Kuwait Penal Code (Law No. 16 of 1960), as amended — including the 2024–2025 reforms that repealed the 'honour' killing mitigation (Art. 153) and the kidnapper-marriage exemption (Art. 182)

The Code was issued on 2 July 1960 (8 Dhu al-Hijja 1379). It has three books: General Provisions (the offence, criminal responsibility, penalties); Offences against the Public Interest (state security and the sanctity of religions, offences by public officials including bribery, offences against the administration of justice); and Offences against Individuals (against the person, against honour and reputation, against property). Much of the law of state-security offences and bribery sits in Law No. 31 of 1970, which amended the Code, and in later statutes.

JURISDICTION. The Code applies to anyone who commits an offence in Kuwait, and to anyone who, outside Kuwait, commits an act making him a principal or accomplice in an offence committed wholly or partly in Kuwait (Art. 11). It applies to a Kuwaiti national who commits abroad an act punishable both under the Code and under the law of the place where it was committed, if he returns to Kuwait without having been acquitted by the foreign courts (Art. 12). No prosecution is brought for an offence abroad if the foreign courts have finally convicted the person and the sentence has been served (Art. 13).

RELIGION. Publicly broadcasting opinions that mock, belittle or demean a religion or religious sect, by attacking its beliefs, rites, rituals or teachings, is punishable by up to one year's imprisonment and a fine of up to KD 1,000 (Art. 111).

THE 2024–2025 AMENDMENTS (each read in its published text unless stated):
- Decree-Law No. 93 of 2024 (Kuwait Al-Youm No. 1704, 14 September 2024) replaced Arts. 134–135. Insulting a public official on duty is punishable by up to three months' imprisonment. Insulting a judge, prosecutor, police officer, soldier or National Guardsman is punishable by up to one year. Assaulting or resisting a public official is punishable by up to one year; for the protected categories, up to two years. For assaulting police, army or National Guard members while they disperse a gathering, demonstration, procession or assembly, the penalty rises to five years and KD 1,000–5,000. A new Art. 135 bis (a) bars the victim of these offences from withdrawing the complaint, reconciling with or pardoning the accused. The same decree-law replaced Art. 53 of Law No. 31 of 1970, the torture offence. A public official who causes or has another cause physical or psychological harm to a person or a member of his family, or frightens them, to obtain a confession or information, faces up to five years and KD 1,000–5,000. So does any superior who was present, consented or stayed silent while able to prevent it. The penalty is up to seven years where the act is based on discrimination of any kind.
- Decree-Law No. 9 of 2025 (No. 1730, 16 March 2025) repealed Art. 153. Art. 153 had punished, by up to three years' imprisonment or a fine of up to KD 225, a man who, surprising his wife in adultery or his daughter, mother or sister in a sexual act, killed her, the man or both. Such killings now fall under the general homicide provisions.
- Decree-Law No. 64 of 2025 (No. 1737, 4 May 2025) replaced Art. 91 on early release. Release is ordered by the Public Prosecutor on the request of the Minister of the Interior, after a joint Prosecution–Interior committee finds that the prisoner's conduct shows rehabilitation and that release poses no security risk. It is revoked the same way.
- Decree-Law No. 65 of 2025 (No. 1738, 11 May 2025) redefined unintentional fault (Art. 44, first paragraph). It set involuntary homicide at up to three years and KD 500–1,000 (Art. 154). A new Art. 154 bis provides up to five years where the offender was under the influence of alcohol, drugs or psychoactive substances, where two or more people died, or where he failed to help the victim when able to. The maximum is ten years where two or more of these circumstances combine. Arts. 164 and 164 bis make parallel provision for unintentional injury.
- Decree-Law No. 70 of 2025 (No. 1740, 25 May 2025) repealed Arts. 159 and 182. Art. 159 had punished by up to five years a mother who killed her newborn "to avoid shame". Art. 182 had exempted from all punishment a kidnapper who lawfully married the woman he abducted, with her guardian's permission, where the guardian asked that he not be punished. The operative text of this decree-law is not publicly viewable on the source site; the repeal was announced by KUNA on 18 May 2025 and is stated in the decree-law's published title.
- Decree-Law No. 77 of 2025 (No. 1745, supplement, 30 June 2025) added Arts. 259 bis and 259 bis (a). They punish leaking intermediate or secondary school examination questions or answers (two to five years) and altering a student's answer or grade (up to seven years, ten for the marking official).
- The source also lists Decree-Law No. 87 of 2025, replacing Art. 58 bis of Law No. 31 of 1970; its text was not reviewed for this entry.

CAUTION: the consolidated text on the source site still prints Arts. 153, 159 and 182 in full, although its own list of amendments records their repeal. It also lists, among the Code's amendments, a decree approving a social-affairs memorandum of understanding with Tunisia. The consolidated text is therefore a reading aid, not proof of current law. Check each article against the amending instrument before relying on it.

USE IN A REPORT: cite the article as in force on the date of the conduct in question and, for the provisions above, the amending decree-law and its gazette number. Whether a repeal or a new offence affects past conduct is a question of Kuwaiti law on the temporal application of criminal statutes, which the Code's General Provisions address; state it, rather than assume the current text applied.

SOURCE: the Arabic text was read in full on lawskw.com (Kuwait Laws Portal), a private publisher of consolidated Kuwaiti legislation. The authoritative text is the Official Gazette (Kuwait Al-Youm); gazette numbers and dates above are as shown by the source.

The 2025 repeals are the most significant changes in decades to the Code's treatment of violence against women and girls, and they were welcomed as such by Kuwaiti and international women's-rights advocates. For reports on gender-based risk in Kuwait, the change in the written law is now dateable to March and May 2025. What it does not show is practice: charging, sentencing and family-level protection. Those need separate evidence. The 2024 amendments cut both ways. They define torture to obtain confessions more fully and extend liability to superiors. They also raise penalties for resisting security forces dispersing demonstrations, and remove the victim's power to forgive insults and assaults on officials. Both are relevant to assessments of protest-related prosecutions.