On 9 July 2026, Kuwait's Ministry of Commerce and Industry published Ministerial Decision No. 109 of 2026 in the official gazette. It rewrites the economics of selling online in Kuwait — capping what delivery platforms can charge you, capping what customers can be charged for delivery, and requiring licence changes.

Businesses have until 1 September 2026 to bring existing contracts and licences into line. After that date, the Ministry can issue penalties ranging from warnings up to temporarily closing a platform until the violation is fixed.

Most of the coverage so far has explained what the law says. This guide covers what you actually have to do about it.

First: does this even apply to you?

This is where a lot of merchants are getting confused, and the distinction is important.

Decision 109/2026 regulates intermediary electronic platforms — services that broker purchase orders between a merchant and a consumer. Think of the marketplaces and delivery apps that list other people's products and take a commission on each sale.

The decision is aimed squarely at the marketplace model: platforms that list other businesses' products, take the customer's order, and charge the merchant a commission. Food and retail delivery apps operating in Kuwait, such as Talabat, Deliveroo and Jahez, run on this model.

It does not apply to platforms that sell only their own products. If you run your own online store on Shopify, Salla, Zid, WooCommerce or Odoo, selling your own inventory to your own customers, you are not an intermediary platform under this decision.

But that does not mean it is irrelevant to you. If you sell through any intermediary platform, the decision governs what that platform is allowed to charge you — and it gives you rights you did not have before. The rules below are as much about what platforms can no longer do to you as about what you must do.

The three numbers that matter

1 KD — the delivery fee ceiling

The consumer alone bears the delivery fee, and it is capped at one Kuwaiti dinar per order. The decision explicitly closes the obvious loophole: no additional charge under any name. "Service fee", "operational fee", "processing fee", "packaging surcharge" — if it functions as an extra delivery charge, it is not permitted.

If your storefront currently charges 1.5 KD or 2 KD flat for delivery through an intermediary platform, that model no longer works in its current form.

17% — the total platform take

Under Article 7, the total a platform may charge you cannot exceed 17% of the order value, calculated before the delivery fee, per order.

Read "total" carefully, because this is the part platforms will be slowest to volunteer. The 17% is not just commission. It includes commission plus advertising, promotion, premium or paid placement, priority ranking, and the platform's own delivery service — all of it, added together, against one ceiling.

If you are paying 15% commission and separately buying promoted placement, you may already be over the line.

10% — the self-delivery rate

If you handle delivery yourself, the ceiling drops to 10%.

That seven-point gap is the single most consequential number in the decision for most merchants, and we have worked through the economics of it in detail in a separate article.

What platforms can no longer do to you

The decision creates protections that did not previously exist:

They cannot force you onto their delivery service. Compelling a merchant to use the platform's own delivery is prohibited — as is penalising you for choosing self-delivery. No quiet ranking demotion for opting out.
They cannot refuse to contract without justification, or terminate your agreement without cause.
They cannot use commission caps as a pretext to restrict dealing with you.
They cannot run algorithms that unfairly discriminate between merchants.
They cannot disguise paid placement as organic ranking. Sponsored results must be labelled as advertisement, paid, or sponsored.
They cannot impose unauthorised fees outside the disclosed structure.

If any of these describe your current arrangement, you have grounds to raise it — and a deadline that gives the conversation weight.

What you must disclose

The decision also raises the transparency bar on merchants and platforms alike. Before an order is completed, prices, commissions, delivery charges and any additional fees must be clearly disclosed. Beyond that you are expected to:

Display accurate merchant information and product or service details
Publish clear terms and conditions
Operate transparent exchange, return and refund policies
Run a complaint-handling process with defined response timeframes
Protect customer personal data and retain transaction records

For most established stores this is a documentation exercise rather than an operational change — but it is the kind of thing that is quick to fix now and awkward to explain later.

The licence reclassification

Companies operating intermediary platforms must adjust their commercial licence to activity code 532013 — Management of Delivery Services via Electronic Platforms, by 1 September 2026.

This is an administrative step with a hard date attached, and it is the item most likely to be left until the final week. If you operate anything that brokers orders between other merchants and consumers, check your current classification now.

Your contracts before 1 September

Agreements signed before the decision took effect must be brought into compliance by 1 September 2026 — with one useful exception: if your agreed commission already falls within the Article 7 ceiling, the contract can continue until it expires.

So the first job is arithmetic, not renegotiation. Work out your genuine all-in percentage:

Take your base commission rate.
Add every promotional, placement, ranking or advertising fee you pay that platform.
Add anything you are charged for their delivery service.
Compare the total against 17% of order value, before delivery fee.

If the total is at or under the ceiling, you may have nothing to renegotiate. If it is over, you have a defined legal basis for the conversation and a date by which it has to be resolved.

Penalties

Violations identified after 1 September 2026 can draw administrative penalties that escalate: warnings first, then temporary closure of the platform until the violation is corrected. In serious cases the Ministry may cancel a commercial licence or recommend permanent cancellation.

Your checklist

Confirm scope. Are you an intermediary platform, a merchant selling through one, or a store selling only your own products? Your obligations differ.
Calculate your true all-in rate. Commission plus advertising plus placement plus delivery — one number, compared to 17%.
Review contracts against Article 7. Already compliant contracts can run to expiry.
Check your licence classification and reclassify to 532013 if you operate a platform.
Audit your checkout disclosure. Every fee visible before the order completes.
Model the 17%-versus-10% decision. For many merchants this is where the real money is.
Document your returns, complaints and data-retention policies.

The bigger shift

Strip away the compliance detail and one thing stands out: Kuwait has just made self-delivery structurally cheaper, and made it illegal for platforms to punish you for choosing it. That is a deliberate rebalancing toward merchants — but it only pays off if you have a way to actually run delivery yourself without rebuilding your operation around it.

That is the calculation we work through next.

This article is general information, not legal advice. It summarises Ministerial Decision No. 109 of 2026 as reported in Kuwait's official gazette and analysed by Kuwaiti and regional law firms. Whether and how the decision applies to your specific business — and to any particular platform or delivery arrangement you use — should be confirmed with a Kuwaiti commercial lawyer before you act on it. Deadlines and enforcement practice can change.

Kuwait's New Delivery Law: What Your Online Store Must Do Before 1 September 2026