Kuwait Alyoum, the country’s official gazette, on July 29 published an appendix featuring six decrees that collectively revoke and withdraw citizenship from 25 individuals, with the measures taking immediate legal effect upon their appearance in the publication. The decrees were handed down by the competent authorities in line with Kuwait’s established nationality laws and associated regulations. This step continues a sustained government effort to re-examine citizenship files, a process that has produced similar decisions at regular intervals over the past year.
According to an analysis published by Opinio Juris in October 2025, Kuwait had by then revoked the citizenship of nearly 50,000 people during a sweeping review that officials described as leaving no one exempt. The campaign, which accelerated after changes to the nationality framework, has affected a wide range of cases including those granted nationality through marriage or for exceptional service. Many of those stripped of citizenship, along with dependent family members, have been left stateless as a result, the U.S. State Department has observed in reports on Kuwait’s human rights practices.
The latest decrees provide no public breakdown of the specific grounds applied to each of the 25 cases or the identities of those involved. Kuwaiti law allows revocation for reasons such as acquiring foreign nationality illegally, moral turpitude or actions deemed to threaten state security, though the gazette entry itself offered no elaboration on individual circumstances. Publication in Kuwait Alyoum serves both to formalize the decisions and to notify the public and affected parties.
The 1959 Kuwaiti Nationality Law, which bases citizenship primarily on paternal descent from original nationals, underpins the revocation authority exercised by a Supreme Committee chaired by the interior minister. Regional media outlets have tracked earlier batches, including one in June 2026 that stripped more than 2,000 people of their status under comparable decrees. The current action, while smaller in scale, fits the pattern of incremental announcements that have continued into 2026 despite a brief pause earlier in the year.
Human rights assessments have highlighted the gender dimension of many revocations, noting that women who gained citizenship through Kuwaiti husbands have been prominent among those affected. Children of such unions have also lost their derived nationality in numerous instances, amplifying the humanitarian consequences. Officials have justified the reviews as necessary to address irregularities in how nationality was originally conferred.
Legal changes enacted in December 2024 expanded the grounds for forfeiture and permitted the use of DNA testing in some verifications, according to documentation of the nationality law. These adjustments have enabled the High Committee for Nationality Affairs to process cases more rapidly, resulting in weekly lists at peak periods. The latest set of six decrees adds to a cumulative total that some estimates place above 70,000 when including dependents.
