Kuwait: 12 months after the rate cut, reserves fall to 31.1 billion

Kuwait cut its policy rate to 3.50% from 3.75% on 30 November 2025, according to BIS central bank policy rates. Twelve months have passed since that decision. The reserve figures reported here come after it in time; this brief does not attribute their movement to the rate cut.

In November 2025, the month of the decision, Kuwait’s total reserves excluding gold stood at 40.7 billion, according to the IMF’s monthly series. That reading provides the starting point for comparing reserve levels since the decision, rather than a measure of the policy change’s effect.

In the months that followed, Kuwait recorded a marked summer decline. Foreign reserves fell 15% between May and August 2026. Over that same period, its Gulf peers averaged a 1.4% rise. Kuwait’s movement therefore ran in the opposite direction to the group average. The gap was the widest in 56 months, placing the summer decline in a broader regional context.

By September 2026, total reserves excluding gold stood at 31.1 billion, below their November 2025 level. September is the latest reserve reading, not a reading taken at the full 12-month anniversary of the decision.

The comparisons cover distinct periods: the summer percentage decline runs from May to August, while the reserve levels compare November with September. Together, they document lower reserves since the decision and a summer divergence from Gulf peers, without establishing a policy explanation.

Built from 1 statistically detected findings; every figure traces to official multilateral data.