Kazakhstan Public Procurement for Foreign Suppliers and Internal Value (Local Content) Requirements in 2026

Kazakhstan’s own legal term for what English-language practice calls local content is internal value (vnutristranovaya tsennost); the older term mestnoe soderzhanie, literally local content, was displaced from the calculation instruments in 2018 and no longer appears in procurement legislation; it is used in this article only where the historical instruments are discussed.

National treatment in Kazakhstan’s public procurement is extended to foreign goods, works, services and non-resident potential suppliers only in the cases and on the conditions provided for by ratified international treaties. That is the express wording of article 9(1) of the Law of the Republic of Kazakhstan of 1 July 2024 No. 106-VIII “On Public Procurement”. In practice this means one thing: suppliers from the member states of the Eurasian Economic Union hold a treaty entitlement to equal conditions; suppliers from everywhere else hold no such entitlement, although the Law contains no prohibition on their participation either.

The short version. A foreign company may submit a bid on Kazakhstan’s public procurement web portal provided the lot is not closed by an exemption from national treatment. Since 1 January 2025 the conditional discount of up to 20 per cent for Kazakhstani content no longer applies in public procurement. What remains in its place is a 3 per cent conditional discount for presence in the register of Kazakhstani goods producers under paragraph 271-1 of the Public Procurement Rules No. 687. The principal protectionist instrument is now sectoral market closure: the Government closes selected industries one by one, and access to those lots is then confined to entities listed in the register of Kazakhstani goods producers, which by law admits only residents of the Republic of Kazakhstan. As at 14 September 2026 three such industry resolutions are in force; the portal shows one further restriction, operating through the register of trusted software and electronics industry products, but no operative resolution behind it could be found.

Nine facts that define the position as at September 2026:

1.        The governing statute is the Law of the Republic of Kazakhstan of 1 July 2024 No. 106-VIII “On Public Procurement”, in force since 1 January 2025; the Law of 4 December 2015 has been repealed.

2.        National treatment under article 9(1) of Law No. 106-VIII is granted only in the cases and on the conditions provided for by ratified international treaties.

3.        The Government may impose exemptions from national treatment for a period of no more than two years — article 9(2) of Law No. 106-VIII.

4.        Paragraph 23 of the Public Procurement Rules, approved by order of the Minister of Finance of the Republic of Kazakhstan of 9 October 2024 No. 687, admits to “closed” lots only three classes of person: those entered in the register of Kazakhstani goods producers; those entered in the register of representatives — distributors or dealers — of manufacturers of vehicles and agricultural machinery; and those entered in the register of trusted software and electronics industry products.

5.        A Kazakhstani goods producer under article 1(7-1) of the Law of the Republic of Kazakhstan of 27 December 2021 No. 86-VII “On Industrial Policy” is only a business entity that is a resident of the Republic of Kazakhstan.

6.        Kazakhstan is not a party to the WTO Agreement on Government Procurement: as at 14 September 2026 it is listed as an observer on the WTO Committee on Government Procurement with effect from 19 October 2016, flagged as pending accession negotiations.

7.        Certificates of origin in form “CT-KZ” and industrial certificates retained their effect until 1 January 2026 under article 68 of the Law of the Republic of Kazakhstan of 27 December 2021 No. 86-VII “On Industrial Policy”; they have been replaced by an extract from the register of Kazakhstani goods producers.

8.        The 20 per cent conditional discount survives only outside public procurement — in subsoil users’ procurement of works and services for hydrocarbon exploration or production operations, under article 131(1) of the Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan of 27 December 2017 No. 125-VI “On Subsoil and Subsoil Use”.

9.        The monthly calculation index for 2026 is 4,325 tenge — article 7 of the Law of the Republic of Kazakhstan of 8 December 2025 No. 239-VIII “On the Republican Budget for 2026 – 2028”; every monetary threshold in procurement is measured against it.

What National Treatment Means in Kazakhstan’s Public Procurement

National treatment in Kazakhstan’s public procurement is a regime under which goods, works and services of foreign origin, and the potential suppliers offering them, are admitted to public procurement on equal terms with Kazakhstani ones, provided that a requirement to grant such treatment is established by international treaties ratified by the Republic of Kazakhstan. The definition appears in article 3(32) of the Law of the Republic of Kazakhstan of 1 July 2024 No. 106-VIII “On Public Procurement”.

The operative word in that definition is “provided”. National treatment is not a presumption in Kazakh law. It does not arise merely because a foreign company has submitted a bid; it arises where Kazakhstan has assumed a treaty obligation to grant it.

Article 9(1) of Law No. 106-VIII states this directly: national treatment applies to goods originating from foreign states and to works and services performed or rendered by non-resident potential suppliers “in the cases and on the conditions provided for by international treaties ratified by the Republic of Kazakhstan”.

From this follows the distinction that governs everything else in this article, and that is most often confused.

Access and national treatment are not the same thing. Access to a procedure means the ability to register on the web portal, submit a bid and have it considered. National treatment means a treaty right to insist on being treated no less favourably than a Kazakhstani supplier and not to be subjected to discriminatory measures. Law No. 106-VIII contains no general prohibition on non-resident participation: on the contrary, article 11(5) expressly sets out which documents a non-resident potential supplier submits. What the Law does not do is shield a non-resident from industry restrictions where no treaty requires such protection.

The second element of the framework is the hierarchy of norms. Article 4(2) of Law No. 106-VIII establishes the priority of ratified international treaties over the Law itself. Article 5(1)(5) frames the principle of support for Kazakhstani goods producers with the qualifier “to the extent that this does not contradict international treaties ratified by the Republic of Kazakhstan”. Protectionist tools exist in the Kazakh statute, but they are subordinated to the treaty framework from the outset.

The third element is the derogation mechanism. Article 9(2) of Law No. 106-VIII permits the Government of the Republic of Kazakhstan to impose exemptions from national treatment in order to protect the foundations of the constitutional order, ensure the country’s defence and state security, protect the domestic market, develop the national economy and support Kazakhstani goods producers. Such an exemption may last no more than two years. The procedure is determined by the Government and is set out in Government Resolution of the Republic of Kazakhstan of 15 October 2024 No. 853 “On approval of the Rules for establishing exemptions from national treatment in public procurement”; paragraph 4 of those Rules was restated by Government Resolution of the Republic of Kazakhstan of 13 August 2025 No. 619.

