Kuwait's New Labor Transfer Rules in 2026: What Decision 680 Actually Changes (And What It Doesn't)
Back in late May, my phone would not stop buzzing.
I do relocation and HR paperwork consulting for Gulf-based clients, which means my contact list is full of drivers, retail staff, warehouse guys, and a few domestic workers who've saved my number "just in case." That week, "just in case" turned into about thirty messages a day, all some version of: "Is it true I can leave my sponsor now? Without waiting a year?"
Someone had screenshotted a Kuwait Times headline and it was spreading through WhatsApp groups faster than any government announcement ever does officially. Half the messages were hopeful. Half were people who'd clearly misread it and thought they could quit on the spot for any reason at all.
Neither read was quite right. So let's actually walk through what changed, what it means in practice, and where I've watched people trip themselves up with it.
The problem this was actually trying to fix
If you've worked in Kuwait under the sponsorship (kafala) system, you already know the deal: your residency and work permit are tied to your employer, and you generally can't transfer to a new one until you've completed a full year of continuous service — sometimes three, depending on the role.
That waiting period exists for legitimate labor-market reasons. But it also became a tool. I've personally seen cases where an employer just... never finished a worker's residency paperwork. No explanation, no urgency, just months of "we're working on it" while the worker's legal status sat in limbo and they had zero leverage to leave, because leaving without a released sponsor meant risking an absconding case.
That's the exact gap Kuwait's Public Authority for Manpower (PAM) tried to close in May.
What Decision 680 of 2026 actually is
On May 23, 2026, PAM published Administrative Decision No. 680 of 2026 in the official gazette, Kuwait Al-Youm. It took effect the next day, May 24. It amends Article 7 of the older Decision No. 842 of 2015, which is the regulation that governs how workers transfer from one employer to another.
The short version: PAM can now investigate a worker's complaint and approve an early transfer — before the one-year mark — if the worker can prove one of five specific things happened. Not "my boss is difficult." Specific, documentable things.
The five conditions that actually qualify
I want to be blunt about this part, because it's where most of the confusion lives. General unhappiness with your job isn't one of the five conditions. Here's what is:
1. Your employer sat on your paperwork. You can't get your work permit or residency sorted because your employer delayed, refused, or was just negligent about it — and it genuinely wasn't your fault. This is the scenario I described above, and it's the one I've seen most often.
2. Your employer's company file is frozen. Sometimes a business itself gets suspended or restricted by the government for its own violations. If that freeze is blocking your residency from being finalized, you shouldn't be the one stuck paying for it.
3. A malicious or false absconding report was filed against you. This is a big one. Absconding reports have historically been used — unfairly — to threaten or trap workers who tried to push back or leave. If it can be shown the report was filed to punish you, deny your rights, or block a transfer, that now counts as grounds for early transfer.
4. Your employer violated Article 48 of Kuwait's Labor Law (No. 6 of 2010). This article covers the employer's core obligations — wages, working conditions, leave, workplace safety. If your employer is breaching those in a way serious enough that you'd have grounds to walk away and keep your end-of-service benefits, that also opens the door to an early transfer.
5. Your case falls under Article 50 of the same law. This covers other specific circumstances that justify ending the employment relationship without it being held against the worker.
A quick honest caveat here: the exact legal wording of Articles 48 and 50 gets interpreted case by case, and I've seen different lawyers describe the edges of these differently. If your situation is borderline, that's a conversation for PAM's Labor Relations Department or an actual Kuwaiti labor lawyer, not a blog post.
Employers get pressured too, not just cases resolved quietly
The decision also defines a "defaulting employer" — basically, anyone who brought in a worker (or received a transferred one before the one-year mark) and then failed, refused, or unreasonably delayed finishing that worker's permit or residency.
Once PAM tags a company as defaulting, it can:
- Freeze that employer's ability to issue new work permits
- Pause their recruitment activity entirely
- Reject any new hiring applications
Those restrictions stay in place until the employer fixes what they broke and sorts out the affected workers. In plain terms: PAM finally has a lever to pull that actually costs a bad employer something, instead of just processing one complaint and moving on.
How to actually file, step by step
This part isn't glamorous, but it's the part people ask me about most:
- Gather your evidence first. Screenshots of messages, unpaid payslips, copies of any report filed against you, dates of when you asked about your permit and got ignored. PAM investigates based on what you can show, not what you can describe.
- File through PAM's channels. You can go through the Sahel app (Kuwait's unified government services app — PAM added a "National Labor Support Grievances" option under Employment Support), submit through PAM's own portal at manpower.gov.kw or e-portal.manpower.gov.kw, or go in person to a PAM branch and file with the Labor Relations Department.
- Reference the specific condition you're claiming. Don't just say "my employer is bad." Say which of the five conditions applies and attach what backs it up.
- Expect an investigation, not an instant answer. PAM has to review the complaint and, often, contact the employer. Some workers I know had it move in a couple of weeks; others waited closer to a month. I wouldn't bank on a fixed number of days — budget for it taking longer than you'd like, and follow up rather than assuming silence means rejection.
