How to apply for a job in Kuwait on OnKuwait
You apply to the person who posted the ad. There is no hidden fee. We never ask you to transfer money to “process a visa”. This is the long version of what happens after you tap a job on onkuwait.com.
What this site actually does
OnKuwait is a noticeboard. An employer in Kuwait writes a vacancy. We read it, hide the ones that ask you for money, and put the rest on the homepage under a category: driver, restaurant, office, and the rest. When you tap Apply, the message goes to that employer. We do not run a recruitment desk, we do not sit in on your interview, and we do not take a cut of your salary.
That last point matters because a lot of WhatsApp numbers in Kuwait pretend they are “HR for a portal”. If someone claims they work at OnKuwait and asks you to pay a file fee, they do not work here. Our mailbox is info@onkuwait.com. Anything else is theatre.
The board is for people who live in Kuwait: Kuwaiti citizens and expats with a residence. Some ads hire from abroad. Those ads say so in the text. If they do not say so, assume they want someone who can start from here, not from an airport in another country.
1. Read the full listing, not the card
The homepage card is a teaser: title, a salary if they gave one, a slice of the description, the governorate. The real job is behind the title. Open it. Check the area, the hours if they exist, who they will take (citizen, resident, a named visa, or overseas hire), and how they want to be reached.
If it says “inside Kuwait only” and you are still abroad, do not spend an afternoon on it unless the employer clearly writes that they will sponsor from outside. Plenty of ads look international because they were typed in English. They are still a shop in Farwaniya that needs someone tomorrow morning.
Salary missing is common. Ask in the first message. A listing with no duties and no area is usually weak. Use Report if anyone asks for money up front. We would rather take a false alarm down than leave a trap up.
2. Write a short reply that sounds like you
Give your name, a Kuwait number if you have one, whether you are a Kuwaiti citizen or an expat, and two or three years of work that match the title. If they asked for a visa type, name yours. Attach a PDF if they asked for a CV. One honest paragraph beats a copied CV that still mentions a mall in another Gulf city.
Send a Civil ID copy only after you are sure the number belongs to a real employer — not in the first WhatsApp from a stranger, and not in a group chat with forty other “applicants”. A shop that exists will still be there after you have looked at the listing twice.
If Arabic is stronger than English, write in Arabic. If English is stronger, write in English. Mixing both in one message is fine on this board. Mixing both badly in a formal letter is worse than picking one.
3. Use Apply, WhatsApp or email — on this listing
If the form is on the job page, send it from a job-seeker account so the reply can land on the email you saved. WhatsApp is faster for restaurants, drivers and salons. Email is better for office and clinic roles. Do not pay an “application fee” to any number that called from the ad.
Match the number. If the listing shows one WhatsApp and a man on a different number says he is “the same company, use this instead”, slow down. Forwarding is how people steal replies. Open the job on onkuwait.com again and use what is printed there.
We do not show every employer’s phone. Some ads are form-only on purpose. That is not a bug. It keeps random groups from scraping numbers and pasting them into Telegram channels with a fake salary.
4. After you send
If the role is filled we remove the apply button. Silence for a few days is common on open ads. A family looking for a driver may read messages at night. A restaurant may only call after the lunch rush. Do not send ten messages in an hour. That looks like a bot, and most owners will mute you.
If they want your passport and bank papers before any meeting, stop and read the safe job-search guide. A real interview can happen in a public restaurant, a shop you can walk into, or an office with a sign. It should not happen only as a voice note that ends with a Western Union name.
When you do get a meeting, take the salary, hours, rest day and housing (if any) in writing on WhatsApp before day one. Memory is a bad contract. We cannot enforce that chat. You still want it.
Drivers, kitchens, offices, citizens
Drivers: state light or heavy Kuwait licence and years driving here, not in a city the employer has never seen. If the ad is a school run, say you can sit in traffic without shouting at a child in the back. If it is a light truck in Ahmadi, say you know the industrial roads, not only the malls.
Kitchen: name the menu you know — Kuwaiti, Indian, grill, sweets. “I can cook everything” is how people get fired on Tuesday. Office: English, Arabic, and the software you actually used. Excel is not “I opened it once”.
Kuwaiti citizens can apply like anyone else. If the ad is written for citizens, say you are Kuwaiti in the first line. If it is written for someone already in the country, you still write when the work fits. The employer may have been thinking of the last person they hired. That is their habit, not a closed door on this site.
If you are outside Kuwait
OnKuwait is first for people already in Kuwait. Some ads hire from abroad; that is written in the listing and needs official paperwork. Do not pay someone who promises a contract in exchange for a Western Union transfer. We will not refund that transfer. We cannot.
If an ad looks perfect and the only next step is money, it is not perfect. Read who can apply so you know whether the listing wants someone already here — not a ticket out of your current country.
We updated this page on 19 September 2026. Rules change; check official offices before you decide.