The fourth element is how the subject of a procurement is coded, and here two different classifiers must not be conflated. Restrictions operate by the single nomenclature classifier of goods, works and services (ENSTRU): the lists that the sector ministry approves under paragraph 3 of each exemption resolution are written in its codes, and it is those codes that the web portal checks against the lot. The National Catalogue of Goods is a different object: article 3(32-1) of Law No. 106-VIII defines it as an information-technology asset of the “e-government” system, a national register of data on goods and the single source of goods nomenclature, mandatory for use as a goods reference book in trading activity, and its unique code is entered at the contract performance stage, in the goods release note and the goods acceptance certificate. For a foreign supplier the practical conclusion is simple: check the ENSTRU code, not the name of the industry.

The Legal Framework in Force as at September 2026

Kazakhstan’s public procurement rests on one statute, one comprehensive subordinate act and a set of targeted government resolutions. Everything else that circulates on this subject either belongs to a different procurement regime or has been repealed.

The governing act is the Law of the Republic of Kazakhstan of 1 July 2024 No. 106-VIII “On Public Procurement”. It contains 29 articles. Article 29(1) brought it into force on 1 January 2025; article 29(3) repealed the Law of the Republic of Kazakhstan of 4 December 2015 “On Public Procurement”. This matters when working with sources: any publication citing article 14 or article 26 of the “old” procurement law describes law that no longer exists.

The procedural act is the Public Procurement Rules, approved by order of the Minister of Finance of the Republic of Kazakhstan of 9 October 2024 No. 687 (registered with the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Kazakhstan on 9 October 2024 under No. 35238), in force since 1 January 2025. Almost every rule that matters commercially to a supplier sits there: dumping thresholds, bid security amounts, submission deadlines, tender documentation forms and the model contract. The Rules have been amended repeatedly. Since they entered into force, sixteen orders of the Minister of Finance and of acting Ministers of Finance have amended them: of 9 December 2024 No. 809, 4 March 2025 No. 102, 17 June 2025 No. 306, 24 June 2025 No. 321, 14 July 2025 No. 358, 28 July 2025 No. 396, 6 August 2025 No. 425, 21 August 2025 No. 456, 4 December 2025 No. 749, 19 December 2025 No. 791, 13 February 2026 No. 102, 28 March 2026 No. 205, 8 May 2026 No. 297, 2 July 2026 No. 455, 15 July 2026 No. 479 and 31 August 2026 No. 587. The last of these was adopted less than a month before the date of this article, so the operative edition of the Rules should be checked immediately before bidding.

Law No. 106-VIII has itself been amended by at least fifteen laws in under two years, with one more — the Law of the Republic of Kazakhstan of 23 July 2026 No. 352-VIII — entering into force sixty calendar days after first official publication. The table below sets out the amendments most relevant to the present subject; the full list appears in the footnotes to the articles of the Law in the Adilet legal information system.

The most substantive of these for the present subject is the Law of the Republic of Kazakhstan of 19 May 2025 No. 188-VIII “On amendments and additions to certain legislative acts of the Republic of Kazakhstan on the determination of the country of origin of goods”. It amended article 9 of Law No. 106-VIII and simultaneously inserted articles 51-1 to 51-7 and 61-1 into the Law “On Industrial Policy” and amended its articles 68 and 69, thereby creating the present architecture of the register of Kazakhstani goods producers and closing down the former certificate system. That single law rebuilt the entire system for proving the origin of goods.

One further change runs through the whole text. The Law of the Republic of Kazakhstan of 9 January 2026 No. 256-VIII replaced “information system” and its cognates with “digital system” throughout Law No. 106-VIII, and “information security” with “cybersecurity”. Paragraph 1 of Rules No. 687, as restated by order of the Minister of Finance of 8 May 2026 No. 297, records that the Rules were developed in accordance with the Law, the Digital Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan and the Law of the Republic of Kazakhstan “On Cybersecurity”. For a foreign supplier this is not cosmetic: the integration of data about it, including data held by the competent authority of its own country, proceeds under the Digital Code.

Can a Foreign Company Take Part in Kazakhstan’s Public Procurement?

Yes, provided the lot is not closed by an exemption from national treatment and provided the company satisfies the qualification requirements and the restrictions. Law of the Republic of Kazakhstan No. 106-VIII contains no provision prohibiting non-resident participation, and expressly contemplates it in several places.

The first confirmation is article 11(5) of Law No. 106-VIII: a potential supplier that is a non-resident of the Republic of Kazakhstan, in order to demonstrate compliance with the qualification requirements established by that article, submits the same documents as residents of the Republic of Kazakhstan, or documents confirming analogous information about the qualifications of that non-resident potential supplier. A rule about a non-resident’s documents would be meaningless if a non-resident could not participate.

The second is paragraph 3(1) of Rules No. 687, under which the financial stability indicator is determined automatically by the web portal from data held by the state revenue authorities or by the relevant competent authority of a non-resident potential supplier of the Republic of Kazakhstan, obtained by integration in accordance with the Digital Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan.

The third is paragraph 286 of Rules No. 687, which requires the list of qualified potential suppliers to record the supplier’s country and provides identifiers not only for residents of Kazakhstan (BIN or IIN) but also for residents of the Russian Federation (INN for legal entities, SNILS for individuals) and residents of the Republic of Belarus (UNP).

The fourth is paragraph 523 of Rules No. 687: where a contract is concluded with a non-resident of the Republic of Kazakhstan, the contract may be executed in the form proposed by that non-resident, on paper, subject to the requirements of Kazakh law. This is a rare departure from the otherwise wholly electronic format, made specifically for cross-border transactions.

The fifth is annex 3 to the tender documentation, the price quotation form. It contains fields for “BIN/IIN/INN/UNP”, for the currency of the price quotation and for delivery terms under Incoterms 2010. The form was designed for supply from abroad. For precision: the form refers to the 2010 edition of Incoterms rather than Incoterms 2020, so it is safer to specify a delivery term that exists in that edition; the Rules do not prohibit a 2020 term, and the difference between the editions comes down largely to DAT being replaced by DPU.

What a supplier from outside the Eurasian Economic Union does not have is equally important. It has no treaty basis on which to demand national treatment. If the Government of Kazakhstan closes an industry by exemption, a supplier from Germany, Türkiye, China, the UAE or the United Kingdom cannot invoke an international treaty to compel admission — unlike a supplier from Armenia, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan or Russia, which has paragraph 30 of Annex No. 25 to the Treaty on the Eurasian Economic Union behind it.

The practical conclusion for a company weighing its form of presence: the Law permits a non-resident to bid directly, but almost every procedural convenience — the electronic wallet, the bank guarantee, the accumulation of experience in state digital systems — is tied to a Kazakhstani legal entity. An overview of the available forms of presence and their requirements is collected on the UPPERSETUP Kazakhstan page.

