) of those Regulations provides that, subject to anything to the contrary in that regulation, an exempted company shall be deemed not to be resident in Bermuda. The word is deemed. It operates on the company's type, not on any determination about it. Regulation 2 fixes what those types are: exempted company takes the meaning in section 2(1) of the Companies Act 1981, and a permit company is defined by reference to sections 133(2) and 134 of the same Act.
The Controller who appears throughout is not a separate office. The Exchange Control Act 1972 defines the Controller of Foreign Exchange as an officer of the Bermuda Monetary Authority. The Authority designates who holds the role, with the Minister's approval, and it is constituted under the Bermuda Monetary Authority Act 1969.
So the status follows the corporate form automatically. Nobody applies for it. Regulation 3(1) is the general rule, deeming resident any person ordinarily resident in Bermuda or having a place of business there, and for this class it is displaced without more.
Where the rule turns back
The deeming is not one-way, and the point at which it reverses is written as a number.
Regulation 3(2C) sets the threshold at eighty per cent or more of an exempted company's total issued share capital, beneficially owned by Bermudians as defined in section 113 of the Companies Act 1981. Above it, the company is deemed resident in Bermuda, paragraph (2) notwithstanding. Regulation 3(2D) runs the same threshold through to people. Every employee of such a company working for it in Bermuda is deemed resident too, anything in Regulation 3(2B) notwithstanding.
There is also a discretionary limb, and it is narrow. Regulation 3(2E) covers an exempted company licensed under section 129A of the Companies Act 1981 to carry on a business or activity in Bermuda. The Controller may direct that it be treated as resident as respects that business or activity. So the direction reaches a defined slice of activity rather than the company as a whole. Regulation 47A carries a heading for supplementary directions of that kind.
Which provisions the status feeds into
Two provisions turn on it, and they are why the definitional question is worth following.
Regulation 8(1) opens with the words except with the permission of the Controller, and then sets out three things no person shall do in Bermuda.
| Regulation 8(1) limb | What it covers |
|---|---|
| (a) | A payment in Bermuda to or for the credit of a person resident outside the exchange control area |
| (b) | A payment in Bermuda to or for the credit of a person resident in the area, by order or on behalf of a person resident outside it |
| (c) | Placing any sum to the credit of a person resident outside the area |
The middle limb is the one drafted around the shape of an arriving international payment. Whether a given recipient sits inside it is answered by Regulations 3(1), 3(2) and 3(2C).
The Australian dollar to Bermudian dollar page carries the reference figures for the corridor itself.
The quoting rule is about local pricing, not about the transfer
Regulation 9(1) is the second place the status is load-bearing, and it applies in every transaction involving a payment in Bermuda to a person resident in the Bermuda exchange control area. Its subject is how a price is quoted and settled in Bermuda rather than how money arrives there.
Where it applies, three things follow.
- The person to whom the payment is to be made must quote or express the amount in Bermuda area currency. The Exchange Control Act 1972 defines that term as any currency of Bermuda and any prescribed currency.
- If the amount so quoted is then paid in a foreign currency, the official exchange rate applies, and no person may accept that foreign currency at any other rate.
- If change is required, it must be given in Bermuda area currency.
The carve-outs are what show the rule's real subject. Regulation 9(2) and 9(3) exempt two things from limbs (a) and (c), for the goods and services they supply: a hotel licensed under the Hotels (Licensing and Control) Act 1969, and a passenger ship within the meaning of the Passenger Ships Act 1972. The hotel exemption is then narrowed again. It does not extend to a shop, cycle livery, travel agent, hairdressing establishment or beauty salon operating inside the hotel. A provision that has to think about cycle liveries and beauty salons is regulating over-the-counter commerce on the island. It is not a rule about what a bank does with an inbound wire.
A payee outside the exchange control area is not inside Regulation 9(1) at all, because the paragraph opens on payments to a person resident in the area. The obligation to price in Bermuda currency is therefore keyed to status in the same way the permission limb of Regulation 8 is. The mechanics of getting a credit that far are the ordinary ones, set out in how international transfers work.
Why this reads as business versus personal without saying so
Neither Regulation 3 nor Regulation 8 mentions the purpose of a payment, and neither distinguishes a salary from a gift or an invoice from family support. What they distinguish is who is being credited.
The practical effect nonetheless lands close to the business and personal split, because the class the Regulations deem non-resident is a corporate one. Take two recipients in Hamilton: a relative living there, and an insurer registered as an exempted company. The relative answers to Regulation 3(1), and so falls within the description Regulation 8(1)(b) is drawn around. The insurer falls outside both, unless the ownership threshold in 3(2C) has been crossed or the Controller has given a direction under 3(2E).
What this does not settle
Regulation 8 is drafted as a prohibition with a permission attached to it. That is the ordinary architecture of an exchange control statute, not a measure of how often permission is sought or refused. A scheme written that way can be operated through general permissions issued under it, and those turn whole classes of transaction into something nobody applies for one at a time.
