Hiring staff you don’t need is a crime

Bringing a worker into Kuwait and then giving them no job at all can land an employer in prison. That’s exactly what Article 10 of Kuwait’s Labour Law punishes.

It’s a rule many residents have never heard of, yet it sits behind some of the residence permit scam cases that show up in Kuwait’s courts. If you’ve ever wondered how a company ends up having its licence cancelled over fake jobs, this law is usually the reason.

What exactly does Article 10 stop employers doing?

The second paragraph of Article 10 covers two separate situations. First, an employer cannot bring a worker from abroad, or take on someone already living in Kuwait, and then simply not give them work. Second, an employer cannot recruit workers at all when it turns out the company has no real need for them.

The Arabic text used by lawyers reads: “ثم يعمد إلى عدم تسليمهم العمل لديه أو يثبت عدم حاجته الفعلية لهم” — meaning the employer deliberately withholds work, or it’s proven there was no genuine need for the worker in the first place.

The same part of the law also deals with money. If a worker stops showing up and goes to work for someone else, the new employer has to cover the cost of sending that worker home — but only after the original employer has filed an absconding report against them.

What punishment does an employer face?

Courts can hand down prison time, a fine, or both, depending on the case. Article 28 doubles the penalty in two situations: when a public official commits the offence while doing their job, and when someone repeats the offence after already being convicted once.

Where the offence happens through a company — carried out in the company’s name or for its benefit — the punishment gets heavier still. The company is fined for every foreign worker involved, its licence can be cancelled, and the person actually running the company faces the prison term set out in the first paragraph of the law.

This is close to what happened in the case we covered earlier, where a court cancelled a firm’s licence in a residence permit scam. Hiring without real need is often the starting point of those cases.

Labour Law or Residence Law — which one applies?

Both can apply at the same time. Article 138 of the Labour Law opens by saying it applies “without prejudice to any harsher penalty in any other law”, so this offence doesn’t cancel out charges under the Residence Law. It sits alongside them.

The real difference between the two laws is money. Article 18 of the Residence Law only applies if the recruitment, or the renewal of a work permit, happened in return for money, a benefit, or even just a promise of one. Article 10 of the Labour Law doesn’t need any of that. It’s enough that workers were brought in and then left without a job, or that the company never actually needed them.

Can these cases be settled out of court?

Two procedural points matter here, and they’re worth knowing if you’re an employer, an agent, or a worker caught up in a dispute.

1. Only the Public Prosecution can investigate and bring charges for residence trafficking offences, under Article 29. No other body handles this.
2. Settlement is possible for an offence under Article 19, at KD 3,000 per foreign worker, and the Minister of Interior can refuse to allow it. But Article 31, which lists the offences that can be settled, does not include Article 18. That means residence trafficking itself cannot be settled — it has to go through the courts.

What this means for workers and employers in Kuwait

For workers, the key point is this: if you were brought to Kuwait and never given a job, or if your employer clearly never needed you, that’s not just unfair — it may be a criminal offence on the employer’s side. This connects to wider issues we’ve written about, like what happens when an employer refuses to pay your indemnity, or when you’re thinking about changing jobs before your contract ends.

For employers, especially smaller companies and recruitment agents, the message is equally clear. Bringing in staff speculatively, without a confirmed role waiting for them, carries real legal risk — not just a labour dispute, but potential prison time and a cancelled licence. Our earlier piece on Kuwait’s rules on firing, resigning and termination covers the related obligations employers owe staff once they are hired. It’s also worth remembering employers cannot pay less than the agreed salary, which is another protection built into the same system.

Cases involving fake hiring for a visa fee are not rare either — we recently covered an Indian expat held over a maid-hiring fraud scam, which shows how often these schemes involve money changing hands for a residence permit rather than a real job.

You can read more Local news from Kuwait on labour and residency rules as we continue following these cases.

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