Kazakhstan
Central Asia's largest economy and a member of the EAEU customs union
Kazakhstan is the way into Central Asia: the region's largest economy, a customs union with Russia, Belarus, Armenia and Kyrgyzstan, and the Middle Corridor that routes around Russian territory. It also means goods enter the common EAEU customs territory — the tariff, the certification and the technical regulations are the union's, not Kazakhstan's. E-government is genuinely developed: a company and its tax registration are done online.
Recent trade news from this country's authorities and newsrooms — tariffs, taxes, sanctions, currency, imports and exports. Headlines are in the original language; the article opens at the publisher. We add no comment.
Loading news…
Setting up a company
Setting up a company and tax are the part of the profile you cannot assemble elsewhere in an afternoon. The rest of the page is open.
- ·Legal forms
- ·Sole trader
- ·Foreign ownership
- ·Minimum capital
- ·How long registration takes
- ·Documents to incorporate
- ·Notary and legalisation
- ·Registered address
- ·Director and residence
- ·Bank account
- ·Licences and permits
- ·What to watch for
- ·Special regimes and zones
Taxes
Setting up a company and tax are the part of the profile you cannot assemble elsewhere in an afternoon. The rest of the page is open.
- ·Corporate income tax
- ·VAT
- ·VAT registration
- ·Withholding tax — dividends
- ·Withholding tax — interest
- ·Withholding tax — royalties
- ·Payroll contributions
- ·Double taxation treaty
- ·Tax year and return
- ·Tax reliefs
Visas and residence
Setting up a company and tax are the part of the profile you cannot assemble elsewhere in an afternoon. The rest of the page is open.
- ·Short stay
Investment opportunities
Setting up a company and tax are the part of the profile you cannot assemble elsewhere in an afternoon. The rest of the page is open.
- ·Zones and incentives
What it makes and needs
Crude oil and oil products, uranium, copper, ferroalloys, grain and flour. Oil is by far the largest item.
Machinery and equipment, vehicles, pharmaceuticals, processed food and consumer goods. Machinery has long been the largest import category.
Machinery and technology for extraction and processing, agricultural equipment, food-processing and packaging lines, medical devices and medicines, building materials and chemicals.
Money and payments
Floating since 2015. Current-account operations are unrestricted, but currency contracts above the National Bank's threshold carry notification and registration duties.
EUR and USD transfers run normally through correspondent banks. Since 2022 banks have tightened scrutiny of payments that could route around sanctions on Russia — they ask follow-up questions about the goods and the end user.
For first shipments, advance payment or a letter of credit is normal. Open account is not used with new counterparties; insuring the receivable through an export agency is the standard route.
Importing into their market
Kazakhstan is inside the EAEU customs union. Goods cleared in any member state then move across the whole union without further duty.
The EAC mark under the EAEU technical regulations. Depending on the product it is a certificate or a declaration of conformity issued by an accredited body inside the union; a European CE mark alone does not suffice.
The EAEU common customs tariff. The rate is not Kazakhstan's — it is the same across the union's customs territory and changes by decision of the commission.
Labels must be in Russian and, where the regulation requires it, in Kazakh as well. For food, cosmetics and children's goods the content of the label is set directly by the EAEU technical regulation.
- ·Invoice
- ·contract
- ·transport document (CMR, air waybill)
- ·packing list
- ·certificate of origin where a preference is claimed
- ·EAC conformity document
- ·veterinary or phytosanitary certificate for food and live products.
Bringing their goods into the EU
Kazakhstan has no free-trade agreement with the EU. Relations run under the 2015 Enhanced Partnership and Cooperation Agreement, which does not remove tariffs — imports into the EU bear the ordinary common customs tariff rate.
With no preference, origin is evidenced by an ordinary certificate of origin issued by the chamber of commerce. Non-preferential origin still matters for anti-dumping and for marking.
Food of animal origin may enter the EU only from establishments approved by the Commission and through approved border control posts, with a veterinary certificate in TRACES. Plant products face phytosanitary control.
Kazakhstan is not under EU sanctions. For goods that could reach Russia or Belarus, however, both banks and customs look at the end user and at the no-re-export clause in the contract.
Most obligations on import into the EU sit with the importer established in the Union, not with the Kazakh supplier — the declaration, import VAT, product-compliance responsibility and any CBAM reporting.
Outlook
Base case: Kazakhstan stays the largest market in the region and the main node of the Middle Corridor, with demand for European machinery and technology. Volume growth on the corridor depends on Caspian transhipment capacity rather than on demand.
What to watch: transhipment capacity at Aktau and Kuryk, secondary sanctions and bank compliance on payments, the tenge, and EAEU customs rules — which change at union level rather than at national level.
Practical matters
Kazakh is the state language; Russian is the language of official communication and predominates in business. Contracts are commonly in Russian, often bilingual with a governing-language clause.
The Middle Corridor via Türkiye, Georgia and the Caspian avoids Russian territory; it involves transhipments that lengthen transit against the northern route. Air freight through Almaty and Astana is regular.
Monday to Friday, weekend Saturday and Sunday. Office hours typically 09:00–18:00.
- ·Neither the tariff nor the certification is Kazakh — both are set by EAEU rules, not by Kazakh legislation.
- ·Banks reviewing a contract look for the no-re-export-to-Russia clause.
- ·An oral understanding carries no weight; the signed and stamped text decides.
Write to us. Our representative for this market or our team receives it.
Tell us what you came to this page for and did not find. We will add it — with a source.
A visa, legalising a document, an invitation letter, the commercial attaché before a trade fair — these only go through a mission. Below are the official registers rather than transcribed addresses: missions move and consular hours change several times a year, so a link to the register stays current where a transcript would not.
Where a country has no mission in Bratislava or Prague it is usually accredited from Vienna, Berlin or Warsaw — the register says which.
Every figure names the authority that published it and the date the line was last worked on. This is not legal or tax advice — verify a figure with the named source before you act on it.