There is also a practical filter unrelated to national treatment. Article 11(1)(5) of Law No. 106-VIII requires work experience and expressly qualifies it: for the purposes of public procurement, work experience is taken into account only under contracts performed within public procurement and other contracts, information on which is held in the digital systems of state bodies. A company’s international track record, however impressive, does not appear in Kazakhstan’s digital systems. Where a customer has imposed an experience requirement, a non-resident entering the market for the first time is eliminated not on grounds of nationality but for want of a footprint in national registers.

The EAEU, the WTO and Kazakhstan’s Status Under the Agreement on Government Procurement

The international framework around Kazakh public procurement consists of one operative treaty and one that never materialised.

The operative treaty is the Treaty on the Eurasian Economic Union (Astana, 29 May 2014), ratified by the Law of the Republic of Kazakhstan of 14 October 2014 No. 240-V. Section XXII of the Treaty deals with state and municipal procurement, and the detailed regime sits in Annex No. 25, the Protocol on the Procedure for Regulating Procurement.

Article 88(1) of the Treaty lists the governing principles, three of which matter to a foreign supplier: granting member states national treatment in procurement; the impermissibility of granting third countries a procurement regime more favourable than that granted to member states; and securing unimpeded access for member states’ suppliers to procurement conducted in electronic format through mutual recognition of the electronic digital signature issued under the law of one member state. Paragraph 4 of Annex No. 25 repeats that requirement and refers the recognition rules to the Council of the Commission; in practice the subject has been addressed by Order of the Council of the Eurasian Economic Commission of 13 July 2018 No. 19 and by Decision of the Board of the Eurasian Economic Commission of 22 August 2023 No. 120.

The economic meaning of the third-country principle is easy to overlook but important: Kazakhstan may not give a supplier from outside the Union better terms than a supplier from within it. This structurally places EAEU companies at the top of the hierarchy and third-country companies at the bottom.

The exemption mechanism is set out in paragraphs 30 to 33 of Annex No. 25.

The two-year ceiling in article 9(2) of Law No. 106-VIII is therefore not a Kazakh invention but a transposition of paragraph 31 of Annex No. 25 into national law. The procedure by which the Commission examines exemption notifications was approved by Decision of the Council of the Eurasian Economic Commission of 23 November 2015 No. 69.

The question that matters most to a foreign supplier — whether an exemption can be extended indefinitely by adopting fresh resolutions — was settled by the Court of the Eurasian Economic Union in the Advisory Opinion of its Grand Chamber of 11 January 2021, delivered in Minsk on the Commission’s application. The holding is that paragraphs 11 and 31 of the Protocol on the Procedure for Regulating Procurement do not require member states to impose special procurement arrangements for particular types of goods, works and services, or exemptions from national treatment, only once. The Court added that the phrase “in exceptional cases” is not equivalent to a limitation on the number of impositions, and that a member state’s right under those paragraphs is unconditional and falls within national competence.

The constraint the Court did identify is the principle of proportionality, applied as a two-part test: whether the measure will in fact contribute to one of the stated aims, and whether any less restrictive means of achieving the same aim exists. The practical conclusion is that the two-year limit constrains an individual act without barring new ones, and that an exemption is worth challenging on disproportionality rather than on frequency.

The treaty that never materialised is the WTO Agreement on Government Procurement (GPA). Kazakhstan is not a party to it. As at 14 September 2026, the official World Trade Organization page listing the parties and observers to the Agreement carries 39 entries, and records Kazakhstan as holding observer status on the Committee on Government Procurement with effect from 19 October 2016, marked with an asterisk denoting “Pending GPA accession negotiations”.

The underlying commitment appears at paragraph 949 of the Report of the Working Party on the Accession of the Republic of Kazakhstan (document WT/ACC/KAZ/93 of 23 June 2015): Kazakhstan confirmed its intention to accede to the Agreement, to request observer status on the date of its WTO accession, and to begin participation negotiations by submitting an offer in the prescribed Appendix I form within four years of WTO accession. Kazakhstan became a WTO member on 30 November 2015 and filed its GPA accession application on 29 November 2019.

The practical consequence for suppliers from the EU, the United Kingdom, the United States, Japan, Korea, Singapore or Canada is straightforward: their own governments are GPA parties, but Kazakhstan is not, so no reciprocal procurement access obligations exist between them and Kazakhstan. The absence of the GPA is not a technicality — it is why a third-country supplier has no procurement-specific treaty route for challenging an industry exemption. Only Kazakhstan’s EAEU partners have one, and even there it does not run through the supplier: under paragraph 33 of Annex No. 25 it is the Commission, not a bidder, that may require an act to be repealed.

One further element of Kazakhstan’s WTO accession package is worth recording, because it is frequently attributed to public procurement although it belongs to a different regime. Paragraph 895 of the Working Party Report records that from 1 January 2015 Kazakhstan does not include local content requirements for purchases of goods in new contracts with subsoil users, and paragraph 897 records that all WTO-inconsistent measures under investment contracts concluded before 1 January 2015 cease to apply on expiry of the contracts’ original term or on 1 January 2021, whichever is earlier.

Exemptions from National Treatment: Three Resolutions and One Register Restriction

An exemption from national treatment is an act of the Government of the Republic of Kazakhstan by which specified goods, works or services of foreign origin are excluded from equal access to public procurement for a period of no more than two years. The legal basis is article 9(2) of Law No. 106-VIII; the procedure is set out in the Rules approved by Government Resolution of the Republic of Kazakhstan of 15 October 2024 No. 853.

The operative resolutions are built in broadly the same way, in three parts: the exemption is imposed on goods of a given industry originating from foreign states, save for goods not produced in the territory of the Republic of Kazakhstan; participation is confined to entities listed in the relevant register; and the sector ministry, within ten working days, approves a list of goods bearing codes from the single nomenclature classifier and transmits it to the competent authority for public procurement.

One divergence in wording deserves attention. Paragraph 2 of Resolution No. 149 and paragraph 2 of Resolution No. 314 admit entities listed in the “register of Kazakhstani goods producers”, the register with which paragraph 23 of Rules No. 687 operates. Paragraph 2 of Resolution No. 824, in both its versions — the one in force until 1 January 2026 and the one in force after — refers to the “register of Kazakhstani producers”. No register bearing that name exists under Law No. 86-VII or Rules No. 327. In practice this means that for the paper industry a supplier’s eligibility should be checked directly on the web portal rather than from the text of the resolution.

As at 14 September 2026, according to the “National treatment” section of the public procurement web portal, three exemption resolutions are in force together with one restriction the portal shows without an expiry date.

The differences between the three resolutions, and between them and the register restriction, are more consequential than they appear.

