Kuwait’s New Media Law: A Comprehensive Overhaul of the Media Regulatory Framework

8 min 30 sec

Written by

Nouv Salama

Associate

n.salama@tamimi.com View LinkedIn Profile

Decree-Law No. 102 of 2026 promulgating the Media Regulation Law (the Media Law) was published in Official Gazette issue No. 1811 on 27 September 2026. The Media Law consolidates and repeals the previous statutes regulating media, together with any other provision inconsistent with the provisions thereof, namely:

• Law No. 3 of 2006 on Printed Matter and Publishing;
• Law No. 61 of 2007 on Audio-Visual Media; and
• Law No. 8 of 2016 Regulating Electronic Media (together, the Repealed Laws).

The Media Law is a single, integrated legislative framework covering both traditional and newly emerged media activities (such as advertiser/influencer accounts, social media platforms, digital re-broadcast services, and digital advertising). The provisions of the Media Law set out general principles, leaving detailed conditions, procedures, and fast-changing technical matters to the Executive Regulations, which are due to be issued within six months.

The Media Law enters into force six months from the date of publication in the Official Gazette. Separately, once the Executive Regulations are issued, existing operators will have a further six months from that issuance to regularise their status — failure of which could result in their licence being revoked automatically.

What’s new?

The Media Law contains several new provisions.

• It brings several activities within the Ministry of Information’s (the Ministry’s) licensing regime for the first time, including advertising and promotion on social media platforms, artistic production, cinema screening venues, and public concerts.
• It imposes new disclosure obligations on licences and other people involved in promotional or advertising content.
• It introduces a single electronic registration platform consolidating all media licences across every activity into one unified, cross-sectoral register.
• It provides professional protection for journalists, including a ‘good faith’ shield for licensed press work and a guaranteed right to obtain information from government bodies.
• It mandates additional content standards applicable to all licensed media activities, including new prohibitions and child-protection and factual-accuracy standards.
• It grants the courts multiple powers — including expanded remedies and pre-trial powers — to suspend a licensed activity or block an electronic outlet.

Definitions

The Media Law recognises and defines several terms and principles which were not previously addressed by the Repealed Laws.

The Media Law provides a unified definition of “media content” as information and data — whether textual, audio, or visual — that is created, published, broadcast, re-broadcast, circulated, displayed, or transmitted via various media, technical means, or activities, such as artificial intelligence.

The Media Law further defines “disclosure” as the obligation to clearly and explicitly flag media content containing promotional or advertising material. The disclosure obligation is imposed on the “caller/advertiser” and anyone with an interest in such promotion or advertisement.

A “caller/advertiser” is defined to include any natural or legal person who — professionally or commercially — creates, produces, publishes, or broadcasts commercial, promotional, or marketing content to the public, whether for payment or free, on their own behalf or for the benefit of another.

The Media Law introduces a dedicated chapter regulating advertising and promotion on social media platforms. “Social media platforms” are defined to include websites and electronic applications accessed via the internet through a created account, for viewing, displaying, publishing, or broadcasting content, as further defined by ministerial decision. The related obligations apply to any advertiser or promoter — whether a citizen, resident, or visitor — carrying out commercial advertising or promotion activities.

The Media Law broadens the definition of “electronic media outlet” to include a page, link, website, application, or social media account through which regular professional or commercial media activity is practiced for news coverage, event analysis, production, publication, or display of media or advertising content to the public, broadcast under a specific name with a defined address or digital identifier, accessed via the internet or another communications network. Noting that the definition expressly excludes a website, application, or account created by an establishment merely to present itself, its activity, products, or services, unless wholly or partly dedicated to advertising activity beyond that which is needed for that self-promotion.

The Media Law defines content that breaches any Kuwaiti law as “non-compliant media content”. This includes any content, in any form, that is created, published, broadcast, re-broadcast, transmitted, or circulated by any media or technical means (including artificial intelligence) and that violates Kuwait’s applicable laws, constituting a punishable offence under those laws.

The Media Law introduces the new concept of “prevention from appearance”. This is a penalty preventing a person from participating in media content in any visual, audio, written or technical form — whether directly or through an intermediary — including hosting programmes, managing, or creating pages or accounts, or publicly interacting with the audience. Separately, the Media Law empowers the courts to bar a convicted person from appearing, interacting with, or publishing via any media outlet for up to one year, with optional publication of the judgment.

Licensing

The Media Law recognises several standalone activities which now require a licence from the Ministry, including:

• advertising and promotion generally, as well as advertisers, influencers, and promoters operating on social media platforms;
• artistic production, including the production of audiovisual works and the operation of studios; and
• cinema screening venues and public concerts, which also require the appointment of a venue manager, a specialised licensing committee, mandatory pre-approval for screening films or hosting or advertising public concerts, and a ban on screening previously cut scenes.

