- Population
- ~110,000-150,000
- Language
- Bengali
- Religion
- Islam - Sunni
- Location
- Manama (Gudaibiya, Salihiya, old souq), Muharraq, Hidd, Sitra, Isa Town and labour accommodation across the main island
Bangladeshis are one of the three largest foreign communities in Bahrain, roughly 110,000 to 150,000 people, almost all Bengali-speaking Sunni Muslim men from the districts of Chattogram, Chandpur and Brahmanbaria. They came in large numbers from the 1990s to build, clean and staff the island's construction sites, cold stores, salons, groceries and scrap yards, and many now run small businesses of their own. Since 2018 Bahrain has frozen new labour visas for Bangladeshis, so the community is ageing in place, with many men separated from their families for years and a large share working without valid papers. On 21 February and at Pohela Boishakh they gather at the embassy and the Bangladesh School in Salihiya, founded in 1996, to sing Bengali songs and mark their language and new year.
Read more- Population
- ~100,000-150,000
- Language
- Malayalam
- Religion
- Mixed: Islam - Sunni, Hinduism, Christianity
- Location
- Manama (Gudaibiya, Hoora, Segaya, Salmaniya), Riffa, Isa Town, Muharraq, Hamad Town and labour accommodation in Sitra and Salmabad
Malayalis from Kerala are the largest single community among Bahrain's roughly 340,000 Indians and have been part of island life since before independence: the Bahrain Keraleeya Samajam, founded in 1947, is the kingdom's oldest and largest expatriate association. They range from labourers, drivers and shop assistants to nurses, engineers, teachers and the owners of supermarket and trading chains. Unlike most other migrant groups they are evenly split between Islam, Hinduism and Christianity, and Malayali Orthodox, Mar Thoma, Catholic and Pentecostal congregations are among the oldest churches in Bahrain, with Malankara Orthodox worship dating from 1937. Each year the Samajam's two-month Onam season ends with a vegetarian feast of more than twenty dishes for thousands of people.
Read more- Population
- ~90,000-140,000
- Language
- Urdu
- Religion
- Islam - Sunni
- Location
- Manama (Gudaibiya, Hoora, old souq), Riffa, Isa Town, Hamad Town, Muharraq; police and military housing
Urdu speakers in Bahrain are mostly Pakistanis, with Punjabis as the largest share, together with Muslims from Hyderabad and north India, and they form one of the oldest South Asian communities on the island, present since about 1950. They stand apart from other migrants because thousands serve in Bahrain's police, National Guard and armed forces, recruited through Pakistani army and navy foundations, and some 30,000 Pakistanis, Baloch among them, are now Bahraini citizens after long government service, though most of the community are foreign workers on renewable permits. Others drive taxis and trucks, run shops and restaurants, and work in construction, banking and medicine. Community life gathers around the Pakistan Club in Manama, the Pakistan School and Pakistan Urdu School, and Urdu poetry nights where poets from Pakistan, India and the Gulf recite ghazals late into the evening.
Read more- Population
- 55,000
- Language
- Tagalog
- Religion
- Christianity - Roman Catholicism
- Location
- Manama (Gudaibiya, Hoora, Adliya, Juffair), Isa Town, Riffa and Awali, Muharraq; domestic workers nationwide
About 55,000 Filipinos live in Bahrain, most of them overseas workers who came for jobs in homes, hotels, malls, hospitals, offices and airlines, and more than half of whom are domestic workers. They come from every region of the Philippines and use Filipino and English together, with the Bahrain Filipino Club, women's and caregivers' groups, basketball leagues and the Philippine School in Isa Town (founded 1994) at the centre of community life. Overwhelmingly Catholic in a Muslim kingdom, they fill the Tagalog masses at Sacred Heart Church in Manama and the ark-shaped Cathedral of Our Lady of Arabia at Awali, the largest church in the Arabian Peninsula. The 2026 Iran war sent several hundred home by bus across the causeway to Saudi Arabia, but the community and its remittances of about 140 million dollars a half-year remain.
