Kuwait.

Kuwait operates a Sharia-based succession system rooted in the Sunni Maliki school of Islamic jurisprudence. The Personal Status Law 51/1984 governs succession for Sunni Muslims, imposing Sharia faraid compulsory shares on specified heirs and limiting testamentary disposition (wasiyyah) to one-third of the estate. The Shi’a community in Kuwait — historically governed by separate provisions — has limited statutory codification, with juristic interpretation supplying applicable rules.

For non-Muslim residents, the Civil Code 1980 and general civil-procedure provisions supply default succession rules, with foreign wills and applicable foreign succession law generally recognized through Kuwait’s private-international-law framework. Kuwait imposes no inheritance, estate, or gift tax. Foreign ownership of real property remains constrained under the Foreign Ownership Law, affecting cross-border succession planning. The Personal Status Court (Mahkamat al-Ahwal al-Shakhsiyyah) hears Muslim succession matters; the Civil Court hears non-Muslim matters.

The memoranda in this series address the recurring fact patterns in Kuwaiti cross-border estate planning — including the Sunni Maliki faraid regime, non-Muslim succession under the civil framework, succession of family-business shares (particularly in regulated sectors), real-property foreign-ownership constraints, recognition of foreign wills before Kuwaiti courts, and the absence of estate-tax treaties with Canada and the United States.