The Media Law further imposes licensing requirements on commercial advertising inside cinemas and on related equipment imports.

The Media Law also introduces a broadcast/re-broadcast regime coordinated with the General Authority for Communications and Information Technology (the CITRA), which is involved in broadcast licensing, spectrum allocation, and equipment approval.

In this respect, the Media Law introduces a single electronic platform registering all media licences across every activity, creating one unified, cross-sectoral licence register.

New obligations for existing licensees

The Media Law requires:

• existing licensees to notify the Ministry of any changes to licence data or staff, and to obtain prior approval before suspending, renaming, or relocating a licensed activity;
• artistic production companies to hold a licence and to comply with activity-specific conditions; and
• newspaper and broadcast licensees to appoint auditors while maintaining independent accounting records, to be provided to the Ministry on request.

Content standards

The Media Law unifies the content standards into a single list applicable to all licensed media activities, and introduces the following content standard elements, which were not found in the Repealed Laws.

• An explicit prohibition on attributing statements to the Amir and the Crown Prince without written authorisation from their respective Diwans.
• An explicit child-protection standard against exploitation, abuse, or portraying children in conduct unsuited to their age or religious/social values.
• An explicit standard requiring factual accuracy and prohibiting fabricated documents or misinformation causing public panic.

Rights and protections

The Media Law introduces several rights and protections that were not provided for under the Repealed Laws:

• a ‘good faith’ shield for journalists performing licensed press work, conditioned on accuracy, objectivity, and due diligence;
• a guaranteed right for media institutions to obtain information, statistics, and data from government bodies; and
• an obligation on the Ministry to support the media sector through training, innovation, research, and professional-ethics programme

Remedies

The Media Law expands the available court-ordered remedies to include deletion of offending data, blocking of a programme, site, or account (permanently or for up to one year), and mandatory licence cancellation or closure on repeat offences.

Further, the Media Law grants the Head of the Criminal Division or an urgent-matters judge pre-trial powers to suspend a licensed activity or block an electronic outlet for up to two weeks during investigation.

Liability and penalties

The Repealed Laws relied almost exclusively on criminal fines or imprisonment and licence cancellation by a court. By contrast, the Media Law creates a formal, graduated administrative sanctions regime: warning, notice, financial penalty, administrative closure, and final closure.

The Media Law also introduces corporate criminal liability, with a doubled fine for legal persons, without prejudice to liability of the natural persons involved. The Media Law creates a single, unified chain of criminal responsibility across all media types by role (editor-in-chief/author for print, channel director/producer/presenter for broadcast, responsible manager for electronic outlets, cinema venue manager, and importers of non-compliant foreign content). It includes a notable new exemption for a channel’s staff from liability for unscripted content from live broadcast guests, unless prior knowledge, complicity, or negligence is proven — a nuanced carve-out absent from the Repealed Laws’ blanket liability on the channel director, programme producer, and presenter without any live-broadcast exception.

The Media Law further introduces administrative sanctions imposed by the Ministry through a clear route starting with a caution, then a warning, then a fine. Accordingly, the Media Law separates two parallel tracks:

• administrative sanctions imposed by the Ministry (with fines up to KD 100 – 10,000 doubled on recidivism up to a KD 20,000 cap, and administrative closure of up to six months), and
• criminal liability for offences defined in the Media Law which fall to the public prosecution and the courts.

Fines double where the violator is a company. On conviction, the court may order confiscation of funds and equipment, blocking of a site or account for up to a year, banning the convicted person from appearing, publishing, or managing any account or electronic site for a full year.

Conclusion

The Media Law represents a comprehensive overhaul of Kuwait’s media regulatory framework, consolidating the Repealed Laws into a single regime that, for the first time, expressly captures digital and social-media activity alongside traditional print and broadcast media.

For existing operators, the practical priorities are to:

• track the forthcoming Executive Regulations, due within six months of publication of the Media Law, and
• prepare for the six-month regularisation window that follows their issuance, since failure to regularise results in automatic revocation of a licenc

Operators and advertisers active on social media platforms, in artistic production, or in cinema and events should also assess whether their activities now fall within the Ministry’s expanded licensing regime, and review their internal processes against the new disclosure, registration, auditing, and content-standard obligations described above.

Given the shift toward a graduated administrative sanctions regime, broader court-ordered remedies, and a doubled corporate fine exposure, we recommend engaging early with the Ministry and monitoring the Executive Regulations as they are issued to ensure a smooth transition to compliance ahead of the law’s entry into force.