KnowYourCountry — Kuwait: Country AML Intelligence (public summary; rated 'Medium-High Risk', 55)

PUBLISHER. KnowYourCountry Ltd, 7 Castle Street, St Helier, Jersey (company no. 114723), sells jurisdictional AML risk intelligence: EDD country reports and category scores for 245 jurisdictions. The Kuwait page is a free summary; the full report and category scores are behind a subscription and were not reviewed.

RATING. Overall: "Medium-High Risk (55)". The indicators listed are FATF/EU Blacklist/Greylist, terrorism financing, the US State Department INCSR, proliferation financing, corruption, criminality, resilience and governance, financial transparency, offshore finance centres and sanctions. Of these, the summary gives a level for two only: FATF/EU Blacklist/Greylist, "Higher Concern"; terrorism financing, "Lower Concern".

WHAT THE SUMMARY SAYS (paraphrased from the page):
- AML/CFT: Kuwait remains under enhanced FATF follow-up despite recent advances (a national AML/CFT/CPF strategy, targeted financial sanctions, risk-based supervision). The challenges cited are limited understanding and investigation of terrorist financing, uneven suspicious-transaction reporting among designated non-financial businesses, and the accuracy and enforcement of beneficial ownership information held by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry.
- Sanctions: Kuwait applies UN Security Council sanctions through its AML/CFT framework. No sanctions by other states against Kuwait are identified. Potential exposure to sanctions evasion is noted through trade links with Iraq and Iran and a cash-intensive economy.
- Criminality: the summary notes prosecutions of officials and action by the Anti-Corruption Authority (Nazaha), alongside allegations concerning public procurement, financial disclosures and a 2025 national raffle scandal. It also lists labour and sexual exploitation, smuggling, counterfeiting, drugs and cyber-enabled fraud.
- Reports: Kuwait was upgraded to Tier 2 in the US Trafficking in Persons report, and there has been no reported terrorist attack since 2015.
- Sectors: retail and correspondent banking, exchange and remittance, real estate, cash-intensive activity and public works are highlighted, with beneficial-ownership transparency, trade-based laundering and complex ownership among the concerns.
- Cryptocurrency: the summary describes Capital Markets Authority Circular No. 10 of 2023 as an absolute prohibition on crypto payments, investment, mining, exchanges and token offerings. It adds that the Central Bank does not recognise digital assets as legal tender and that there are no licensed virtual-asset service providers.

USE IN A REPORT: cite it only for KnowYourCountry's own assessment ("KnowYourCountry rates Kuwait Medium-High Risk (55)"). For any factual statement, go to the primary source it summarises: FATF's statement (BRF-F90517FF), Law No. 106 of 2013 (separate entry), the CMA circular, or the US State Department reports.

Commercial country-risk scores are widely used in compliance files, and it helps to record which one a file relied on and its date. This entry is marked ongoing because the publisher updates the page without dating it. The score reflects the publisher's own weighting and does not replace the jurisdictional risk factors a regulated firm must assess itself. On the underlying facts it summarises, the primary sources elsewhere on this record carry more weight.