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Kuwait has added artificial intelligence services to the list of activities a business can be licensed for, under code 620106, with CITRA named as the supervising authority
Kuwait now has a commercial activity code for selling AI services. Read what follows with one caveat in front of it: we have confirmed that this instrument exists and what it does, but we have not been able to extract its text.
What we can and cannot tell you: We have not read the text of Decision 159 of 2026. Kuwait's official gazette publishes the relevant issue only through a flipbook viewer that returns no readable PDF and no page images, and the Ministry's own decisions index has not been updated past Decision 37 of 2026. We tried both routes. What follows rests on convergent reporting plus the gazette's own issue record, not on reading the operative text. We will update this page if the text becomes available.
Bottom line: The Minister of Commerce and Industry signed Ministerial Decision No. 159 of 2026 on 30 July 2026, adding artificial intelligence services and solutions and related services to the list of activities a business can be licensed for in Kuwait.
The detail that matters: The activity sits under code 620106 in the information and communications sector of the GCC unified classification of economic activities, and the Communication and Information Technology Regulatory Authority, CITRA, is named as the supervising authority for it.
What it is not: This is not an AI law. It governs who may sell AI services in Kuwait, not how AI may be used there. No AI-specific implementing circulars have been published.
Cite the year, always: Kuwait also has a Ministerial Decision 159 of 2025, on an unrelated subject. The numbers collide across years. A reference to Decision 159 without the year is ambiguous.
Primary sources: Kuwait Al-Youm, the official gazette, issue index · Ministry of Commerce and Industry, ministerial decisions index · CITRA
- Instrument
- Ministerial Decision No. 159 of 2026 on the creation of commercial activities
- Authority
- Minister of Commerce and Industry, State of Kuwait
- Signed
- 30 July 2026
- Activity
- Artificial intelligence services and solutions and related services
- Activity code
- 620106, information and communications sector, GCC unified classification of economic activities
- Supervising authority
- Communication and Information Technology Regulatory Authority (CITRA)
- Publication
- Reported as published in Kuwait Al-Youm issue 1803, dated 9 August 2026. We confirmed that issue 1803, main edition, dated 9 August 2026 exists on the gazette's own site. The page pin-cite is WEFAQ Law Firm's, not our own observation
- Commencement
- Reported by WEFAQ Law Firm as effective on issuance. We have not verified this against the text
- Do not confuse with
- Ministerial Decision 159 of 2025, a different decision on an unrelated subject
- Primary source
- https://kuwaitalyawm.media.gov.kw/Online/GetEditions?page=1
What we verified, and what we could not
Start with the evidence, because this piece rests on an unusual basis and you should be able to weigh it yourself.
We have not read Decision 159 of 2026. Kuwait Al-Youm, the official gazette, serves the relevant issue through a flipbook viewer rather than a document. The viewer endpoint returns a short stub with no PDF and no page images behind it. The Ministry of Commerce and Industry publishes an index of ministerial decisions, but that index currently stops at Decision 37 of 2026, so the instrument is not posted there either. Both routes were tried and both failed. This is a limitation of the publication infrastructure, not a judgement about the decision.
What we could confirm is narrower but solid. An independent Arabic financial news wire reported the Ministry announcing the new activity and named the decision. A Kuwaiti law firm published a detailed analysis naming the same decision, the same activity code and the same supervising authority. The Ministry's own announcement material circulated carrying the decision number and the code. And on the gazette's own government site, issue 1803, main edition, dated 9 August 2026, exists exactly as the law firm's citation says.
So: existence, number, year, signing date, activity code and named supervisor are corroborated. The operative text is not. Nothing below tells you what the decision says, because we cannot honestly claim to know.
What actually changed
Kuwait maintains a list of activities a business can be licensed to carry on, aligned to the GCC unified classification of economic activities. Decision 159 of 2026 adds artificial intelligence services and solutions and related services to that list, under code 620106, in the information and communications sector.
Until this addition, a company building or selling AI products in Kuwait was licensed under a general heading such as software design or IT consulting. There was no line on the list that said what it actually did.