The narrowest is the paper exemption. The list approved by order No. 451 contains only eight positions: drawing paper, note paper and office paper in formats A0, A1, A2, A3, A4 and A5. The supplement adds offset, coated and carbon paper. Eleven codes in total — effectively a single stationery category.

The broadest is the machine-building exemption. A count of the list approved by order No. 262 of the Ministry of Industry and Construction and published on the portal yields 2,194 positions for machine building, 339 for chemicals, 217 for metallurgy, 505 for the construction industry and 208 for furniture: 3,463 rows and 3,461 unique ENSTRU codes. Order No. 397 of 10 August 2026 added positions 249 and 250 to the chemical section — a self-contained fire-extinguishing plate and a self-contained fire-extinguishing cord.

The only one of the resolutions that captures works and services as well as goods is Resolution No. 149 on light industry. Its paragraph 1 extends the exemption to “works and services respectively performed and rendered by foreign potential suppliers”. For a non-resident service company that means the relevant lots are closed outright, rather than merely fenced off against imported goods.

The register of trusted software and electronics industry products stands apart. The portal table shows it without an expiry date and without a link to any operative resolution, while Government Resolution of the Republic of Kazakhstan of 20 March 2024 No. 207, which originally introduced that restriction and which was adopted under article 14 of the formerprocurement law, ran for two years and is marked on the portal as no longer in force. No currently operative resolution behind this restriction could be identified from open sources, yet the portal applies it. There is a terminological gap between the instruments as well. Paragraph 23 of Rules No. 687 still speaks of the “register of trusted software and electronics industry products”, the rules for the formation and maintenance of which were approved by order of the Minister of Defence and Aerospace Industry of the Republic of Kazakhstan of 28 March 2018 No. 53/NQ (reg. No. 16750). Article 51-2(1) of Law No. 86-VII, as amended by the Laws of 9 January 2026 No. 256-VIII and 24 June 2026 No. 326-VIII, by contrast treats software produced in Kazakhstan and entered in the register of trusted digital objects as goods of Kazakhstani origin. Under article 9(2) of Law No. 106-VIII and paragraph 23 of the Rules, only a government resolution can close a lot; a register is a channel of admission, not the exemption itself. A supplier of software or electronics industry products should therefore treat the portal’s own list as determinative and obtain written confirmation from the single operator before incurring bid preparation costs.

A practical point on numbering. In the portal’s table the row relating to the paper industry is captioned “Resolution of 7 October 2025 No. 827”, yet the hyperlink in that same row leads to Resolution No. 824; the order of the Minister of Industry and Construction of 24 October 2025 No. 451 was adopted “in accordance with paragraph 3 of Government Resolution of the Republic of Kazakhstan of 7 October 2025 No. 824”; and no act numbered 827 bearing that date exists in the Adilet legal information system. The correct number is 824.

It matters just as much that the list of exemptions is a moving target. Resolutions No. 893 of 11 November 2022, No. 904 of 13 October 2023, No. 99 of 19 February 2024 and No. 190 and No. 191 of 16 March 2024 have been repealed; Resolution No. 207 of 20 March 2024 lapsed on the expiry of its own two-year term, and Resolution No. 447 of 7 June 2024 expired on 6 July 2026. Any reference to those acts as being in force in 2026 is wrong.

Finally, the exemption carries a safety valve that is rarely written about. The fourth part of paragraph 23 of Rules No. 687 provides that where a procurement is declared to have failed because no bids were submitted, that procurement is then conducted afresh, using the competitive methods specified in article 10 of the Law, among all potential suppliers. If no Kazakhstani producer bids for the lot, the procurement is repeated without the register restriction — and the foreign supplier is back in contention.

The Register of Kazakhstani Goods Producers: Why a Non-Resident Cannot Join It

The register of Kazakhstani goods producers is a state database of producers and the goods they make, entry in which is the condition of access to lots closed by an exemption from national treatment. That follows from paragraph 23 of Rules No. 687 as restated by order of the Minister of Finance of the Republic of Kazakhstan of 13 February 2026 No. 102.

The provision is drawn as a closed list. Public procurement of goods, works and services subject to a government exemption is conducted among natural and legal persons entered either in the register of Kazakhstani goods producers, or in the register of representatives — distributors or dealers — of manufacturers of vehicles and agricultural machinery, or in the register of trusted software and electronics industry products. Compliance is determined automatically by the web portal from data held by the competent authority for industrial development. There is no manual review: the portal simply will not accept a bid from an entity absent from the register.

This is where the hardest barrier for a foreign company sits. Article 1(7-1) of the Law of the Republic of Kazakhstan of 27 December 2021 No. 86-VII “On Industrial Policy” defines a Kazakhstani goods producer as “a business entity that is a resident of the Republic of Kazakhstan and is entered in the register of Kazakhstani goods producers”. The Rules for maintaining the register, approved by order of the Minister of Industry and Construction of the Republic of Kazakhstan of 27 August 2025 No. 327 (registered with the Ministry of Justice on 28 August 2025 under No. 36717), repeat the requirement in paragraph 3(1): an applicant is “a business entity that is a resident of the Republic of Kazakhstan and has submitted an application for entry in the register”.

A non-resident stays out of the register not because its application is refused, but because it falls outside the definition of an applicant.

That leaves one lawful route: a Kazakhstani legal entity with genuine production. A limited liability partnership established by a foreign investor is a resident of the Republic of Kazakhstan and an applicant within the meaning of paragraph 3 of Rules No. 327. The share of foreign ownership is irrelevant: the register’s criteria are built around production, not around the origin of capital.

Entry proceeds in four stages, described in article 51-1 of Law No. 86-VII and chapter 2 of Rules No. 327.

The digital verification criteria are listed in paragraph 12 of Rules No. 327 and repay careful reading: period of activity; VAT registration status; participation in tax monitoring; participation in public procurement; participation in exports; payment of taxes; the tax burden coefficient; nil accrued-income figures; restrictions on issuing electronic invoices; aggregate annual income; turnover under electronic invoices; export turnover and total customs value of imports from customs declarations; electricity costs; payments for adverse environmental impact; average headcount; accrued employee income and average wage; the balance-sheet value of fixed assets, biological assets, exploration and evaluation assets and intangible assets; holdings of land and property; the value balance of buildings, structures, machinery and equipment; and turnover on purchases of raw materials and spare parts.

On the basis of verification the system assigns the applicant a low, medium or high production-activity score. A low score means an automatic reasoned refusal under paragraph 14 of Rules No. 327, and the matter never reaches production assessment.

