(KUWAIT) — Kuwait’s cabinet approved a bill amending the citizenship law and sent it to Emir Sheikh Meshal for ratification as of February 25, 2026, tightening rules for granting and withdrawing nationality as the government continues a sweeping review of the nationality file.
Cabinet action on the bill came alongside continued batch-by-batch decrees and committee decisions that have driven Kuwait’s citizenship revocation campaign through 2025 and 2026, with officials presenting the review as broad in scope and administrative in execution.
A decree issued on Saturday before February 25, 2026 revoked nationality from 120 people, reportedly mostly women, for breaching Kuwait’s dual citizenship ban, and authorities published the decree in the official gazette.
The cabinet also approved minutes from the Supreme Committee for the Investigation of Kuwaiti Citizenship that detailed additional cases of loss, withdrawal, and revocation under Decree Law No. 15/1959 and amendments, reinforcing how the process often advances through cabinet actions recorded in official minutes and then formalized through publication.
Kuwait’s nationality file review has unfolded over multiple years, but official tallies have not set out a single consolidated total for 2025 and 2026 decrees, with authorities instead issuing separate decisions targeting specific batches under the broader campaign.
In 2025, Kuwait revoked citizenship from almost 50,000 people through the comprehensive review, which officials described as leaving “no one exempt,” reflecting the wide net cast across categories of naturalization and registration.
Within that 2025 push, officials described the Article Eight category as fully concluded. The category mainly includes wives of Kuwaiti citizens, and its closure marked a major administrative milestone in the campaign’s structure.
Officials also reported that over 60% of naturalized individuals reverted to their original nationalities while retaining permanent residency rights, an outcome that signaled the government’s approach to status after withdrawal for many affected people.
One of the most consequential category-level shifts involved the “distinguished service” naturalization track, which officials said was concluded in 2025 via an Amiri decree, closing a route that had offered a path to citizenship on specified grounds.
The bill awaiting ratification takes aim at the same terrain. Under the upcoming law, the “distinguished service” category is eliminated except for martyrs, narrowing eligibility routes in a way that can affect applicants as well as family members whose status depends on a primary holder.
The Supreme Committee for the Investigation of Kuwaiti Citizenship has remained central to the campaign’s mechanics, with individual decrees and committee minutes capturing distinct grounds for withdrawal that include allegations of forgery.
Officials have described the Supreme Committee’s investigations into forgery cases as having no time limit, an open-ended posture that can extend uncertainty for people whose files come under review and for relatives whose documentation and status can follow the principal decision.
The legal backbone for these actions rests on Decree Law No. 15/1959 and later amendments, which Kuwait has cited in official actions as the framework for loss, withdrawal, and revocation procedures.
The most recent batch decree in February 2026 highlighted Kuwait’s long-standing ban on dual citizenship as a stated basis for withdrawal, with the official gazette publication serving as formal notice and a traceable record for subsequent administrative steps.
Gazette publication can matter beyond the announcement itself. It provides an official reference that can shape follow-on administrative handling tied to nationality status and paperwork, especially when decrees name groups rather than narrating individual case histories.
A major driver of the intensified posture came from late-2024 amendments that expanded the grounds for withdrawal. Those amendments took effect December 24, 2024, widening the legal bases authorities cited as the review accelerated through 2025 and into 2026.
The amendments expanded revocation grounds to include fraud, dual nationality, state security threats, and “higher interests,” giving the state broader discretion to revisit past grants and registrations under the nationality file review.
Critics have pointed to how retroactive application has been described in connection with these expanded grounds, arguing it amplifies uncertainty for people who have long held Kuwaiti nationality or whose families have built their lives around it.
The late-2024 changes also extended consequences to relatives, linking family impact to the principal case outcome and putting a wider circle of dependents and family members into the practical orbit of citizenship revocation decisions.
As the campaign widened, Kuwait created a dedicated grievance channel outside the courts. A non-judicial grievance committee formed on March 11, 2025, offering a route for people affected by specified withdrawals to submit appeals through an administrative process.
By May 14, 2025, the committee had received more than 14,000 appeals for revocations issued from February 20, 2024, to April 30, 2025, reflecting the volume generated as decisions accumulated across that period.
The use of a non-judicial channel can shape procedure by routing challenges through an administrative committee structure rather than court litigation, a design choice that has mattered as Kuwait processed large batches under the nationality review.
The February 2026 decree involving 120 people fit the pattern of discrete decisions tied to specific grounds, in this case an alleged breach of the dual citizenship ban, and it underscored the continuing focus on women within certain revocation categories.
Separately, officials in 2025 framed the conclusion of Article Eight as a completed phase, but the broader nationality file review continued through other tracks, including cases linked to fraud and forgery allegations and other grounds embedded in the amended law.
Critics have raised concerns that the expanded grounds and retroactive approaches increase the risk of statelessness, particularly when people cannot readily revert to another nationality or face documentation barriers after withdrawal.
Concerns have also focused on disproportionate effects on women and long-settled families, especially where citizenship status came through family-based categories or where administrative decisions can ripple through relatives under the amended rules.
The cabinet-approved bill now awaiting ratification sits atop this multi-stage campaign. Kuwait framed the bill’s purpose as tightening the rules for granting and revoking citizenship to preserve sovereignty, aligning proposed statutory change with the administrative direction of the review.
If ratified, the bill would formalize a stricter framework that touches eligibility routes and revocation thresholds, reinforcing a system that has already moved through repeated decrees, committee minutes, and official gazette publication as Kuwait presses ahead with the nationality file review.
Kuwait Cabinet Approves Bill Tightening Citizenship Revocation Under Article Eight
Kuwait’s cabinet has approved a new bill to further restrict citizenship rules, continuing a multi-year review that has already led to tens of thousands of revocations. The campaign focuses on eliminating dual nationality, addressing forgery, and narrowing eligibility tracks. While the government emphasizes sovereignty and administrative integrity, the process faces scrutiny regarding the risk of statelessness and the impact of non-judicial grievance channels on affected residents.
