Two decrees revoking the citizenship of six individuals were published in Kuwait’s official gazette on June 28 2026 with the measures citing provisions of the nationality law and extending in one case to all who acquired citizenship through the primary holder. Decree No. 101 of 2026 withdrew nationality from five people under Article 21 bis (a) of Amiri Decree No. 15 of 1959 concerning the Kuwaiti Nationality Law and its amendments while Decree No. 102 of 2026 applied to one individual and associated dependents. The revocations took immediate effect upon publication in Kuwait Al-Youm which serves as the government’s formal record for such actions.
The decrees published in Kuwait Al-Youm made no reference to the names of those affected or to specific reasons beyond the legal article invoked. Kuwait Al-Youm has carried dozens of similar announcements in recent years as authorities conduct a systematic review of nationality records. In both cases the measures complied with established procedures for publishing amiri decrees that alter citizenship status.
A report by New Lines Magazine in April 2026 placed the total number of citizenship revocations since March 2024 at more than 70000 citing data compiled by the Newsroom Initiative from official gazette decrees. That figure represented approximately 4.6 percent of Kuwait’s citizen population of 1.545 million at the time. The campaign gained momentum after amendments to the nationality law in December 2024 that expanded grounds for revocation including through the use of DNA testing according to the same report.
The 1959 nationality law as amended permits the state to revoke citizenship obtained through naturalization or descent in cases involving specified violations a mechanism that has been applied with increasing frequency since late 2024. According to Wikipedia’s summary of Kuwaiti nationality law which draws on official decrees and media reports the revocations accelerated in October 2024 and included both ordinary residents and some public figures though the latest decrees did not identify any high-profile cases. Dependents stripped under the second decree lose all derived rights tied to the primary holder’s status.
Kuwait Al-Youm records show that earlier batches of decrees have followed the same format with limited public details on individual circumstances. One such batch in mid-June 2026 revoked citizenship from 2193 people and their dependents according to reports citing the gazette. The latest actions add to that ongoing tally without any accompanying ministerial briefing on the specific files.
Legal experts monitoring Gulf nationality policies have noted that the process operates by amiri decree without judicial review a feature embedded in the 1959 law and its updates. The Newsroom Initiative’s tracking as referenced in the New Lines Magazine essay documented a cumulative 71059 revocations by April 15 2026 excluding some dependents whose cases appear in separate decrees. Authorities have framed the broader effort as a correction of irregularities in prior grants of citizenship.
