Cairo: According to sources, a draft law has been discussed in the Kuwaiti parliament that suggests limiting the expatriate stay in the country to five years.
The restriction is one of several changes to Kuwait’s laws on foreigners’ residence and naturalization that are expected to be approved by the legislature after the Interior and Defense Committee of the parliament said there is agreement on both draughts with the government.
According to new amendments, those who are foreigners and have a property in Kuwait, as well as investors in Kuwait, shall be granted residency of a maximum of 15 years.
Moreover, the draft bill also allows a foreigner in Kuwait to get a temporary three-month stay, and they renewed for a year by the Interior Ministry, it added.
Meanwhile, the naturalization draft specifies that a wife of a Kuwaiti man who is recently living in foreign or a wife who lost her husband can also be eligible to take citizenship after 18 years of her marriage; however, there is no official comment happened on this report.
Foreigners account for nearly 3.5 million of Kuwait’s overall population of 4.6 million.
In recent months, many voices have been raised in the Gulf country demanding the employment limitations of foreigners amid economic fallout from COVID-19.
Kuwait has recently stepped up attacks on illegal foreign residents after giving them repeated grace periods to modify their status.
According to the Interior Ministry’s figures, around 18,000 foreigners were expelled from Kuwait in various cases in 2021.