Kuwait mulls limiting expat’s stay to 5 years

Cairo: A draft law being debated at the Kuwaiti parliament proposes limiting the expatriate’s stay in the country to five years, a local newspaper has said.

The restriction is part of several amendments to Kuwait’s laws on foreigners’ residence and naturalisation, expected to be approved by the legislature after the parliament’s Interior and Defence Committee said there is consensus on both drafts with the government, Al Qabas added.

According to the proposed amendments, foreign owners of properties and investors in Kuwait shall be granted residency of a maximum of 15 years.

The draft bill, moreover, allows a foreigner in Kuwait to get a temporary three-month stay that can be renewed for a year by the Interior Ministry, it added.

The naturalisation draft, meanwhile, stipulates that a foreign wife or widow of a Kuwaiti man can get Kuwaiti citizenship after 18 years of marriage. There was no official comment on the report.

Foreigners account for nearly 3.5 million of Kuwait’s overall population of 4.6 million.

In recent months, voices have raised in the Gulf country demanding limiting the employment of foreigners amid economic fallout from COVID-19.

Kuwait has recently stepped up raids on illegal foreign residents after giving them repeated grace periods to modify their status.

Around 18,000 foreigners were deported from Kuwait in various cases in 2021, according to the Interior Ministry's figures.