Ehtikam’s 2026 corporate and investment law report puts business structures, cross-border investment and governance in focus as Kuwait develops its investment framework and implements international tax reforms.
Kuwait’s investment story is increasingly a question of how businesses are structured, governed and held accountable, alongside how much capital they attract. Ehtikam Legal Group has brought those subjects together in a 2026 edition of its Corporate & Investment Law Report, announced as part of the MOST LISTS project under the group’s supervision.
The publication was promoted by Ehtikam lawyer Abdulaziz Alhusainan, who identified corporate structures, cross-border investment systems, market regulation, financial compliance and governance among its subjects. His announcement also describes an examination of Kuwait’s investment environment in 2026.
That scope has a practical context. Kuwait has introduced a domestic minimum top-up tax for qualifying multinational groups, while its investment authority has reported nearly KD 2 billion in cumulative approved direct investments. Together, those developments give companies reasons to examine the relationship between legal structure, financial reporting and investment decisions.
A report focused on the structure behind investment
The announcement of Ehtikam’s report addresses investors, entrepreneurs and company owners. Its stated coverage connects the rules governing companies with the arrangements through which capital moves across borders.
Those are related questions, but they are not interchangeable. A corporate structure establishes the entity through which a business operates; governance concerns how decisions are taken and supervised; financial compliance concerns the obligations attached to its activities. The report’s advertised scope places these subjects within the same discussion.
The publicly available announcement establishes the publication’s themes, rather than supplying its full analysis or recommendations. It is therefore a guide to Ehtikam’s research agenda, not evidence that the firm has reached a particular conclusion about an investment, transaction or change in legislation.
For readers, the relevant question is how those themes connect with developments already documented by Kuwait’s authorities.
The multinational tax change makes group structure matter
One concrete example is Kuwait’s domestic minimum top-up tax. According to the Ministry of Finance’s explanation, the law took effect on January 1, 2025, and applies to multinational groups operating in Kuwait with annual global revenues of at least €750 million in at least two of the preceding four years.
The framework is intended to ensure a minimum 15% tax on the relevant income earned in Kuwait. Its scope is important: this is a measure for qualifying multinational groups, rather than a statement that every Kuwaiti business is subject to the same new tax.
It also brings the international group into the local assessment. The revenue threshold is based on global group income, which means the size of a single Kuwait operation does not, by itself, explain whether its wider group falls within the framework.
That provides a specific example of the overlap between corporate law and financial compliance. Understanding the ownership structure and the financial information attached to it becomes part of understanding the applicable regime.
Approved investment provides the commercial backdrop
The Kuwait Direct Investment Promotion Authority’s tenth annual report supplies another part of the picture. An official government account of the report records approximately KD 222.9 million in new direct investments for the financial year running from April 1, 2024, to March 31, 2025.
Cumulative approved investment reached approximately KD 1.972 billion between January 2015 and the end of March 2025. These are figures for the authority’s reported investment activity, not a measure of every investment transaction in Kuwait or the country’s entire foreign investment stock.
The distinction matters because approval, financing and operation describe different stages of a business project. An aggregate investment figure cannot establish how an individual company is organised or which obligations attach to it.
It does, however, identify a concrete base of investment activity behind the legal discussion. Questions about corporate arrangements concern businesses and projects moving through an established investment framework, rather than an abstract ambition to attract capital.
Ehtikam’s work extends beyond its legal practice
Ehtikam’s own organisational development helps explain its interest in this intersection. In his founder’s message, Ali Al Sabri describes a group that began as a legal initiative and subsequently broadened into governance, financial advisory, education, certified translation and property management.
The group’s legal and advisory activities therefore sit alongside one another within its stated structure. That does not establish the results of any particular client engagement, but it gives context to a publication combining legal rules, investment and governance.
The wider policy discussion follows a similar set of connections. In its February 2026 assessment of Kuwait, the International Monetary Fund called for a coordinated programme of structural reforms to improve the business environment and deepen financial markets.
The Fund also recommended further tax changes. Those recommendations must be distinguished from measures already implemented, such as the multinational top-up tax described by the Ministry of Finance.
The distinction also shapes how a legal publication should be read. An account of existing obligations serves a different purpose from an assessment of possible reforms. Keeping the two separate allows business owners to understand what requires attention now and what belongs in longer-term planning.
For companies assessing Kuwait, that distinction is central to reading the investment environment accurately. Ehtikam’s report brings corporate structures and governance into the discussion; the official developments show why the detail matters. The immediate task is to distinguish rules already in force, the businesses they cover and proposals that remain part of the policy debate.
