Living in Kuwait

Kuwait's wealth comes out of the ground, and the rewards are plain. Pay is well up the global scale, no income tax touches it, and even with steep local costs a salary leaves plenty over. Getting hired is the harder business, since recruitment moves through specific roles and existing connections, mostly in engineering, healthcare, and construction, so arriving without a foothold is slow going. English serves in those fields but thins out beyond them, and Arabic counts for more here than in the more international Gulf cities.

Migration defines Kuwait more than almost any country: 65% of its population is foreign-born, a workforce of 3.2M built largely on contract labor. The largest group by far comes from India (1.2M), followed by Egypt and Bangladesh, and the total grew 27% over the past decade.