Officials at Kuwait’s Ministry of Commerce and Industry are preparing to impose fines on commercial license holders who failed to disclose the identity of their beneficial owners by the deadline that expired last April. Fines will begin at KD 1,000 and may increase to KD 10,000 unless violators promptly rectify their status by submitting the required information.
Sources informed Al-Rai that the Ministry is considering launching its enforcement efforts with joint-stock companies that have not disclosed their financial ownership data.
This approach is under study for several reasons: these companies are expected to comply with governance and transparency standards, and a blanket enforcement across all violators—potentially numbering over 15,000 entities—would be impractical.
A phased implementation would also provide sole proprietorships and partnerships a final opportunity to comply before being penalized.
According to the sources, around 200 out of 1,707 targeted joint-stock companies have yet to fulfill the disclosure requirements. The majority—approximately 1,500—have already complied. These figures exclude banks and companies listed on the Kuwait Stock Exchange, which are governed by specific Capital Markets Authority regulations. The fines will be applied progressively, following Ministerial Resolution No. 16 of 2025 and earlier regulations governing beneficial ownership disclosures.
Beyond the administrative fines of KD 1,000 to KD 10,000, violators could face more severe penalties under Law No. 106 on Combating Money Laundering and Terrorism Financing, which allows for fines up to KD 500,000. Each business must designate a license manager responsible for registering the beneficial owner’s identity in the Ministry’s system.
The Ministry has outlined that all entities holding a commercial register—whether active, suspended, or expired—must comply with the beneficial ownership disclosure, provided the register is still valid. This includes all unlisted joint-stock companies, sole proprietorships, and partnerships. Exemptions apply only to publicly listed companies and those fully owned by governments.
Ministry data shows approximately 227,000 commercial licenses fall under the disclosure requirement: 168,500 are sole proprietorships, around 58,600 are partnerships, and 1,707 are joint-stock companies. About 93% of these entities have already complied, according to the latest statistics.
Importantly, if a company operates multiple branches under a single commercial register, it only needs to register the beneficial owner once at the main register level. No separate registration is required for individual branches.
