Kuwait is strengthening its electronic monitoring of salary payments to improve transparency and protect private-sector employees, including expatriate workers.
According to reports published on October 25–26, 2026, the Public Authority for Manpower (PAM) has established an electronic link with the Central Bank of Kuwait’s wage protection system. The process involves eight stages, beginning with an employer’s salary disbursement request and ending with the electronic transmission of payment results to the authority.
Under the system, banks process salary information and verify it against the employer’s registered workforce records. Once the information is validated, the payment is executed and the results are transmitted electronically to the relevant authority. This is intended to reduce manual procedures and help officials identify salary-payment violations more efficiently.
A further development reported by local media is a planned monitoring mechanism to detect cases in which employers deposit wages into workers’ accounts and subsequently require employees to return some or all of the money. Authorities are seeking to identify such practices and take action where violations are established.
Companies submitted 93,865 wage-compliance requests between January and September 2026, compared with 31,757 during the same period in 2025, according to figures cited in local reports.
The measures aim to improve compliance with wage regulations, identify delayed or unpaid salaries and strengthen accountability among employers. Any enforcement action will depend on the applicable rules and the findings of the relevant authorities.
The development is particularly relevant to expatriate workers in Kuwait, including Pakistanis, whose salaries and employment conditions are governed by local labour regulations.
