Tens of thousands of African job seekers have effectively lost access to one of the Gulf’s most significant labour markets after Kuwait quietly overhauled its domestic worker recruitment rules, closing its doors to applicants from Nigeria, Kenya and 25 other countries.
A new circular from Kuwait’s Interior Ministry has slashed the list of approved source countries for domestic workers to just ten, leaving most of Africa shut out of a market that has long served as a vital income channel for workers across the continent. Under the directive, domestic workers may now be recruited only from South Africa, Benin, Eritrea, Ethiopia, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, India, Vietnam and Nepal, along with Senegal, where recruitment is limited to male workers only.
The banned list of 27 countries spans the Asian nations of Madagascar and Bhutan alongside a sweeping range of African states: Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, Togo, Malawi, Chad, Djibouti, Niger, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Cabo Verde, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Mali, Burkina Faso, Gambia, Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, the Central African Republic, the Republic of the Congo, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, Burundi and Angola.
The decision followed assessments and recommendations from Kuwait’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Health, and the Public Authority for Manpower. Officials say recruitment procedures will now be processed through designated governorates as part of broader administrative tightening of the domestic labour sector. The updated policy also takes into account diplomatic and administrative factors, with some of the listed countries having no diplomatic representation in Kuwait.
Close to 3,500 Kenyans are currently working in Kuwait, according to data from the Kenyan Ministry of Foreign and Diaspora Affairs , a figure that underscores the human scale of the policy shift for just one of the affected countries. The ban cuts off new recruitment rather than terminating existing contracts, though workers and agencies have been advised to seek clarification from Kuwaiti authorities and their respective embassies.
The move adds to a pattern of tightening Gulf labour access that has been building for years. Large-scale deportations of unauthorised residents and immigrants of certain nationalities have been described as routine in Kuwait and other Gulf states, and the overall number of foreign workers across the GCC region fell by nearly one-fifth between 2015 and 2021 , before a partial rebound. Kuwait itself has been grappling with a domestic worker shortage: official data showed the total number of domestic workers in the country fell by more than 30,000 over 18 months to end-2024, driven by recruitment difficulties, regional competition and restrictions on certain nationalities.
For the affected African countries, the stakes extend well beyond individual employment. Remittances from Gulf-based workers are a critical source of foreign exchange for several economies across West and Central Africa, making bilateral labour access a matter of macroeconomic significance. Countries that lack formalised recruitment agreements with Kuwait or face concerns over documentation and oversight systems have historically been most vulnerable to such restrictions.
The latest Kuwaiti policy comes as Gulf Cooperation Council states more broadly continue reshaping their labour systems around tighter regulatory compliance, worker protection frameworks, and preferential bilateral agreements. For many African nations on the banned list, the practical consequence is mounting pressure to renegotiate recruitment frameworks or risk losing access to one of the world’s most concentrated markets for migrant labour entirely.
By: Andrews Kwesi Yeboah