KIRD Korea Immigration Regional Dashboard
English

Registered foreigners are counted across 192 nationalities.

Kuwait

People registered with Kuwait nationality number 40, which is less than 0.1% of all registered foreigners and ranks 138 in size. Compared with 42 in 2015, 10 years earlier, that is a decrease of about 4.8%. They live in 9 districts, and the largest counts are Seoul Seongbuk-gu with 26, Seoul Yongsan-gu with 7, and Gyeonggi-do Bucheon-si with 1. The largest age group is 30-34 at 21.8%, and men are 52.7%. This value alone is based on staying foreigners. Estimated mother tongues are Arabic at 75.1% and Hindi at 15.2%.

Source: MOJ Statistical Yearbook on Immigration and Foreign Policy 2025 (registered foreigners by nationality, registered foreigners by nationality and district, registered foreigners by status of stay), staying foreigners by nationality and age

The index of dissimilarity, the isolation index, and the location quotient are calculated from the open dataset.

Table 1.Key indicators and benchmarks, 2025Unit: people, organizations, index
2025
IndicatorsKuwaitAll registered foreignersRelative to total
Registered foreigners401,604,920under 0.1% of the total
Districts of residence92503.6% of the total
Index of dissimilarity (D)-0.280-
Isolation index-0.045-
Interaction with Koreans-0.955-
Continent---

Source: MOJ Statistical Yearbook (registered foreigners by nationality), segregation indicators from the open dataset.

Note: the dissimilarity index D measures how far a nationality's distribution across districts differs from that of Korean nationals; 0 means the two distributions match and 1 means complete separation. Isolation is the probability that a member meets someone of the same nationality, and interaction the probability of meeting a Korean resident. In the All registered foreigners column the three indices treat all registered foreigners as one group and use the same formulas. In the Relative to total column, rank 1 is the highest value among nationalities with 100 or more registered foreigners that year; in the continent row that column gives this nationality's share of all registered foreigners from the continent.

Figure 1.Kuwait nationals among registered foreigners, 2006–2025Unit: 10,000 persons

Source: MOJ Statistical Yearbook, each year.

Note: The vertical scale resets to the size of the selected nationality.

View as table
YearKuwaitVietnam
2006552,157
2007467,197
2008979,848
2009886,166
20101698,225
201114110,564
201215114,211
201320113,843
201444122,571
201542128,042
201667137,769
201779151,385
201872170,707
201967187,334
202043181,415
202150178,928
202252196,883
202350227,930
202443261,581
202540293,907
Table 2.Kuwait nationality, top 10 districts, 2025Unit: persons, %
2025
RankDistrictKuwait NationalityShare of local foreigners
1Seoul Seongbuk-gu260.2
2Seoul Yongsan-gu70.1
3Gyeonggi-do Bucheon-si10.0
4Daejeon Yuseong-gu10.0
5Seoul Mapo-gu10.0
6Seoul Seodaemun-gu10.0
7Seoul Songpa-gu10.0
8Seoul Jung-gu10.0
9Jeollanam-do Yeosu-si10.0

Source: MOJ Statistical Yearbook (registered foreigners by district and nationality).

Note: Nationwide, Kuwait nationality is 18.3% of all registered foreigners, so a district where the share among its foreigners is above this has relatively many of them.

Table 3.10 districts with the highest location quotient, 2025Unit: people, ratio, %
RankDistrictKuwait NationalityLocation quotient (LQ)Share of local foreigners

Source: Location quotient from the open dataset.

Note: the location quotient is the local share divided by the national share; above 1.5 counts as over-representation.

Table 4.By status of stay Kuwait nationality, 2025Unit: persons, %
2025
Visa categoryPersonsShare
Other statuses(ETC)3382.5
Student(D2)25.0
General Trainee(D4)25.0
Marriage Migration(F6)25.0
Corporate Investment(D8)12.5

Source: MOJ Statistical Yearbook (registered foreigners by status of stay and nationality).

Note: The rows of this table add to 40, the whole of the Kuwait nationality.

Table 5.Age and sex, 2025Unit: persons, %
2025
Age groupTotalMaleFemaleShare
0-412847.3
5-910556.1
10-14121117.3
15-196153.6
20-2411476.7
25-2920101012.1
30-3436211521.8
35-391710710.3
40-4416889.7
45-495233.0
50-544222.4
55-597344.2
60+9275.5

Source: MOJ Statistical Yearbook (staying foreigners by nationality and age).

Only this table counts all foreign residents, so it totals 165 rather than the 40 registered foreigners

Figure 2.Composition by age and sex, 2025Unit: %
2025

Source: MOJ Statistical Yearbook (staying foreigners by nationality and age).

Note: The bar length is the share each cell holds within the whole nationality. This figure alone uses staying foreigners, so its total differs from registered foreigners.

Figure 3.Change in status-of-stay composition, 2008–2025Unit: %

Source: MOJ Statistical Yearbook, each year (registered foreigners by status of stay and nationality).

Note: The share each status holds within this nationality in that year. The five largest statuses in 2025 are drawn.

View as table
Year
20080.00.044.40.00.0
20090.025.075.00.00.0
20100.012.531.30.00.0
20110.00.014.30.00.0
20120.06.720.00.00.0
20130.05.05.00.00.0
20140.08.713.00.00.0
20154.317.417.40.00.0
20160.072.10.03.30.0
201713.965.81.30.00.0
201818.158.32.80.00.0
201929.953.73.01.50.0
202051.232.62.32.30.0
202158.00.012.04.00.0
202261.50.013.53.80.0
202354.02.014.02.00.0
202472.14.74.74.70.0
202582.55.05.05.02.5
Figure 4.Residential segregation and exposure over time, Unit: index
Indicators

Source: Segregation indicators from the open dataset.

Note: the dissimilarity index D measures how far a nationality's distribution across districts differs from that of Korean nationals, isolation is the probability that a member meets someone of the same nationality, and interaction the probability of meeting a Korean resident. The three run on different ranges, so they are selected one at a time.

View as table
YearIndex of dissimilarity (D)Isolation indexInteraction with Koreans
Table 6.Kuwait nationality, mother-tongue compositionUnit: %
First languageShare
Arabic75.1
Hindi15.2
Tagalog/Filipino3.8
Amharic2.0
Persian/Farsi1.1
Mehri0.6
English0.6
Indonesian0.5

Source: Ethnologue 24th edition, first-language shares by country.

Note: the estimated demand on the language page is this share multiplied by the registered foreign population of each nationality. Shares below 0.5% are not listed, and a person who speaks more than one language is not distinguished.

Figure 5.By province, Kuwait nationality, 2025Unit: persons
2025

Count range

    Note: The boundaries are shapes simplified for display and are drawn as pen lines. The fill values are the provincial totals from the yearbook and do not depend on the shapes.

    Source: MOJ Statistical Yearbook (registered foreigners by nationality and district), summed to the province level.

    View as table
    ProvinceKuwait NationalityShare of national
    Seoul3792.5
    Gyeonggi-do12.5
    Daejeon12.5
    Jeollanam-do12.5