Kuwait Personal income tax
Kuwait Personal income tax: no single figure applies. The reason is set out below, cited to the governing instrument. Last checked against the official source on 26 Aug 2026.
Personal income tax on individuals. STRUCTURAL NULL — Kuwait imposes NO personal income tax on any individual, national or expatriate, on employment income or otherwise.
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| Current value | no single figure |
|---|---|
| In force from | — |
| Official source | Kuwait Direct Investment Promotion Authority (KDIPA), official Invest in Kuwait brochure (November 2025): 'Kuwait has one of the World's most attractive tax regime with no personal income tax'; KUWAIT TAX SCHEME lists '0% Personal Income Tax'. |
| Last verified | 2026-08-26 |
| Verification | primary — No verification limitation recorded — read from the official source cited. |
| Provenance | source fingerprint |
What this value means
Kuwait levies NO personal income tax — value: null is a positively established structural absence. There is no PIT law, no wage withholding, no personal tax return and no tax registration for individuals, for Kuwaiti nationals and expatriates alike. The charging provision in Income Tax Decree No. 3 of 1955 as amended by Law No. 2 of 2008 reaches only foreign CORPORATE BODIES carrying on trade or business in Kuwait; individuals are outside it by construction, which is why Kuwaiti practice treats a foreign natural person trading in Kuwait as untaxed rather than as a 15% taxpayer. Kuwait likewise has no inheritance tax, no property tax, no net-wealth tax and no capital gains tax on individuals. DO NOT MISTAKE THESE FOR AN INCOME TAX: Kuwaiti nationals in the private sector and their employers make mandatory Public Institution for Social Security (PIFSS) contributions on salary, and expatriates pay government service and residency fees — these are social insurance and administrative charges, not a tax on income. The only 2020s-vintage Kuwaiti direct-tax legislation is Decree-Law No. 157 of 2024, the 15% domestic minimum top-up tax, which applies exclusively to constituent entities of MNE groups above the EUR 750m threshold — it touches no individual. Repeated proposals for a Kuwaiti personal income tax have been floated and shelved; none had been enacted at confirmation, and the IMF's 2025 Article IV recommendations (Board concluded 23 Feb 2026) argue for extending the 15% CIT to domestic companies and introducing excise and VAT, not for a personal income tax. Official KDIPA November 2025 brochure states 'no personal income tax' and lists '0% Personal Income Tax' in the KUWAIT TAX SCHEME. Serve null unless and until a Kuwaiti personal income tax law is enacted with a rate and effective date.
Get it programmatically
curl https://mearef.dev/v1/kw/income-tax
# $0.005 per call — x402 on Base (USDC). No key, no signup.
# History: curl https://mearef.dev/v1/kw/income-tax/history?from=2020-01-01
# Provenance: curl https://mearef.dev/provenance/kw/income-taxOther Kuwait series: CBK Discount Rate · Value-added tax (VAT) · VAT registration threshold · National minimum wage (private and oil sector) · Public holidays · Consumer Price Index (latest month) · Corporate income tax rate (foreign-owned share) · Withholding tax rates · Legal interest on commercial debts (الفائدة القانونية) · Statutory social-insurance contributions
The same figure elsewhere: Oman · Qatar · Saudi Arabia · United Arab Emirates · Bahrain · all 9