By Ben Garcia

If you are an expat and want to start a family in Kuwait, prepare for the hassles brought about by boundless bureaucracy, starting from obtaining a birth certificate. This is needed to secure a passport (at your embassy) and iqama (from the residency department). A report of birth must be made within 60 days to avoid penalties. Negligence to do so carries a penalty of imprisonment or a fine, if you've done it twice.

At public hospitals, maternity charges have increased drastically since 2016 to KD 150 for a C-section and KD 100 for normal delivery. This is despite the fact that every expat in Kuwait needs to pay KD 50 in mandatory annual health insurance fees.

Kuwait Times followed Ronel Musni Bucu and wife Marjorie in their efforts to secure a birth certificate. They live in Khaitan, so Marjorie delivered her first baby at Farwaniya Hospital. Here's the step by step procedure for getting a birth certificate:


  1. To use public health services, a married, pregnant woman must open a file in both the area clinic and the maternity hospital. Registration costs KD 10 and the woman gets a yellow card. Which clinic you may visit is determined by the address on your civil ID. Everything starts at the clinic, with a series of appointments and check-ups with doctors. During each visit, you will be required to pay KD 2. If need be, you will be told to buy vitamins from outside. Vitamins at the clinic are only given to Kuwaitis and are not available for expats. Once you have the yellow card and visit the clinic regularly, the doctor will refer you to a hospital to open a file there too.
  2. Opening the file at the hospital costs KD 10. A copy of medical interventions during the nine-month period will be sent to the hospital prior to delivery. The hospital will be ready for any eventuality or in case of emergency.
  3. You are also required to attest your marriage certificate at the ministry of foreign affairs, which costs KD 5. All your legal documents have to be translated to Arabic, as they are needed at the hospital. The translated marriage certificate has to be attested by your embassy too. You will need all of this for the baby's discharge procedure from the hospital.
  4. Ronel and Marjorie's baby was delivered at Farwaniya Hospital on Jan 29. She was admitted at midnight on Jan 27. Since it was not during the visiting hours for men, one of his female co-workers helped them with the necessary paperwork for the baby's delivery. After all the procedures were completed, the hospital nurse promised to contact the father once his wife delivered, but even by the third day, she hadn't. He insisted to visit the following day and found his wife had delivered their baby a day after being admitted.
  5. The following day, he went to fetch his wife and the newborn baby from the hospital. Ronel submitted all the necessary documents before getting a pink copy of the birth record from the hospital. The officers at the hospital records department told him to go to the government birth records department in Subhan to secure the birth certificate. He was reminded to submit the paper immediately to avoid being penalized.
  6. At the Subhan record section, an employee told Ronel the record was not ready yet. The man advised him to return after four days. When he went there a few days later, he was told there were some erasures on his papers, which is not acceptable.
  7. Ronel then had to attest these documents at the translation department. On same day, he went back to secure the birth certificate and was told to come back after a week to receive the birth certificate card.

Note: The birth card will be in Arabic and this will need to be translated into the language of your home country so that you can then proceed to apply for a passport for the child, which is necessary to obtain residency for the child.

Birth Certificate Centers:

Residents of Salmiya, Rumaithiya, Hawally, Shaab, Dasman can secure their birth certificate at Maidan Hawally

Residents of Kuwait City, Khaitan, Omariya, Farwaniya and Jleeb Al-Shoukh should go to the birth records department in Subhan.

Those living in Fahaheel, Egaila, Ahmadi, Abu Halifa and Mangaf must secure birth certificates from Ahmadi governorate birth records office.