Family and tourist visit permits will no longer be issued by Kuwaiti officials as of Monday, June 28, 2022, until further notice.
According to a statement from the Kuwaiti Ministry of Interior, the suspension of visit visa issuance is due to the residence affairs sector’s establishing of a mechanism comprising new rules and regulations.
“The residency affairs sector will submit to the First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Interior Sheikh Ahmed Al-Nawaf, during the next week, a new mechanism to organize the issuance of family and tourist visit visas, following a decision to stop them on Monday,” the Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Qabas reported, citing well-informed security sources.
The sources claimed that “the resident affairs sector is considering boosting the wage ceiling to 300 dinars as a minimum for ex-pats who want to bring their wife and children as a family or tourist visit, and to 600 dinars as a minimum for those who want to bring a parent with a visit visa.”
The sources noted that the new protocol will grant broad powers to directors of residency affairs departments in the six governorates. This will alleviate the pressure of auditors on the General Directorate of Residence Affairs in the Al-Dajeej area, where the number of auditors lately reached about a thousand per day due to the withdrawal of the powers of directors of departments.
According to the sources, complaints about the lack of organization of the work system for granting family and tourist visit permits to expatriates led Minister Al-Nawaf to decide to suspend family and tourist visits.
The sources further added that the proposal for a salary cap as a condition for issuance of visit visas might be amended as per the ministry‘s direction.