From this follows a conclusion that is not obvious to newcomers: a newly incorporated Kazakhstani legal entity will almost certainly fail digital verification. Most of the 26 criteria rest on tax reporting for the calendar year preceding the year of application. A company registered three months ago has no such reporting. Paragraph 11 of Rules No. 327 requires an applicant to flag “new production” and attach a commissioning certificate where the production facility was commissioned within the three years preceding the application; the Rules do not state what consequences that flag has for the assessment, and it does not substitute for a operating record.

Where production cannot be assessed from the submitted information, the sector commission conducts an on-site inspection with at least three commission members (paragraph 20 of Rules No. 327), and the assessment period is suspended for its duration (paragraph 21).

Entry is evidenced by an extract, which under article 51-1(8) of Law No. 86-VII records information about the goods producer, the goods produced, and the internal value share.

Removal from the register follows monitoring results, the results of monitoring of software producers, or the producer’s own application. Paragraph 30 of Rules No. 327 adds automatic removal on liquidation of the legal entity or on its reorganisation other than by transformation; a newly created legal entity must apply afresh. For a group planning an internal restructuring this is a direct operational risk: a merger, or an absorption of one entity by another, resets the status.

To contest a refusal or a removal following digital verification there is an appeal commission whose decision is binding on the competent authority (paragraphs 33 and 34 of Rules No. 327).

According to official figures published on the information resource of the Prime Minister of the Republic of Kazakhstan on 10 August 2026, the register’s information system has been fully operational since November 2025; more than 41,000 applications have been received and processed, and more than 10,000 domestic goods producers have been entered following verification. The roughly four-to-one ratio of applications to entries should not be read as a rejection rate: the register is kept product by product, so one producer files several applications.

If you are planning to localise production in Kazakhstan in order to reach closed lots, it is sensible to put registration and subsequent accounting in the hands of a specialist provider: company registration in Kazakhstan and accounting supportgenerate precisely the reporting on which the register’s digital verification will later run.

What Became of the 20 Per Cent Discount for Kazakhstani Content

Before the 2024–2025 reform the Kazakh system worked through a broad price preference. The tender commission notionally reduced the price of a domestic supplier’s bid, and that supplier won even at a nominally higher price. The scale of that mechanism is recorded in Kazakhstan’s WTO accession package: paragraph 943 of the Report of the Working Party on the Accession of the Republic of Kazakhstan (WT/ACC/KAZ/93 of 23 June 2015), describing the legislation in force at the time of accession, states that the tender commission may reduce the conditional price of a tender bid by up to 20 per cent for domestic goods producers and by up to 15 per cent for domestic suppliers of services and works.

Law of the Republic of Kazakhstan No. 106-VIII contains no such mechanism. The words “conditional price reduction”, “discount” and “preference” do not appear in it in relation to Kazakhstani origin. The only provision addressing support for Kazakhstani goods producers is article 5(1)(5), and that is a principle rather than a bid evaluation criterion — and a principle qualified by a proviso on consistency with international treaties.

It would be a mistake, however, to conclude that price advantages have disappeared altogether. They have moved down to the level of the Public Procurement Rules No. 687, and they have shrunk dramatically.

Paragraph 217 of Rules No. 687, as restated by order of the Minister of Finance of the Republic of Kazakhstan of 24 June 2025 No. 321 and amended by order of the acting Minister of Finance of the Republic of Kazakhstan of 15 July 2026 No. 479, lists seven criteria affecting the tender price quotation: experience in the market for the works and services being procured; the paid-taxes indicator; the potential supplier’s presence in the relevant administrative-territorial unit at the place where the works or services are to be performed; deposit of audited annual financial statements with the financial reporting depository; functional, technical, quality and operating characteristics of the goods; negative values; and the potential supplier’s presence in the register of Kazakhstani goods producers.

The last of these was inserted by order of the Minister of Finance of the Republic of Kazakhstan of 24 June 2025 No. 321 and restated in its current form by order of the acting Minister of Finance of the Republic of Kazakhstan of 28 March 2026 No. 205. Paragraph 271-1 of Rules No. 687 puts it this way: where the potential supplier is in the register of Kazakhstani goods producers, the web portal automatically assigns a conditional discount of 3 (three) per cent. The discount applies where the first six digits of the code of the goods being procured match the economic-activity product classifier stated in the extract from the register.

Conditional discounts are determined by the tender commission when drawing up the results protocol, except where a single bid has been submitted (paragraph 219 of Rules No. 687), and the web portal automatically compares the conditional prices and identifies the winner (paragraph 273 of Rules No. 687). The effects of the different criteria on the conditional price accumulate, but each criterion has its own ceiling: for work experience, for instance, the aggregate percentage effect does not exceed 5 per cent where the lot value is below two hundred thousand times the monthly calculation index, and 10 per cent where it is above (paragraphs 222 to 225 of Rules No. 687). The territorial discount under paragraph 261 applies only to procurement of works and services, and only where the allocated sum does not exceed the threshold in annex 8 to the Rules.

What happened, therefore, was not the abolition of support but a rebuilding of its architecture: a broad graduated preference in the statute has been replaced by a narrow graduated discount in a subordinate act, plus a binary exemption mechanism.

The new architecture has two consequences that point in opposite directions.

The first favours the foreign supplier. Where no exemption applies, the multiplier that used to consume the price advantage of an import has shrunk several times over. On a goods lot, undercutting a registered competitor by more than 3 per cent is enough: the paragraph 271-1 discount is tied to the code of the goods being procured. On a works or services lot that discount does not arise, and the comparable factor is the 2 per cent territorial discount under paragraph 261 — and only where the allocated sum falls within the annex 8 threshold. The remaining criteria — experience, taxes, audited statements, technical characteristics — do not depend on the supplier’s origin and are equally available to a foreign company that already has a record of performed contracts in Kazakhstan. These are surmountable margins, not prohibitive ones.

The second cuts the other way. Where an exemption applies, there is no price at which admission can be bought: the filter sits on the subject rather than on the price and operates automatically at portal level when the bid is submitted.

It is important not to confuse public procurement with the adjacent regime. A conditional discount of exactly 20 per cent survives, but outside Law No. 106-VIII: article 131(1) of the Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan of 27 December 2017 No. 125-VI “On Subsoil and Subsoil Use” directs the organiser of a tender for works and services in hydrocarbon exploration or production operations to reduce notionally, by 20 per cent, the tender bid price of participants that are Kazakhstani producers of works and services. That is subsoil users’ procurement, not public procurement. Article 131(7) expressly excludes two categories from the scope of paragraph 1: subsoil users purchasing goods, works and services under public procurement legislation; and holders of subsoil use rights in which a national managing holding owns, directly or indirectly, 50 per cent or more of the voting shares or participation interests.

