Europe and the United States' aid donation practices have been widely documented within the literature over the past decades. Yet, comparable scholarship on Gulf donorship remains sparse despite the fact that Gulf countries contribute the greatest percentage of aid in relation to their respective Gross National Incomes (GNI). It is critical to address this gap in the literature in at least two important ways: First, Gulf countries' donation practices within the scope of refugee relief given the rising numbers of displaced within the Middle East North Africa (MENA) region and globally. Second, how modes of relief and donations may vary between Gulf states must be accounted for given previous scholarship’s tendency to focus on Gulf assistance from the regional level. This paper begins to explore these themes through an examination of Kuwait's and the UAE’s donation practices to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) since the onset of the Syrian refugee crisis. Drawing upon UN Data, this paper finds that Kuwait and the UAE contribute to UNHCR in significantly different ways despite relatively similar demographic, economic and political profiles. Second, the UAE’s and Kuwait’s traditional "state" actors also contribute to UNHCR through non-state affiliated means or in the form of non-monetary support more extensively at certain times and in particular places. Third, UNHCR’s current operations within Kuwait and the UAE seem to link to how, why, and where Kuwait and the UAE donate—and describe their donation behavior—beyond their borders. Examining Gulf donations only in terms of state actors and monetary transactions at the regional level may in turn skew understandings and explanations of how donation patterns and behavior shape refugee relief practices on the ground. Scholarship must revisit Gulf “state” versus “non-state” actors’ donation roles to assess how their increasing fusion and overlap is transforming relationships, norms, and definitions of "refugee relief” globally.