KUWAIT CITY, Nov 16: A total of 316,700 expatriates of different nationalities whose residencies in all visa categories have expired because they are either locked out of Kuwait, or they left voluntarily due to end of their services, or they desire to settle down in their countries, or were deported from the country, during the period from January 1, 2021 to November 15, 2021, reports Al-Anba daily. They revealed that most of these expatriates were from Arab and Asian countries with a large community inside Kuwait. The sources indicated that the number of expatriates whose residency expired because of the same reasons in the year 2020 was 44,124.

Regarding the reasons for the increase in the numbers of those whose residencies expired in the year 2021 compared to 2020 despite the continuation of the COVID- 19 pandemic in the previous two years and the continuation of the closure, the source explained that it may be due to the fact that the residencies of a number of these people were valid in 2020, but had expired in 2021 and they were unable to renew it. He affirmed that the Residency Affairs sector has arranged great facilities for those who were outside the country by allowing the online renewal of residency and suspending the expiry of residency after six months of being outside the country.

The source explained that the number of residencies renewed online was as follows: 64,361 transactions of article 17 (government) residency, 1,212,024 residencies of article 18 ( private sector), 393,466 residencies of “article 20 (domestic employment), 624,362 residencies of article 22 (family residency), and 1,466 residencies of article 24 (self-sponsor), which is as per the latest statistics issued by the Information Systems Center on Nov 7.