Expired visit visas and residency permits will be renewed automatically for those in Kuwait, for three months starting from 1 September 2020. This is the third such extension by Kuwait’s Ministry of Interior (MOI). 

The MOI announced that the decision (Resolution No. 598/2020) applies for those stranded inside the country whose visas (of all types) have expired, and appealed to all sponsors during this period to complete the procedures to regularise the status of their workers. 

Earlier this month, Al-Rai revealed that MOI instructed residency affairs departments to halt the conversion of visit visas to residency permits except in “very special humanitarian cases,” in an attempt to address the country’s ‘demographic imbalance’. 

According to a recent report by Al-Qabas, the MOI has completed a plan to launch an "unconventional and unprecedented security campaign" to arrest and deport an estimated 75,000 irregular migrants immediately after the opening of the airspace, adding that the amnesty period did not achieve its expected goal, with only 26,000 beneficiaries.