Kuwait Hajj applications commences, to be online only

By Abdullahi Yusuf

Registration for Kuwaitis wishing to perform the hajj in 2025 or 1446 AH will begin Sunday, November 3, 2025, said Kuwait’s Ministry of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs Saturday. Registration will be done through the ministry’s online hajj registration platform, it said without providing a link. The ministry also published a video tutorial for how the platform works but failed to mention the link for registration. An official hajj registration platform already exists at https://hajj-register.awqaf.gov.kw/ but the website was down as of publication.

This year, registration is only open to Kuwaitis who have never performed hajj before. An applicant can add a maximum of three companions who are his/her relatives. The ministry said in a statement that one of the companions can be an expat, in addition to a non-Kuwaiti spouse of a Kuwaiti citizen, non-Kuwaiti children of a Kuwaiti woman and the expat mother of a Kuwaiti citizen.

Applicants are allowed to make changes and substitutions to their application during the registration period only. Once applications are sorted, a fee of KD 750 per pilgrim must be paid as a deposit. If the oldest person in the group withdraws their hajj application, the entire application will be canceled. Accepted pilgrims may transfer from one group to another only once before December 31. Pilgrims who wish to cancel their application may receive a full refund if they do so by December 31. Refunds will not be available after this date unless a vacancy arises. Applications for hajj will be open until November 17, with the hajj season expected to begin in early June 2025.

Expats who wish to perform hajj are advised to register through their home countries. Last season, 8,000 Kuwaiti pilgrims performed hajj, in addition to 1,000 bedoon pilgrims from Kuwait. More than 1.83 million pilgrims performed hajj in 2024, with the majority being from outside Saudi Arabia. According to official Saudi statistics, the number of male and female pilgrims were nearly equal in 2024, with 958,137 males and 875,027 females.

A breakdown of international pilgrims shows that 22.3 percent came from Arab countries. The largest group, 63.3 percent, came from Asian non-Arab countries, 11.3 percent from African non-Arab countries, and 3.2 percent from Europe, America, Australia, and other unclassified regions. The vast majority of international pilgrims, 1,546,345, arrived by air, 60,251 through land border crossings and 4,714 by sea.

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