Country guide · Kuwait

Getting a job in Kuwait, 2026

Since 1 July 2025 a private sector expatriate in Kuwait needs the employer's approval to leave the country, applied for on a government app no later than 24 hours before departure. Before that, a computer at the Public Authority for Manpower checks your degree, your field of study and your university's accreditation against Ministry of Higher Education records, and since May 2025 you cannot correct a wrong qualification without leaving Kuwait. Inside: the Article 18 permit sequence, the attestation chain and what we could not verify of it, the one year transfer rule and the five ways round it, the KD 800 family threshold, the December 2025 fee schedule, the licensed professions, and why 96.4 per cent of private sector workers are not Kuwaiti.

Country guidePublished 20 September 2026·Every figure checked 20 September 2026·18 min read
96.4%
Share of Kuwait's private sector workforce that is not Kuwaiti, at 30 June 2026
PACI data, via Kuwait Times
KD 323
Average monthly wage of a non-Kuwaiti in the private sector, September 2023
Central Statistical Bureau
Exit permit
Employer approval needed before you leave Kuwait, private sector, since 1 July 2025
PAM rule, via Gulf News, 29 Jun 2025
KD 800
Monthly salary you must earn before you may sponsor a spouse or child
MOI Resolution 56 of 2024
Section 01

Article 18, and the degree a computer checks before you get it

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Before a Kuwaiti employer can put you on a private sector work permit, a computer checks your degree, your field of study and whether the awarding university is recognised, against the Ministry of Higher Education's records.

Almost every foreign professional in Kuwait is on what everyone still calls an Article 18 visa: the private sector work residence, sponsored by a Kuwait-registered employer that holds a valid file and an approved labour quota at the Public Authority for Manpower (PAM). You cannot apply for it yourself, and you cannot sponsor yourself into it. The employer applies to PAM for the work permit, the visa is stamped, and once you have landed, been fingerprinted and passed the medical, the Ministry of Interior issues the residence. The name survived the rewrite of the residence law: government reporting in 2025 still describes private sector workers as being on Article 18 visas. Gulf News, 29 June 2025, checked 20 Sep 2026

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Section 02

Permit, residence, transfer, and the permission you now need to leave

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Section 03

Licences, pay, the CV, and what changed

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