Internal Value: Definition, Formulas and Scope of Application

Internal value is the percentage content of goods produced and works and services performed on the domestic market within the total volume of the goods produced or the work or service performed. The definition is set out in article 1(2) of the Law of the Republic of Kazakhstan of 27 December 2021 No. 86-VII “On Industrial Policy”.

The term “Kazakhstani content”, which still dominates commercial usage and outdated publications, has been displaced in current legislation by “internal value”. The change of terminology did not happen at a single moment. The Unified Methodology for the Calculation of Local Content by Organisations in the Procurement of Goods, Works and Services was approved by order of the Minister for Investment and Development of the Republic of Kazakhstan of 30 January 2015 No. 87. It was repealed by an order of the same Minister of 20 April 2018 No. 260, which approved the Unified Methodology for the Calculation of Internal Value by Organisations in the Procurement of Goods, Works and Services. The title of order No. 260 was restated by order of the acting Minister of Industry and Infrastructure Development of the Republic of Kazakhstan of 29 April 2022 No. 240, and the Unified Methodology itself was restated by order of the Minister of Industry and Construction of the Republic of Kazakhstan of 18 September 2025 No. 373.

The Unified Methodology was developed under article 28(2) of the Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan “On Subsoil and Subsoil Use” and article 16(3)(2-1) of the Law of the Republic of Kazakhstan “On State Statistics”. Paragraph 3 of the Methodology extends it, among others, to state enterprises and to legal entities in which the state holds 50 per cent or more and which procure under the Law “On Public Procurement”.

Here a precise distinction removes most of the confusion on the subject. Paragraph 4 of the Unified Methodology lists the purposes of the calculation: monitoring and control of compliance with procurement obligations as to internal value; determining the degree of involvement of domestic enterprises in supply; and assessing the competitiveness of domestic industry. In public procurement the internal value calculation is a reporting and monitoring instrument, not a criterion for selecting the winner. Law No. 106-VIII contains no provision under which a bid with a higher internal value share gains an advantage. An indirect connection nevertheless exists: the internal value share and the localisation level are analysed by the sector commission in the production assessment for entry in the register of Kazakhstani goods producers, and register presence carries a 3 per cent conditional discount under paragraph 271-1 of Rules No. 687. The route from internal value to price advantage therefore runs through the register, not through the bid.

The formulas rest on two coefficients.

For a goods supply contract, the internal value share is the sum, across all goods items, of the value of each item multiplied by the internal value share in that item, divided by the total contract value. The coefficient Mi is the internal value share in the item as stated in the extract from the register of Kazakhstani goods producers or in the certificate of origin in form “CT-KZ”. Where neither an extract nor a certificate is available, Mi equals zero. The Methodology’s proviso “unless paragraph 10 of the Unified Methodology provides otherwise” is, in the current edition, a reference to a provision that does not exist: the Methodology runs from paragraph 1 to paragraph 9.

For works and services contracts the calculation additionally uses the coefficient Rj, the share of the payroll of Kazakhstani personnel in the total payroll of the supplier or subcontractor performing the contract: Rj = payroll of Kazakhstani personnel divided by total payroll. The Methodology contains a proviso that matters for structuring: branches and representative offices of legal entities are not suppliers or subcontractors, and where a branch is a party to the contract, the Rj calculation uses the total headcount of the legal entity as a whole.

Internal value reporting is filed quarterly, no later than the 25th day of the month following the reporting period, on a cumulative basis, using the form approved by order of 25 October 2013 No. 331.

The single most consequential provision for 2026 sits not in the Methodology but in Law No. 86-VII itself. Article 68 of that Law, as amended by the Law of the Republic of Kazakhstan of 19 May 2025 No. 188-VIII, provides that certificates of origin in form “CT-KZ” and industrial certificates issued before articles 51-1 to 51-7 of the Law entered into force, together with all related acts of state bodies, retain their effect until 1 January 2026, and that such certificates were issued only until 1 January 2026. The Unified Methodology repeats the same rule at the level of the calculation: the certificate of origin in form “CT-KZ” retains its effect until 1 January 2026. The document that served for two decades as the principal proof of Kazakhstani origin ceased, on 1 January 2026, to perform that function. Its place has been taken by the extract from the register of Kazakhstani goods producers. Any guidance recommending that a “CT-KZ” certificate or an industrial certificate be obtained for public procurement purposes in 2026 is out of date.

A separate layer of internal value obligations arises under article 61-1 of Law No. 86-VII, inserted by the Law of the Republic of Kazakhstan of 19 May 2025 No. 188-VIII and amended by the Law of the Republic of Kazakhstan of 24 June 2026 No. 324-VIII. Large customers must develop, approve and implement internal value development programmesfor a term of at least three years, agreed with the competent authority for state support of industry. The article treats as large customers subsoil users holding solid-minerals rights, certain quasi-public sector entities, natural monopolies other than those of low capacity, and systemically important enterprises. Grounds for refusing to agree a programme include understated target indicators for the internal value share in goods procurement. State bodies acting as customers under Law No. 106-VIII do not bear this obligation — but the companies with state participation through which the largest contracts often run certainly do.

Qualification Requirements and Restrictions for a Non-Resident Potential Supplier

Admission to a given procurement turns on two blocks of rules: the qualification requirements in article 11 of Law No. 106-VIII and the restrictions in article 7 of the same Law. The first must be demonstrated; the second must be absent.

Article 11(1) sets out five qualification requirements: legal capacity for legal entities and civil capacity for individuals; financial stability and the absence of tax arrears exceeding six times the monthly calculation index; not being subject to bankruptcy or liquidation proceedings; possessing material, labour and financial resources sufficient to perform the contract, and having no overdue wage arrears; and having work experience.

With the 2026 monthly calculation index at 4,325 tenge, the tax arrears threshold is 25,950 tenge. That is a very low figure: an accidental shortfall on a minor local tax closes access to the procedure.

Financial stability is determined automatically by the web portal from income, taxes paid, fixed assets and payroll. For a non-resident, as paragraph 3(1) of Rules No. 687 provides, that information is drawn from the digital systems of the competent authority of the supplier’s own country, obtained by integration in accordance with the Digital Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan. How much that rule delivers in practice depends on whether such integration exists with the particular jurisdiction; suppliers from outside the EAEU should not count on it.

The work experience requirement has already been mentioned and deserves repetition as a barrier in its own right. The provision speaks of contracts “information on which is held in the digital systems of state bodies”, without naming a state; in practice this means the digital systems of the state bodies of the Republic of Kazakhstan, because those are the systems from which the web portal draws its data.

Article 11(3) contains a protective rule: qualification requirements may not be imposed where they restrict and unreasonably complicate the participation of potential suppliers, or where they do not arise directly from the need to perform the obligations under the contract. That is the ground on which tender documentation written around a particular local supplier can be challenged.

