self sponsorship residence permit-property vs investor

You need to be clear on a few concepts.

All of the self sponsorship visas are RESIDENCE permits and NOT work permits - these are issued directly by NPRA.  These do not require medical testing and are only subject to a few financial criteria (No medical because you are not going to work and financial criteria because you are not going to work ).  These can be up to 10 years.

Work permits, minus a few exceptions, are given by LMRA and not NPRA.  These are subject to medical testing (because you will work) and financial criteria, does not really matter.  These are for a max of 2 years.

Now on the SS visas, they changed the criteria for retirement and investor by adding deposits to those.  Property remained unchanged.  My personal thinking is that the investor visa of the past was really unattractive as it required you to put in 100K as a passive investor (not 50K)  which meant that it only really made sense for ACTUAL big money investors if they took holdings in large Bahrain companies.  This meant that this product was a side benefit for the big money and obviously it did not matter to them as those type of people are not exactly planning to live here.    So I think they changed it to appeal to normal retail investors. 

An investor visa from LMRA is basically a work permit.  There are two types of work permits i.e. employee and investor.  You need an actual work permit to run the company i.e. day to day operations while sitting in the office. On the SS visa, you will be a PASSIVE investor (note the requirement on the page for partner's details, excerpt below - they don't need to spell it out.......asking for this clearly indicates that you can't open a business solo........you need a partner) and will not be running the company.  You will merely be on the CR and, participate through the Board but not be on that company's visa (as you are self sponsorship).   

Copy of the Company's memorandum and commercial register indicating applicant's ownership/partnership in relevant enterprise - Your investment

Copy of partner's proof of ownership or investment - Your partner's investment

And yes, the regulatory requirements can be a problem.  Your visa is linked to that particular company.  If it goes belly up or is closed down due to violations..........the moment MOIC marks it as inactive, your so called investment or visa is worthless.

@XTang thank you so much. Kudos for such a detailed and informative reply.

So just to be clear, as of now the only way to incorporate a buisness in bahrain  and live in bahrain at the same time is essentially by applying for the golden visa.

The SS route property or investor will be contingent on the LRMA and it's regulatory enforcement

Probably will then have to look into incorporating elsewhere in the GCC..  Are there any restrictions in operating an offshore company that derives no income from bahrain?

Many thanks once again

Theoretically there are no issues with having a shell company BUT back in 2018/19 LMRA cracked down on such companies through heavy inspections and violation reports.  It forced them to close down.  This was due to the FATCA thing and there is no surety that it won't happen again.