Data-center law in Bahrain

National jurisdiction · as of 2026-09-06

Bahrain has no data-centre-specific siting, environmental-review, or utility statute.

Legislative Decree No. 56 of 2018 In Respect of Providing Cloud Computing Services to Foreign Parties instead sets a legal-risk framework aimed at encouraging foreign parties to invest in and use cloud computing services delivered through data centres in the Kingdom: a foreign subscriber's own content stored in a designated Bahraini data centre remains under the exclusive jurisdiction of the competent courts and authorities of the subscriber's own foreign state, for data centres and foreign states the Council of Ministers designates by a resolution published in the Official Gazette.

Instruments on record

1 instrument on record, grouped by the family of approval each one governs.

Public agreements

What fiscal agreements attach a data center to its host jurisdiction?

Legislative Decree No. 56 of 2018, Cloud Computing Services to Foreign Parties

In force

Legislative Decree No. 56 of 2018 (Cloud Computing Services to Foreign Parties)

Applies to both

The Decree-Law aims to establish a legal framework encouraging foreign parties to use cloud computing services within data centres located in the Kingdom and to invest in those services.

It defines a data centre as one of the data centres in the Kingdom that the Council of Ministers designates by a resolution published in the Official Gazette as providing cloud computing services to subscribers, and a foreign party to include any public or private legal person and any governmental or non-governmental entity lawfully established under a foreign state's law.

A subscriber's content stored in a designated data centre remains, without prejudice to Bahrain's own Information Technology Crimes Law, under the exclusive jurisdiction of the competent courts and authorities of the foreign state where the subscriber resides or is established, and Bahrain's own competent judge and Public Prosecution execute a final, non-appealable order that such a foreign court or authority issues to a service provider concerning that content.

The Council of Ministers may also exclude a data centre or a foreign state from a prior designation by a published resolution, with a 120-day wind-down period during which the Decree-Law's provisions continue to apply to the excluded centre or state.

Source: Full text of law