Visit visa for mother

My wife is pregnant with the expected delivery date set as Oct 14.

I want to bring her mother to Kuwait on a three-month visit visa. My basic salary is KD 723 and with a KD 450 house rent allowance.

Please give me your valuable advice so that I can plan accordingly.

Name withheld

Answer: Please remember that family visit visas for the immediate family — spouse and children — are for three months while for other family members these are for one month only.

This means that you will be able to get only a one-month visit visa for your wife’s mother. You have also to remember – according to the latest rules – you have to use the visit visa within one month of its issuance or it will automatically expire and you will have to apply again for a new one.

The Interior Ministry has stressed a number of times that the family visit visas can neither be extended nor can these be transferred to any other type of visa. So, simply put, your wife’s mother will have to leave the country and come again – at a later date – on a new visit visa.

If a visitor stays over one month in the country, there is a KD 10 fine for each day that the visitor overstays … plus an entry ban — for one year at least, not to mention that the sponsor will also face a ban in applying for any visit visa for at least a year.

Please also remember that, according to Kuwait law, you can apply for a new visit visa only six months after the visitor’s departure from the country. Well, that’s the law but sometimes — only on issuance of new visit visas — the Immigration Department does bend the rules a little on compassionate grounds.