You go to bed Kuwaiti, you wake up stateless

Since the decrees withdrawing Kuwaiti nationality began to pour down, Sunday, the day on which the official gazette Kuwait al-Youm appears, has become a day of anxiety. Kuwaitis feverishly await its appearance, snap it up immediately to see if their name is in it, or if they are to remain Kuwaiti for another week.

Since 2024, with the accession of Sheikh Meshaal Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah to the ruler’s throne, the campaign of re-examining and withdrawing nationality has acquired new dimensions. Indeed, the new Emir announced that he meant to put an end to the cases of fraudulent nationality acquisition - the use of forged documents, false declarations, etc. – and to track down cases of dual nationality, forbidden by the law of the land.

The net turned out to be cast wide, since several categories of citizens naturalised quite legitimately were caught in it: people whose residence In Kuwait since 1965 or before had been one of the criteria for naturalisation on the basis of the 1965 census; people who had been granted citizenship in recognition for “eminent services” rendered to the nation”; women having acquired it through marriage to a Kuwaiti; as well as certain children of a Kuwaiti mother and foreign father who did not acquire citizenship automatically through their mother but could be naturalised. These citizens had started families. Their children and grandchildren were born and had grown up under these perfectly legal regulations.

Now those who cannot point to a “nationality of origin” risk becoming stateless, and swelling the ranks of the hundreds of thousands of biduns, the “withouts”, the approximately 10% of the population who are stateless. Mostly from the bedouin tribes, these residents did not acquire Kuwaiti nationality when the country became independent in 1961. They are now deprived of most of the rights of citizens, mainly the right to vote, and to access various other privileges such as property ownership and state support.

This radical change in the notion of citizenship has far-reaching consequences since it affects by extension the children and grandchildren of the excluded, who may became excluded themselves. It is still too recent for its effects to be to fully measured (some will be specified by decree) and to understand its deeper reasons. However, the consequent stiffening of nationality policy appears to be the fulfilment of the promise “to give Kuwait back to its original inhabitants, cleansed and rid of its impurities” made by the new sovereign when he ascended the throne.

A broad aim

Kuwait’s nationality law makes a sharp distinction between citizens “of origin” and citizens “by naturalisation”. That distinction is reaffirmed by the 2026 reform: Kuwaitis of origin are defined in particular on the basis of their establishment in the country before its creation in 1920 and the resulting affiliation, along with continuity of residence, while people having acquired the nationality through naturalisation – as well as their descendants in certain cases – remain legally bound by this status. The rules for withdrawal or revocation are not identical in these different categories and in certain cases specified by law, may have consequences for the descendants. According to the new dispositions, naturalised citizens no longer have voting rights, and are no longer able to stand in elections or be appointed to any representative body.

Among those affected by the withdrawal of nationality are prominent figures in Kuwaiti public life: doctors, professors, historians, athletes and former diplomats. Some have represented Kuwait or contributed for decades to its institutions and cultural and scientific life. Such is the case with Bader al-Awadhi, former Kuwaiti ambassador to the United Kingdom, deprived of his Kuwaiti citizenship by filiation in January, a repercussion of the posthumous withdrawal of his father’s nationality. Since May, this high-ranking civil servant has been a citizen of neighbouring Bahrain.

These revocations have also hit people known for their political stances.

How to live?

An official decision can take just a few lines. Its consequences may begin the very next day. Losing Kuwaiti nationality isn’t just a matter of losing one’s passport. Citizenship is linked to a vast array of rights, services and accesses: voting, education and scholarships, certain public sector and military offices, housing, health care, pensions, subsidised welfare benefits, certain banking services, inland travel, stability of one’s judicial status. The question which the excluded person asks is not “What have I lost?” but “How can I live?”

After their citizenship has been withdrawn, the person concerned can only travel for a short time on their Kuwaiti passport. When that has expired, someone who hasn’t been able to get a passport corresponding to their original nationality or some other travel document, may find themselves unable to leave the country.