Read more- Population
- 42,000
- Language
- Tamil
- Religion
- Hinduism
- Location
- Manama and Gudaibiya, Isa Town, Riffa, Muharraq; labour camps at Sitra, Salmabad and Askar; fishing harbours
Hindu Tamils from Tamil Nadu, with a smaller number of Sri Lankan Tamils, have worked in Bahrain since the oil boom, as construction and oil-sector labourers, technicians, drivers, shop staff, engineers, accountants and teachers. They keep a lively Tamil cultural life around the Indian Club in Manama, where the Bharathi Association's Pongal brings thousands to boil rice in milk in clay pots, eat a 23-dish vegetarian feast on banana leaves and watch children perform Karagattam pot-balancing and Kavadi dances. Most worship Murugan, Shiva, Amman goddesses and Ayyappa at home shrines and at Manama's Hindu temples, while a significant Christian minority, including Catholic fishermen from Kanyakumari and Tirunelveli who crew Bahraini fishing boats, worship in Tamil congregations.
Read more- Population
- 34,000
- Language
- Gujarati
- Religion
- Hinduism
- Location
- Manama (old souq, Gudaibiya, Juffair, Adliya) and northern suburbs
Gujarati-speaking merchants are Bahrain's oldest Indian community: Hindu Bhatia and Lohana traders from Sindh and Kutch settled in the Manama souq in the early 19th century, trading pearls, dates, rice and textiles with Mandvi and Bombay. In 1817 they built the Shrinathji Temple, a shrine to Krishna as a seven-year-old child and the oldest Hindu temple in the Gulf, still at the heart of the community's festivals. Today's Gujaratis are mostly businessmen, doctors, accountants, engineers and lawyers, far from the labour camps of other South Asian migrants. The Shri Gujarati Samaj, founded in 1980 with 80 members and now about 800, fills the calendar with Navratri garba nights, Diwali, Holi and a Gujarati kite festival.
Read more- Population
- 33,000
- Language
- Telugu
- Religion
- Hinduism
- Location
- Manama and the labour accommodation of Sitra, Salmabad, Hidd and Askar; families in Manama, Juffair and Riffa
Telugu speakers from Telangana and Andhra Pradesh are one of the larger Indian communities in Bahrain, mostly men from the villages of Jagtial, Nizamabad and Karimnagar in Telangana and from Narsipatnam and other coastal districts of Andhra Pradesh, working in construction, maintenance, shops and as drivers, alongside a smaller circle of engineers, bankers and teachers. Most are Hindu, devotees of village goddesses and of Venkateswara, and a notable minority are Protestant Christians who worship in Telugu fellowships. Every July the Telugu Kala Samithi stages Bonalu in Manama, where women carry decorated pots of rice to the goddess Mahankali while Potharaju dancers in turmeric and red cloth whirl through the crowd, a Telangana village festival recreated in the Gulf.
Read more- Population
- ~24,000-26,000
- Language
- Arabic, Egyptian
- Religion
- Islam - Sunni
- Location
- Mainly Manama and its suburbs, with teachers and professionals spread across the country's towns
Egyptian Arabs in Bahrain are a community of about 25,000 Muslim professionals and their families, part of some 27,600 Egyptians in the kingdom. Unlike the mostly single Asian labour force, they are typically educated families: in 2016 more Egyptians lived in Bahrain on family visas than on work permits, and a third of Egyptian workers were teachers. Egyptians have long staffed Bahrain's schools and also work as doctors, engineers and accountants. Their Egyptian colloquial Arabic, familiar from film and television, lets them blend easily into Arabic-speaking workplaces, while the Coptic Christians among the Egyptians worship in their own church in Manama.
Read more- Population
- 23,000
- Language
- Nepali (individual language)
- Religion
- Hinduism
- Location
- Manama (Juffair and central districts), Riffa, Muharraq, labour accommodation in Sitra and Salmabad
About thirty thousand Nepalis work in Bahrain, nearly all as single men and women on fixed-term contracts as security guards, hotel and restaurant staff, cleaners, factory hands, drivers and domestic workers. Nepal's reputation for Gurkha soldiers has made Nepalis a favoured choice for guard work: Nepali guard forces protect military and naval sites, and Nepalis serve in Bahrain's Royal Court and National Guard. Most are Hindus or Buddhists from the hill and Terai districts, and in Bahrain, unlike in Saudi Arabia, they can celebrate Dashain, Tihar and Teej openly in rented halls in Manama and Riffa. Nepal opened an embassy in Manama's Juffair district in 2013 to serve the community.