Article 7(1) contains a closed list of thirteen grounds; beyond it the article imposes further restrictions — a bar on affiliated persons bidding for the same lot and on combining construction works with engineering services on the same site (paragraph 3), automatic rejection of bids from state enterprises and companies with state participation where at least two private-sector bids are present (paragraph 4), a bar on the customer itself bidding (paragraph 5), and a restriction on insurance agents and brokers (paragraph 8). Six of the thirteen grounds in paragraph 1 are critical for a foreign company.

Sub-paragraph 12 warrants particular attention when structuring. The list of states with preferential taxation is approved by the state body responsible for tax revenue, that is, the tax authority. The restriction covers not only the potential supplier itself, but also its founders and shareholders and persons affiliated with those founders. A group in which an offshore holding company sits above the operating entity risks rejection even where the operating entity is registered in Kazakhstan or in a European country.

The mechanics of that check matter, because they differ by ground. Paragraph 212(3) of Rules No. 687 for tenders and paragraph 394(3) for auctions provide that for the restrictions in article 7(1) sub-paragraphs 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 13 the bid is rejected automatically by the web portal, whereas for the restrictions in sub-paragraphs 10, 11 and 12 the tender commission examines information on the websites of the relevant competent authorities. The offshore ground and the suspension-of-activity ground are therefore checked by people rather than by an algorithm, and the outcome turns on what the commission finds in open sources. Because the check is documentary and human rather than automatic, a rejection on these grounds can be answered on the record: article 25(1) of the Law allows the decisions of the customer, the organiser and the commission to be challenged, and the exclusion in article 25(7) reaches only results in which the portal determines the winner.

Beneficial ownership disclosure sits alongside this. Annex 4 to the tender documentation, as restated by order of the Minister of Finance of the Republic of Kazakhstan of 4 December 2025 No. 749, requires information on the beneficial owner — a natural person who directly or indirectly holds 25 per cent or more of the shares or participation interests, or 25 per cent or more of the voting shares, or who has the right to appoint a majority of the board of directors or an equivalent governing body. The “more than 25 per cent” threshold belongs to a different term on the same form, the beneficial proprietor as defined in anti-money-laundering legislation. For a foreign beneficiary the form provides a field for the identification number of the foreign person in the country of incorporation.

Finally, evidence of origin. Paragraph 5.1(4) of the model contract within Rules No. 687 was restated by orders of the Minister of Finance of 21 August 2025 No. 456, 13 February 2026 No. 102 and 2 July 2026 No. 455. Where the goods are of Kazakhstani origin, or are subject to an exemption from national treatment, an extract from the register of Kazakhstani goods producers is furnished. Where the goods are of foreign origin, the original or a copy of the relevant certificate of origin issued by the competent authority or organisation of the country of import is furnished, in accordance with the ratified international treaties in force or with the Rules for determining the country of origin of goods, issuing the certificate of origin and cancelling its effect, approved by order of the Minister of Trade and Integration of the Republic of Kazakhstan of 13 July 2021 No. 454-NQ (registered with the Ministry of Justice on 14 July 2021 under No. 23514; the title was restated by order of 31 July 2025 No. 231-NQ with effect from 1 January 2026). The requirement applies only to contracts whose value exceeds one thousand times the monthly calculation index, that is 4,325,000 tenge in 2026.

Bid Security, Anti-Dumping Thresholds and the Mandatory Advance

Three financial mechanisms determine what it costs to bid in Kazakhstan and how far the price may be cut.

Bid security

Article 10(9) of Law No. 106-VIII sets a band of 1 to 3 per cent of the sum allocated for the purchase. The detail sits in paragraph 104 of Rules No. 687 as restated by order of the Minister of Finance of the Republic of Kazakhstan of 14 July 2025 No. 358: 1 per cent for a tender and an auction, 3 per cent for a request for price quotations and 3 per cent for a turnkey construction tender. Where a supplier bids for several lots, security is furnished separately for each lot, and compliance is verified automatically by the web portal on submission.

Paragraph 105 of Rules No. 687 permits exactly two forms: money held in the potential supplier’s electronic wallet on the web portal, or a bank guarantee furnished in the form of an electronic document. A paper bank guarantee is permitted only in the cases provided for by article 26 of the Law, that is under the special procedure for procurement of goods, works and services for law-and-order and national security needs where the information constitutes a state secret or contains restricted official information designated by the Government, and for procurement where the information itself constitutes a state secret.

For a foreign supplier this is the single tightest bottleneck in the whole procedure. Paragraph 105 itself says nothing about the bank’s residence — it requires the form of an electronic document. But an electronic guarantee has to pass through integration with the procurement web portal, and in practice that integration is provided by second-tier banks of the Republic of Kazakhstan; a guarantee from a foreign bank issued on paper or by SWIFT message does not meet the electronic-document form. The practical conclusion: either money in the portal’s electronic wallet, or a guarantee from a Kazakhstani bank — which in turn requires an open account and completed compliance. Because security is furnished lot by lot, a supplier bidding five lots of equal size ties up five times the single-lot amount at once, and each part is released only as the relevant event occurs, within three working days of it (paragraphs 111 and 112 of Rules No. 687). The procedure is set out in a separate piece on opening a bank account in Kazakhstan for a foreign company and a non-resident; support with opening the account and negotiating the guarantee with the bank sits in UPPERSETUP banking services.

Security is forfeited where the winner evades conclusion of the contract and where it fails to meet the requirements on furnishing the contract performance security and the advance security (paragraphs 107 and 108 of Rules No. 687). In the ordinary course security is returned within three working days of the relevant event (paragraphs 111 and 112).

Anti-dumping thresholds

Article 13 of Law No. 106-VIII defines a dumping price as one below the threshold set by the Public Procurement Rules, and prohibits the submission of dumping prices save in the cases expressly provided for by the Rules and on condition that the supplier furnishes an additional sum on top of the contract performance security. The specific thresholds are in paragraphs 85 to 99 of Rules No. 687.

The table omits two thresholds that are tied to tariffs rather than percentages. Paragraph 89 of Rules No. 687, as restated by order of the acting Minister of Finance of the Republic of Kazakhstan of 2 July 2026 No. 455, fixes the dumping line for comprehensive non-departmental expert review of construction projects by reference to a cost set under separate rules. Paragraph 89-1, added by order of the Minister of Finance of the Republic of Kazakhstan of 19 December 2025 No. 791 with effect from 1 January 2026, does the same for the services of collective copyright management organisations, by reference to minimum royalty rates.