According to several witnesses, the regularisation procedure involves great pressure to hand over their nationality documents, to have their fingerprints taken and sign documents connected with their change of status. They explain that the non-fulfilment of these procedures can have consequences for their family’s access to certain benefits, especially in the areas of education and health. So for many families what is involved is not merely an administrative formality but an unavoidable step if they want to leave their children’s daily lives undisturbed.

The latter are in some cases the first collateral victims if one of their parents should lose their Kuwaiti nationality: it’s called “revocation by dependence”. Their number is unknown but some estimates put the total at 200,000.

Consequences for employment, housing, property

The change of status also directly affects work. Public service jobs reserved for Kuwaiti citizens are no longer open to these people. In the military and security sectors, where only citizens can be engaged, certain employees may be transferred to civilian functions, in the best of cases. Access to certain management or supervisory positions may also be restricted. When the person concerned is also the family’s main breadwinner, these modifications have a direct effect on the economy of the whole family.

The change of status may also entail major financial burdens, in particular for people who have benefitted from a public real estate loan. Several people questioned about this explain that they were informed by the Kuwait Credit Bank that they could be obliged to pay back all the remaining capital due in a relatively short time, which might amount to more than $100,000.

Housing is also a major source of worry according to many witnesses. Several people deprived of citizenship explain that they no longer benefit from the same property rights or public facilities as a Kuwaiti citizen. In the event that the accommodation had been obtained via some state agency, some families say they have had to look for a trustworthy Kuwaiti citizen in whose name to register their property.

The wall of regularisations and appeals

For many, regularising their situation does not simply mean filling out some administrative forms: it means having to reconstruct, in just a few months, a judicial status and daily security which up till then had been taken for granted.

In practical terms, the “deprived” have to establish a “nationality of origin”, then regularise their legal situation within a limited amount of time. But how do you find a “nationality of origin” when you were born in Kuwait, when your father and grandfather were also born there and when your family lived there under the British protectorate? How can you demonstrate your connection with another state in which no one in your family has ever lived and from which your family may not possess a single document?

Today several thousand people, including those with nationality revoked by dependence, are simply unable to claim a “nationality of origin”. Their official status is that of “non-Kuwaiti”. This does not yet mean that they are legally stateless, but this status shows that no other nationality has been established.

In Kuwait, nationality issues count as “acts of sovereignty”

The shock of the announcement is compounded for many by not knowing the reasons. In many cases, no precise or personalised justification is provided, which in itself makes any attempt to lodge an appeal useless. An online portal for complaints was opened by the authorities in May 2025, but it has been deactivated since the beginning of 2026. So in practice anyone who has been deprived of their nationality in 2026 has no access to that means of recourse, any more than those who lodged an earlier appeal.

In Kuwait, nationality issues are treated as “acts of sovereignty”, which drastically limits the criteria for submissions to the courts in the event of an appeal. The possibilities for review are slight indeed, despite appeals from human rights organisations and UN experts in favour of legal oversight and more effective channels for appeal.

Becoming an “illegal resident”

The fear of statelessness is very real in a country which officialised this status shortly after independence, considering as “irregular residents” the tens of thousands of (mostly) bedouins who were not registered with the nationality committees set up under the Nationality Act of 1959, shortly before independence in 1961.

People stripped of their nationality without recourse talk of “civil death”, witnessing as they do the disappearance of the rights that structured their place in society, while remaining physically present there. “What am I after losing my nationality?” What seemed to constitute one’s life in the city has suddenly taken the form of a stack of files to be updated: ID papers, education, employment, travel, accommodation, income, as well as the children’s rights.

I am still attached to my country, though the way I’m defined has been changed on paper. I look at the country where I was born and grew up and for the very first time, I ask myself a question I would have thought impossible: If I am no longer Kuwaiti, what am I?

This article was originally published by our partners at Orient XXI.

Abdullah Salem is a journalist.

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Opinions expressed in this article remain those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The New Arab.