Read more- Population
- ~15,000 (est. 10,000-25,000)
- Language
- Amharic (primary), Oromo, Tigrinya, others
- Religion
- Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity and Sunni Islam (mixed)
- Location
- Living in employers' households throughout Bahrain; consulate in Manama; Orthodox congregation at St Christopher's Cathedral compound, Manama
Ethiopians are one of Bahrain's largest African communities, between 20,000 and 35,000 people in all, about 15,000 of them Oromo, Tigrayans and other peoples besides the Amhara, most of them young women from the Ethiopian highlands employed as live-in domestic workers in Bahraini and expatriate homes, with smaller numbers in cleaning, hospitality and trade. They come from several Ethiopian peoples, chiefly Amhara, Oromo and Tigrayans, and Amharic is their common language. Orthodox Christians among them worship openly in an Ethiopian Orthodox congregation on the Anglican cathedral compound in Manama and light the Meskel bonfire each September on the beach at Bilaj Al Jazayer, while the Muslims among them, many from Wollo and Oromia, pray in Bahrain's mosques. Recruitment has risen and fallen with visa restrictions, disputes over runaway workers and the pandemic, and in 2026 Ethiopia and Bahrain were negotiating a labour agreement to regulate it.
Read more- Population
- ~8,000-17,000 (pre-2026)
- Language
- English
- Religion
- Christianity - Protestantism
- Location
- Juffair (Manama) around the US naval base, Amwaj Islands, Saar and other western-expat districts
Americans in Bahrain are a transient community centred on the US Navy, whose Fifth Fleet and Naval Forces Central Command headquarters occupy a former British base in the Juffair district of Manama; before 2026 about 8,000 to 9,000 service members and Defense Department civilians were stationed there, alongside oil, finance, teaching and contracting professionals. The American link is older than the base: Reformed Church in America missionaries led by Samuel Zwemer opened a clinic in the Manama souq in 1893, which grew into the American Mission Hospital, the first modern hospital in the Gulf, and American oilmen struck the first oil on the Arab side of the Gulf at Jabal ad Dukhan in 1932. Families clustered in Juffair high-rises and the Amwaj Islands and sent children to the Bahrain School, the only Defense Department school in the Gulf. When Iran struck the base in February 2026, some 1,300 military dependents were evacuated within days, leaving mainly sailors and essential staff behind.
Read more- Population
- ~10,000-15,000
- Language
- Sinhala
- Religion
- Buddhism - Theravada
- Location
- Manama, Riffa and the labour and residential areas of the main island
Sri Lankans have worked in Bahrain since the oil boom of the 1970s, and the Sinhalese are the majority of a community of roughly 14,000 to 20,000 Sri Lankans: housemaids, garment-factory workers, technicians, engineers and nurses. They stand out as one of the few Theravada Buddhist peoples in the Gulf, and in 2008 they built the first Buddhist temple in Bahrain, at Riffa, where a gold-plated stupa pinnacle imported from Sri Lanka was unveiled in 2018 beside a Bo tree grown from a Sri Lankan sapling. Families gather at the Sri Lanka Club, whose Sinhala school teaches the language and dance to children born in the Gulf, while Vesak lanterns, Sinhala and Tamil New Year games and cricket mark the community calendar.
Read more- Population
- 10,000
- Language
- Amharic
- Religion
- Christianity - Tewahedo Orthodox
- Location
- Living in employers' households throughout Bahrain; church life centred on St Christopher's Cathedral compound in Manama
Amhara in Bahrain are part of an Ethiopian community of about 35,000, most of them young women from Ethiopia's highlands who come on two-year contracts as live-in domestic workers in Bahraini and expatriate homes. Their numbers have fallen since the late 2010s, when over 21,000 Ethiopian women held domestic-work permits, to around 10,000 in 2022, as recruitment shifted and the pandemic intervened. Unlike most migrant groups in the Gulf, the Christian majority among them can worship openly: an Ethiopian Orthodox congregation holds services from 6 a.m. on many days at the Anglican cathedral compound in Manama, and each September hundreds gather on the beach at Bilaj Al Jazayer to light the Meskel bonfire. Some Amhara, especially from Wollo, are Muslims.
