KUWAIT CITY — The number of expatriates, whose residency permits have expired as they are stranded outside Kuwait due to coronavirus-related travel restrictions, has risen to 127,000, Arab Times, a Kuwaiti English-language daily, reported on Thursday. The residency permits have expired either due to laxity on part of expatriates for failing to renew them or as a result of deliberate action by some sponsors or governmental authorities. Despite the Ministry of Interior's appeal to the expatriates stranded abroad to expedite the renewal of their residency permits (online) and provide them with facilities, many of them did not take advantage of the decisions taken on humanitarian grounds, said the report. The report also said that there are around 500,000 migrant workers holding valid Kuwaiti residency permits still stranded abroad. The Kuwaiti interior minister recently extended residency permits and visit visas of foreigners inside Kuwait from Sept. 1 to Nov. 30. However, the ministry's decision does not apply to those whose residency permits have expired as of Sept. 1, it only applies to those whose residency or visit permits have ended over the period from the beginning of the year until Aug. 31. There are many expatriates whose residence permits expired after Sept. 1 and did not apply for renewing them, wrongly believing that they qualify for the exemption, the report said. Now they will have to pay fines to renew their residency permits. If caught, they will be exposed to deportation and denied entry into the country in the future, the report added.