The Bermuda Monetary Authority has issued at least one general permission under the Exchange Control Act 1972. It is commonly described as a Notice to the Public dated 1 June 2005, and every account of it found concerns the issue and transfer of securities rather than payments. Whether any general permission reaches an ordinary personal remittance arriving from abroad is not something this guide establishes, and the text of Regulation 8 by itself does not answer it.
What the Regulations give a reader is therefore the structure rather than the outcome: which transactions the prohibition is drawn around, and what decides whether a particular recipient is inside that description. Reading the prohibition as a forecast about a specific transfer goes further than the instrument goes.
What a sender in Australia can see, and what they cannot
Nothing in a payment instruction carries the recipient's exchange control status. An account number does not encode it and a company name does not disclose it. If you are paying a company in Hamilton, the instruction you fill in looks the same either way, and it will not tell you which side of Regulation 3 that company sits on.
The status attaches to corporate form and to beneficial ownership, not to anything the payment says about itself. So it is settled at the receiving end, on facts you have no access to.
That is why the distinction is not one you act on. It explains why two payments that look identical from here are described differently once they land. It also explains why one recipient's account of what their bank asked for need not generalise to anyone else on the island.
Where to look next
How international transfers work sets out the sequence a payment moves through before any national rule reaches it. What a payment rail is made of covers the infrastructure a credit of this kind lands on. Understanding transfer fees deals with the separate question of what a transfer costs. For the same corridor in the other direction, see the Bermudian dollar to Australian dollar page.
Sources
- Exchange Control Regulations 1973, Bermuda Monetary Authority - Regulation 2's definitions, Regulation 3's deeming rules including the eighty per cent threshold at 3(2C), Regulation 8's payment limbs and Regulation 9's quoting obligations with their carve-outs.
- Exchange Control Act 1972, Bermuda Monetary Authority - the regulation-making power at section 2 under which the 1973 Regulations are made, and the definition of the Controller of Foreign Exchange as a designated officer of the Bermuda Monetary Authority.
- Bermuda Monetary Authority, Exchange Control Regulations Enforcement Guide - that the Bermuda Monetary Authority is the body administering and enforcing these Regulations, which is what places the Controller of Foreign Exchange inside it, and its own framing of that role as process rather than as a statement of what is permitted.
General information about sending money to Bermuda and about the exchange control rules that apply there. Not financial advice, and not a recommendation of any product or institution. How this site sources and dates what it publishes is set out on our methodology page. Reviewed by the Tradergy editorial team, September 2026.
Common questions
Who counts as resident in Bermuda for exchange control?
Regulation 3(1) of the Exchange Control Regulations 1973 deems resident any person ordinarily resident in Bermuda or who has a place of business in Bermuda. Regulation 3 opens by setting that test for the purposes of these Regulations, so what it establishes is a person's status for exchange control and not a general statement about them.
Why is an exempted company treated as non-resident?
Because Regulation 3(2) says so directly. It provides that, subject to anything to the contrary in that regulation, an exempted company shall be deemed not to be resident in Bermuda. The term exempted company takes the meaning given in section 2(1) of the Companies Act 1981, and a permit company is defined separately by reference to sections 133(2) and 134 of the same Act.
Does Bermudian ownership change that?
Yes, at a stated threshold. Regulation 3(2C) provides that if eighty per cent or more of the total issued share capital of an exempted company is beneficially owned by Bermudians, as defined in section 113 of the Companies Act 1981, the company shall be deemed to be resident in Bermuda, paragraph (2) notwithstanding. Regulation 3(2D) applies the same threshold to the company's employees working for it in Bermuda.
Which rule reaches money arriving from outside Bermuda?
Regulation 8(1)(b) of the Exchange Control Regulations 1973, made under section 2 of the Exchange Control Act 1972. It provides that except with the permission of the Controller, no person shall in Bermuda make any payment to or for the credit of a person resident in the Bermuda exchange control area by order or on behalf of a person resident outside that area. A credit made in Bermuda on the instruction of someone abroad is the shape that paragraph describes. That is the drafting, not a statement about what an individual transfer requires in practice. A scheme in this form can be operated through general permissions issued under the Exchange Control Act 1972, and whether any of them reaches an ordinary personal remittance is not established here.
Does Bermuda require an amount to be quoted in its own currency?
For payments to a person resident in the exchange control area, yes. Regulation 9(1) requires the person to whom payment is to be made to quote or express the amount in Bermuda area currency, requires the official exchange rate to be used where payment is then made in a foreign currency, and requires change to be given in Bermuda area currency. Licensed hotels and passenger ships are exempted from two of those three limbs, which is a good indication of its subject: it is a rule about quoting and settling a price on the island rather than about how money arrives there.