Driving License Conditions for Non-Kuwaitis

The General Traffic Department published the conditions in a brochure dated 18 March 2020. This page rewrites its contents in plain English and reproduces the lists so you can quickly see which category you are in.

Important: we compiled this from the original brochure and cannot confirm that every rule is still current today. Check the latest text with the GDT before you apply. When you are ready, follow New driving license.

The general rule

• Hold a private or general driving license already
• Have legal residency in Kuwait for more than two years
• Be a university degree graduate
• Earn a monthly salary of no less than six hundred Kuwaiti dinars (KD 600)

Documents you need

Group 1: exempt from the residency, salary and degree conditions

• Spouse of a Kuwaiti citizen who bore their children (including widows and divorcees)
• Spouse of a Kuwaiti woman, and their children
• Stateless members who have a valid security card and health insurance
• Diplomatic members
• Professional club players at sport federations in governmental agencies
• Drivers and agents of government agencies and other general delegates holding a valid driving license from their own or another country
• Domestic workers with at least two consecutive years with the same sponsor who changed their residence title to driver
• Technicians and specialists in the oil-field sector
• Physiotherapists and all technicians in medical professions
• Pilots, co-pilots, captains, helmsmen and guides of service vessels
• Morticians
• Housewives married to certain professions and who have children: pilots and captains, judges and public prosecution members, consultants and experts, university and applied-education faculty, doctors and pharmacists, executives and general managers and their assistants

Group 2: exempt from residency and salary, but a university degree is required

• Judges and members of public prosecution
• Consultants and experts
• Faculty members in universities and applied-education institutes
• Doctors and pharmacists
• Journalists and reporters
• Engineers
• Veterinarians
• Researchers, law members, translators, teachers, social workers, librarians, mosque imams, muezzins and government employees
• Sport trainers in sport federations and public-sector clubs

Group 3: exempt from residency duration, but salary above KD 600 and a degree are required

• Executives, general managers and their assistants
• All managers
• All accountants
• Physicists, chemists and geologists
• Representatives and delegates

Good to know

• If a public-sector agent or general delegate cancels their residency or changes career, the license is cancelled and they cannot obtain a new one for 2 consecutive years.
• Changing to a job that is not in the decision, or cancelling the residency, leads to cancellation of the license.
• Changing to another career that appears in the decision and its exemptions may allow the General Manager of the GD of Traffic to permit revalidation of the license.
• A housewife's license is cancelled if they change their residency article or if their spouse moves to a career not covered by the decision.
• Article (20) drivers whose residency was cancelled for staying outside the country more than 6 months (for non-security, non-health reasons) can be exempted if the same sponsor, or a first-degree relative, re-hired them as a driver.
• The GDT lists electronic services on its brochure: traffic signs, market licensing services, booking a driving-test appointment, traffic transactions, the experimental theory test and the Traffic Law.

Official form (PDF)

Original source: Click here