- If approved, employer consent isn't required. This is the actual teeth of the decision — PAM's approval overrides the employer's objection.
If you're not confident navigating this alone, PAM's general contact line is 103, and the office (in Kuwait City, near Al-Raqqa Passports/Andalusia) typically runs 8:30 AM to 1:00 PM, closed Friday and Saturday — which sounds obvious until you've watched someone show up at 3 PM wondering why the doors are locked.
A pattern I kept seeing (names changed, situation isn't)
I'll call him Ravi. Ravi joined a small logistics company in Kuwait in early 2026. Six months in, his residency still hadn't been finalized — not because of anything he did, but because his employer kept saying "next week" while quietly avoiding the paperwork fees.
Before Decision 680, Ravi's options were basically: wait it out, or leave and risk being reported as having absconded. After the decision, he filed with PAM, attached copies of his messages asking about his permit status going back four months, and cited condition #1 — employer negligence on residency procedures. His case moved. It wasn't instant, and it wasn't drama-free, but it moved in a way that simply wasn't possible for him a year earlier.
I've now seen versions of Ravi's story play out at least half a dozen times since June. The common thread isn't dramatic abuse — it's quiet, grinding negligence that used to have no real remedy.
The mix-up almost everyone made (including some news write-ups)
Here's something worth knowing that a lot of the coverage on this topic — including some blog posts you'll find on it — got tangled up: Decision 680 is not the same thing as the temporary sector-transfer window.
Around the same time, Kuwait also ran Ministerial Resolution No. 2 of 2026, a completely separate, temporary program that let workers in restricted sectors — small and medium enterprises, industrial, agricultural, livestock, and fishing — transfer to other sectors during a two-month grace window from May 1 to June 30, 2026.
That window has already closed. PAM confirmed 27,141 workers used it before it shut, with small-project-sector workers making up the biggest chunk. If you're reading this now, in the second half of 2026, that particular door isn't open anymore.
Decision 680, on the other hand, permanently amended the underlying transfer regulation. It's not a limited-time window — it's now just how PAM handles early-transfer requests based on employer misconduct, going forward. The two got conflated in a lot of early reporting because they landed in the news at almost the same moment, and some of the "11,000-plus transfer requests" figures floating around actually belong to the sector window, not the abuse-based transfer rule. Worth knowing the difference before you build your whole plan around a program that's already ended.
Mistakes I've watched people make with this
Assuming general dissatisfaction qualifies. It doesn't. You need one of the five documented conditions.
Not keeping a paper trail. If you never wrote down or screenshotted the dates you asked about your permit, you're relying on memory against a company's official file. Start documenting the moment something feels off, not after it's already a crisis. A lot of this overlaps with basic paperwork discipline — our guide to common visa mistakes to avoid covers the same habits that end up mattering here.
Quitting or disappearing before filing a complaint. This is the one that worries me most. Walking off the job to "force the issue" can get you reported as absconding, which is exactly the trap this decision is supposed to protect you from — but only if you go through PAM, not around it.
Paying someone who promises to "speed up" your case. I've heard of self-styled fixers charging workers money for faster PAM processing. PAM's own channels — Sahel, the e-portal, and in-person filing — don't require a paid middleman to submit a legitimate complaint.
Not double-checking with PAM directly. Rules like this get refined in practice. What I've laid out here reflects how things stood as of mid-2026, but if your case is time-sensitive, confirm current procedure with PAM rather than relying solely on any blog, including this one.
A few quick answers people keep asking me
Can my employer threaten to deport me for wanting to leave? No — that's not how this works, and it's not a legitimate use of an employer's authority.
Do I need my employer's sign-off if PAM approves my transfer? No. If PAM approves the transfer under one of the five conditions, the employer's objection doesn't block it.
My employer is just rude, not breaking any rules — do I qualify? Probably not under this specific decision. Rudeness alone isn't one of the five conditions. If it crosses into unpaid wages, unsafe conditions, or other Article 48 violations, that's different.
Where this leaves things
The honest takeaway is that Decision 680 doesn't hand every worker in Kuwait a free pass to switch jobs whenever they want — and it was never designed to. What it does is close a real, specific gap: the one where a worker did everything right and still got stuck because their employer wouldn't do their part.
If you think your situation fits one of the five conditions, don't sit on it hoping things improve on their own. Start documenting, and go straight to PAM rather than routing around them. And if anyone tells you they can guarantee a faster outcome for a fee, that's a red flag, not a shortcut.
It also helps to have somewhere to go once you're cleared. Lining up a new employer before your transfer is approved — rather than after — means you're not sitting in the same limbo with a different sponsor. You can browse current Kuwait job openings to get a sense of what's out there while your case is being reviewed.
This isn't legal advice — just an outsider's honest field notes on how this rule has actually played out for the people I've helped through it. For anything specific to your own case, PAM's Labor Relations Department or a licensed Kuwaiti labor lawyer is the right next call.
