Probation Period Rights Under Kuwait Labour Law

Probationary periods sit at the start of nearly every employment relationship in Kuwait, but they are frequently misunderstood by both employees and employers as a period with effectively no protections at all. Under Kuwait's Private Sector Labour Law No. 6 of 2010, probation is a defined legal status with its own limits, not an open-ended trial the employer can extend or terminate on any terms it chooses.

The law caps the probationary period at 100 days, and this period cannot be repeated for the same employee in the same role once it has run — an employer cannot reset the clock by rehiring on paper or restructuring the same position to extend evaluation time indefinitely. The 100-day cap applies from the actual start of work, not from contract signature if the two dates differ, which is a detail worth checking when a contract references a probation start date that doesn't match the employee's actual first working day.

During probation, either party can generally end the employment relationship with fewer procedural constraints than apply after probation ends — but 'fewer constraints' does not mean 'no rules.' Termination during probation still needs to be communicated properly, and abrupt termination without any notice at all can create its own disputes even where the underlying right to terminate during probation exists. Employees terminated during probation are generally not entitled to the same notice or indemnity protections that attach after the probationary period is completed, which is precisely why the 100-day cap matters — it limits how long an employer can keep an employee in this reduced-protection status.

One point that surprises many foreign employees specifically: residency and sponsorship arrangements do not pause during probation. An employee's legal status in Kuwait remains tied to their sponsoring employer throughout probation exactly as it does afterward, so a probationary termination has the same practical residency implications as any other termination and should be planned for accordingly, particularly around timing a job search or transfer.

For employers, the practical risk in this area is usually treating probation as informal rather than as a defined legal period with a hard cap. Contracts that are silent on the probation start date, or that attempt to specify a period longer than 100 days, create ambiguity that tends to resolve against the employer if challenged. For employees, the practical risk is assuming that anything can happen during probation without recourse — in practice, the manner and documentation of a probationary termination still matters, particularly if there is any suggestion the termination was for a discriminatory or retaliatory reason unrelated to genuine performance evaluation.

Both sides are generally better served treating the probationary period as what it legally is: a fixed, capped evaluation window with reduced but not absent protections, rather than either a formality to ignore or a period with no rules at all. Reviewing the specific probation clause in a contract before signing — alongside the other clauses covered in our guide on employment contract clauses professionals often miss — is worth the short time it takes.

If you are an employer setting up standard contract templates, or an employee reviewing a specific probation clause, our practice areas page outlines how we support both sides of the employment relationship in Kuwait.

A related question that comes up often is whether probation resets when an employee is promoted or moves to a different role within the same company. Kuwaiti practice generally treats this as a continuation of the same underlying employment relationship rather than a fresh hire, meaning the original 100-day cap already consumed at the start of employment is not simply reopened by an internal move — though the specific contract language matters here, and employers restructuring roles internally should be careful not to draft new terms that inadvertently suggest a second probation period is being imposed.

It is also worth noting that probationary status does not suspend other baseline protections unrelated to termination and notice — working-hour limits, basic safety obligations, and other statutory minimums under Labour Law No. 6/2010 continue to apply in full during probation. The reduced protections during this period are specifically about the ease of ending the relationship, not a general suspension of every other right the law provides.