That sounds like paperwork. It is worth more than that, and it is worth less than the headline version. Classification decides what a company may lawfully hold itself out as doing, which regulator is understood to watch it, and how banks and government buyers categorise it. Government tenders in particular tend to specify activity codes, so the code a company holds can decide whether it is eligible to bid at all.
What it does not do is create a licensing regime for AI. There is no new approval track, no set of AI-specific criteria, no rules about how AI may be deployed or what it may be used for. One line was added to an existing list under an existing code in an existing taxonomy. That is the whole of the act.
Sell-side, not use-side
This is the distinction to hold onto, and it is the one most likely to get lost in summary.
Decision 159 of 2026 is about who may sell AI services in Kuwait. It is not about how AI may be used in Kuwait. Kuwait has not enacted an AI law, and this decision is not one.
The two questions get conflated constantly. A jurisdiction that creates a licence category for AI vendors has not thereby regulated automated decision-making, or training data, or transparency, or anything a deployer does with a model. Those remain open questions in Kuwait.
CITRA being named as the supervising authority is the part worth watching. CITRA already regulates the telecommunications and information technology sector. Naming it here means a licensed provider sits under a regulator rather than under nobody in particular. What that supervision will require of AI providers specifically is not something we can tell you, because no AI-specific implementing circulars have been published and we have not read the decision. If conditions come, they will come in circulars.
The number trap
One practical warning for anyone checking this themselves.
The Ministry's own index of ministerial decisions lists a Ministerial Decision 159 of 2025, which amends an earlier decision from 2020 and has nothing to do with artificial intelligence. Decision numbers restart each year, so 159 of 2025 and 159 of 2026 are different instruments on different subjects.
If you search the Ministry index for 159 and find the 2025 decision, you have not found this one, and you have not caught us in an error. Cite the year every time.
Kuwait has added AI services to its commercial activity licensing list under code 620106, with CITRA as supervisor. It changes who may be licensed to sell AI services. It does not regulate how AI may be used, and it is not an AI law. We confirmed the instrument exists and what it does, but the gazette does not publish extractable text, so nothing here is a claim about what the decision says.
Source File
https://kuwaitalyawm.media.gov.kw/Online/GetEditions?page=1
There is no readable copy to open, and that is the point. To try it yourself: go to the Kuwait Al-Youm issue index on the gazette site and find issue 1803, main edition, dated 9 August 2026. The view control opens a flipbook viewer rather than a document, and that viewer endpoint returns a short stub with no PDF and no page images behind it. Separately, check the Ministry of Commerce and Industry index of ministerial decisions; at the time of writing it stops at Decision 37 of 2026, so Decision 159 of 2026 is not posted there. If either route starts serving the text, the decision number to look for is 159 of 2026, not 159 of 2025.
No verbatim text is quoted in this piece. The operative text of Ministerial Decision 159 of 2026 could not be extracted from Kuwait Al-Youm, so nothing here is presented as the words of the instrument.
FAQ
Has Kuwait passed an AI law?
No. Ministerial Decision 159 of 2026 adds artificial intelligence services and solutions to the list of activities a business can be licensed for. It governs who may sell AI services, not how AI may be used. Kuwait has not enacted a law regulating AI use.
What is activity code 620106?
It is the code under which the new activity sits, in the information and communications sector of the GCC unified classification of economic activities. A company can apply to hold that activity on its commercial licence.
Does an existing AI company in Kuwait have to change its licence?
We cannot answer that from the instrument, because we have not been able to read its text. The decision adds the activity to the list; what it requires of existing licence holders is not something we can state.
Who supervises the new activity?
The Communication and Information Technology Regulatory Authority, CITRA, is named as the supervising authority. No AI-specific implementing circulars have been published.
Why does this article say the text was not read?
Kuwait's official gazette publishes the relevant issue through a flipbook viewer that returns no readable PDF or page images, and the Ministry's decisions index has not been updated past Decision 37 of 2026. We confirmed the instrument's existence, number, date, code and supervising authority through convergent reporting and the gazette's own issue record, but we will not characterise text we have not read.
Is this Decision 159 of 2025?
No. Those are different instruments. Decision 159 of 2025 amends an earlier decision from 2020 and is unrelated to artificial intelligence. Always cite the year.