Read more- Population
- 6,000-12,000
- Language
- Indonesian
- Religion
- Islam - Sunni
- Location
- Live-in domestic work in households across Bahrain; Manama
Indonesians in Bahrain are mostly women from Java, West Java and Lombok who work as live-in domestic helpers, with smaller numbers in hotels, spas and other services. Their numbers have shrunk since Indonesia stopped sending domestic workers to the Middle East in 2015, and many who still come arrive through irregular channels that leave them open to trafficking, unpaid wages and confinement, with the embassy in Manama sheltering women who flee. Living inside their employers' homes, they share the Muslim rhythm of prayer and Ramadan but have little time of their own, gathering when they can for Quran study circles, Eid and the 17 August Independence Day flag ceremony organised by the embassy.
Read more- Population
- 5,000
- Language
- English
- Religion
- Unaffiliated
- Location
- Manama (Adliya, Juffair, Seef), Saar and Hamala, Amwaj Islands, Riffa and Awali
The British in Bahrain are a community of a few thousand professionals and their families, heirs to a relationship that began with the treaties of 1820 and lasted as a protectorate until independence in 1971. British advisers once ran much of the state, and British managers and engineers came with the Bapco oil company after oil was struck in 1932. Today they work in banking, teaching, engineering, aviation and hospitality, and the Royal Navy has kept a permanent base, HMS Jufair at Mina Salman, since 2018. Family life revolves around villas and compounds in Saar, Hamala, Amwaj and Riffa, British-curriculum schools such as St Christopher's, and clubs like the British Club, founded in 1935. Anglican St Christopher's Cathedral in Manama, built on land given by the Emir in 1948, is one of the two cathedrals of the Diocese of Cyprus and the Gulf, though most British residents are nominal Christians or not religious.
Read more- Population
- ~2,000-4,000
- Language
- Arabic, Egyptian
- Religion
- Christianity - Coptic Orthodox (Oriental Orthodox)
- Location
- Manama (Church of the Virgin Mary and St Ruweis) and the main towns where Egyptian professionals live: Isa Town, Riffa, Muharraq
Coptic Egyptians in Bahrain are Orthodox Christians among the roughly 27,600 Egyptians who live in the kingdom, most of them teachers, engineers, doctors, accountants and skilled tradesmen on renewable contracts, many with their families. They worship at the Church of the Virgin Mary and Saint Ruweis, the Coptic parish in Manama, which also serves Coptic families living in Saudi Arabia, where no church may open. In 2016 King Hamad gave land in Manama for a second, three-storey Coptic church for about 3,000 worshippers, after visiting Pope Tawadros II at Saint Mark's Cathedral in Cairo. The community keeps the Coptic calendar, with its long fasts before Christmas on 7 January and before Easter, and an Arabic and Coptic liturgy unlike any other church on the islands.
Read more- Population
- 1,500
- Language
- Turkish
- Religion
- Islam - Sunni
- Location
- Manama (Seef, Juffair, Adliya), Muharraq and Riffa; mostly urban professionals
Turks in Bahrain are a small community of about 2,000 citizens of Türkiye who arrived mainly since the 2000s as doctors, nurses, engineers, academics, contractors and business owners, alongside cooks and barbers who run the island's many Turkish restaurants and grooming salons. Unlike the large South Asian labour communities, they are mostly middle-class families on professional contracts, and they share the Sunni Muslim faith of their Bahraini hosts while practising it in the relaxed, often secular style of urban Türkiye. The Yunus Emre Institute and Turkish courses at the University of Bahrain teach their language to Bahrainis. When Iranian missiles closed Bahrain's airspace in March 2026, the Turkish embassy organised buses across the King Fahd Causeway to Riyadh for citizens who wanted to leave.
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