New conditions for driving licenses - Minimum salary KD 600; license’s validity linked to iqama

Deputy Prime Minister and Interior Minister Sheikh Mohammed Al-Khaled Al-Sabah yesterday issued a ministerial decision with some amendments to the traffic law on driving licenses for non-Kuwaitis. According to the new amendments, a driving license’s validity will be linked to the validity of holders’ residency visas (iqamas). The new conditions also include age, health fitness, passing driving tests conducted by the traffic department, holding a valid iqama for at least two years prior to application, holding a university degree and receiving a minimum monthly salary of KD 600.

The new amendments will exempt non-Kuwaiti wives, widows and divorcees of Kuwaiti men who have Kuwaiti children, husbands of Kuwaiti women, illegal residents (bedoons) holding valid security ID cards and students registered in a university or a PAAET institute in Kuwait.

Moreover, the decision also explained that housewives who have children and whose husbands already hold driving licenses, members of diplomatic corps, professional sport clubs’ players, drivers, general representatives (mandoubs), passport and Ministry of Social Affairs and Labor representatives who already hold valid driving licenses from their respective countries, judges, members of the public prosecution, chancellors, experts, university and PAAET teaching staff members, journalists, members of the media, doctors, pharmacists, engineers, teachers, social workers, researchers, translators, librarians, imams working for the government and sports trainers would be exempted from the residency and salary conditions.

The decision also exempts private drivers who have been working for a minimum five years for the same sponsor (provided they change their profession to ‘driver’), specialized technicians in the oil sector, nurses, physiotherapists, other medical technicians, pilots, captains, their assistants and washers of dead bodies. In addition the decision exempts general managers, their assistants, managers and accountants from the residency visa condition.

It also cancels driving licenses held by drivers, mandoubs and passport and MSAL representatives on the cancellation of their residency or changing their profession based on which the license had been issued, and they will only be able to get new licenses after two years from the date of cancellation.