Kuwait or Lebanon
Two countries side by side across the same rows as the full comparison. A dash means the value is missing: fields are not filled with guesses. about the data
| Kuwait | Lebanon | |
|---|---|---|
| Salary in IT | — | — |
| Citizenship | — | — |
| Partner can work | — | — |
| Parents | — | — |
| Pets | difficult | — |
| Pet limit | no limit | no limit |
| Quarantine | — | — |
| Residence permit fee | — | 72 000 000 LBP |
| Rent, 2 bedrooms | $ 1 265 · estimate | $ 1 014 · estimate |
| Basket | $ 24,2 | $ 37,8 |
| Life expectancy | 84.58 | 77.94 |
| Homicides/100k | 0.78 | 2.64 |
| Natural hazards, 0–10 | 2.7 | 3.9 |
How the two sets of routes differ
Long-stay routes in this reference: Kuwait — 30, Lebanon — 48. Types present in both: work, study, family and investment. Lebanon adds: repatriation.
Fees, thresholds and deadlines
Kuwait: fees range from 1 to 200 KWD. Routes with no fee: 1. Routes stating an income threshold: 2; the lowest is 450 KWD a month. Lebanon: fees range from 20,000 to 216,000,000 LBP. Routes with no fee: 4. Routes stating an income threshold: 1; the lowest is 50,000,000 LBP a month. Routes with a published decision deadline: 1; the shortest is 4 days.
Kuwait in brief
Kuwait levies no income tax on wages (gov.uk, «Living in Kuwait») and its residence system is built entirely around a sponsor: a residence permit for work is issued under art. 18 of implementing decision No. 957/2019 (private sector) or art. 17 (public sector), and joining a supporter under art. 22. There is no permanent status under the new law either: the 1959 emiri decree was repealed by decree-law No. 114/2024, which knows only fixed-term permits — up to five years ordinary, up to ten for children of Kuwaiti women and property owners, up to fifteen for investors. The naturalisation rules could not be verified against the primary source: the relevant interior ministry site is protected by an anti-bot mechanism that blocked automated access throughout the research. Importing pets requires a permit from the responsible authority (Public Authority for Agriculture Affairs and Fish Resources), but the details of the procedure could not be confirmed through the official channels available in this pass. Of the measurable: one of the lowest homicide rates in the world (0.78 per 100,000, UNODC 2022), a high life expectancy (84.58 years, World Bank 2024) and some of the highest summer temperatures anywhere — a mean July temperature of 37.7 °C with heavy air pollution from desert dust (PM2.5 62.35 µg/m³, World Bank 2023). The country is effectively a single capital agglomeration: the official «cities» in this reference are governorates (Kuwait City, Hawalli, Al Ahmadi, Al Farwaniyah, Al Jahra), not separate destinations.
Lebanon in brief
Lebanon combines high seismic risk and low governance figures with reasonably good population health. Earthquakes at 8.2 out of 10 on INFORM are the principal natural hazard; there is no river flooding at all, drought is 2.9, coastal hazards 3.2, tsunami 3.9, and overall natural hazard 3.9. On the World Bank scale, political stability is −1.39 (the twenty-fifth lowest figure among 173 countries), control of corruption −1.30, government effectiveness −1.13 and rule of law −1.09. Yet life expectancy is 77.94 years — higher than most of its neighbours in this part of the guide — health spending is 260.81 dollars per person per year, water access reaches 92.6 percent of the population, road deaths run at 9.7 per 100,000 and homicides at 2.64. The air is middling: PM2.5 at 26.69. Unemployment is 10.98 percent, and 22.74 among young people. A one-bedroom in Beirut rents for 666 euros a month with utilities at 174, and the monthly transit pass costs 69.34 dollars — one of the most expensive in this guide. The immigration framework rests on a single authority, the General Directorate of General Security, and it publishes every service as a table: type of request, fee, required documents. Not one service has a column for processing time. What shapes everything is the tie to a sponsor and to the work permit: the annual residence permit is the main form, and it is also what family members of a worker receive. **The word "permanent" here does not mean indefinite.** The directorate has a page headed "Permanent residence", and that same page states that such a permit is issued for two or for three years. Years lived in the country do not lead to it: the grounds are a cash guarantee of 4.5 billion pounds (with a written undertaking not to work if the applicant is under 64), business or investment for nationals of Arab countries, or holding a three-year or two-year work permit of the first and second category. It is separately stipulated that this permit is not granted to Egyptian nationals. The family route runs through the free courtesy residence permit, and its conditions are asymmetric by the sex of the Lebanese spouse: the husband of a Lebanese woman needs a marriage older than a year, the wife of a Lebanese man must not work. What is not in this data: the directorate publishes no processing time for any service — every table has a fee and a document list, but no deadlines. The procedure for bringing in cats and dogs is described neither by a national source nor by other countries' veterinary authorities: APHIS lists only turtles for Lebanon. The city's population is not given: no official source separating Beirut from the governorate could be found.
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Lebanon or… Philippines · Bangladesh · Iraq · Mongolia · Oman · People's Republic of China · Sri Lanka · Singapore
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This material is for reference and is not legal, tax or immigration advice. Visa rules, tax thresholds and prices change. Before deciding anything, check the official sources and consult a licensed professional in the relevant country.