The logic behind that allocation is simple, and unwelcome for a foreign supplier. Under paragraph 96 of Rules No. 687, in the cases covered by paragraphs 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92 and 93 — construction, roads, design, non-departmental expert review, engineering, the social order and catering — dumping prices may not be submitted at all: the system will not accept them. Dumping is permitted only in the residual category of paragraph 94, that is ordinary goods, works and services, and only where the supplier furnishes, in addition to the contract performance security, a sum equal to the reduction below the minimum permissible non-dumping price (paragraph 95). An equivalent rule applies to the request for price quotations (paragraphs 97 and 98).

For the electronic shop the rule is harsher still: a price quotation more than 30 per cent below the arithmetic mean is rejected by the electronic shop automatically, without human involvement (paragraph 99 of Rules No. 687).

A foreign supplier whose competitive strategy rests on aggressive pricing must understand that the 10 per cent corridor below the allocated sum applies only to the residual category of paragraph 94, and that beyond it lies not victory but an additional deposit. In the paragraph 85 to 93 categories — construction, roads, design, expert review, engineering, the social order and catering — there is no corridor at all: the system will not accept the price.

The mandatory advance on “closed” goods

Paragraph 24 of Rules No. 687, as restated by order of the Minister of Finance of the Republic of Kazakhstan of 13 February 2026 No. 102, requires customers to record in the annual procurement plan an advance payment of 30 per cent of the allocated sum, excluding value added tax, for procurements of construction and installation works and of goods subject to a government exemption from national treatment. For construction and installation works the customer decides for itself whether an advance is needed; for “closed” goods the rule is framed as an obligation.

This is a cash bonus layered directly on top of the protection: a producer inside the sheltered perimeter is not only spared competition from imports but receives a third of the contract up front.

Procedural Deadlines: How Much Time a Foreign Supplier Actually Has

The speed of Kazakh procedures is an underrated barrier. For a company that must translate documentation, clear pricing with head office, obtain a bank guarantee and arrange an electronic digital signature, the deadlines in Rules No. 687 bite harder than any formal restriction.

The tender sequence runs as follows.

Even with the preliminary discussion stage running in full, the total cycle from announcement to the close of bidding is about ten working days, roughly two calendar weeks. Where no discussion is held, the minimum is five working days, which with weekends gives up to seven calendar days.

That should be set against the rule in the Treaty on the Eurasian Economic Union. Paragraph 2(3) of Annex No. 1 to the Protocol on the Procedure for Regulating Procurement (Annex No. 25 to the Treaty) requires the tender announcement and the tender documentation to be published within the periods provided for by the member state’s procurement legislation but no less than fifteen calendar days before the closing date for the submission of bids; where amendments are made, the period is extended so that no less than ten calendar days remain. Paragraph 5 of the Protocol applies that requirement expressly to procurement by tender.

How large the divergence is depends on where the clock starts. The fifteen-day period in Annex No. 25 attaches to publication of the announcement and the tender documentation, whereas under paragraph 163 of Rules No. 687 what is published is the announcement and only a draft of the documentation; the approved documentation appears with the preliminary discussion protocol, that is five working days before bidding closes. Measured on Annex No. 25’s own trigger — the approved documentation — about seven calendar days remain even on the full cycle. Measured from the announcement with the draft, some fourteen calendar days accumulate. Where no preliminary discussion is held, paragraph 166 applies and no more than seven calendar days remain from the announcement. Given article 4(2) of Law No. 106-VIII, which establishes the priority of ratified international treaties, the relationship between these rules matters most for suppliers from EAEU member states, who have a treaty basis on which to raise it. The forum is nevertheless limited: a complaint under article 25 runs to the customer and cannot disapply a provision of the Rules, and paragraph 33 of Annex No. 25 gives the Commission, not the supplier, the power to require repeal. For a third-country supplier it is simply a planning fact: preparation must be complete before the announcement is published, not after.

Hence the only workable tactic is to monitor the annual procurement plans that customers publish on the web portal in advance, rather than to react to announcements. The annual plan gives months to prepare; the announcement gives days.

Adjacent Regimes Frequently Confused with Public Procurement

A large share of the wrong decisions foreign suppliers make comes from conflating four distinct regimes. Their wording is similar; their requirements are radically different.

The quasi-public sector. The Law of the Republic of Kazakhstan of 8 June 2021 No. 47-VII “On Procurement by Certain Quasi-Public Sector Entities” came into force on 1 January 2022 and covers national managing holdings, national holdings, national companies and their subsidiaries. The architecture mirrors the procurement law: article 3(2) establishes the priority of ratified international treaties, and article 4(6) states the principle of support for Kazakhstani goods producers “to the extent that this does not contradict international treaties ratified by the Republic of Kazakhstan”. Law No. 188-VIII of 19 May 2025 added article 3(3): procurement by certain quasi-public sector entities is carried out having regard to the requirements of the Law “On Industrial Policy”. That is the key difference — quasi-public procurement has a direct link to industrial policy that public procurement does not.

The regime is larger than is commonly assumed, and two figures set side by side explain why. According to the Samruk-Kazyna sovereign wealth fund’s own statement of 28 January 2025, contracts worth 1.1 trillion tenge were concluded with domestic goods producers in 2024, a 76 per cent increase on 2023. According to figures published on the information resource of the Prime Minister of the Republic of Kazakhstan on 10 August 2026, that volume reached 2.17 trillion tenge in 2025 across more than 8,900 contracts with 2,283 domestic producers. In that same year, 2025, the entire public procurement system concluded contracts worth 456 billion tenge with Kazakhstani goods producers, across 169,000 contracts. One quasi-public holding therefore bought almost five times as much from domestic producers as the whole state sector operating under Law No. 106-VIII.

Subsoil use. The Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan of 27 December 2017 No. 125-VI “On Subsoil and Subsoil Use” carries the country’s most demanding internal value requirements, and they have nothing to do with public procurement. Article 28 has been amended six times, most recently by the Law of the Republic of Kazakhstan of 30 December 2025 No. 249-VIII. Its paragraph 2 provides that the internal value share in works and services acquired for subsoil operations, as fixed in the terms of subsoil use contracts and solid-minerals production licences, must be no less than 70 per cent of the total volume of works and services acquired in a calendar year; the share is calculated under the Unified Methodology. The provision does not apply to contracts for exploration and production of hydrocarbons under complex projects on subsoil plots wholly or partly within the Kazakhstan sector of the Caspian Sea.

Article 131(1) of the Code preserves the 20 per cent conditional reduction of the bid price for Kazakhstani producers of works and services in hydrocarbon exploration or production operations. The definition of such a producer is strictly quantitative: individual entrepreneurs or legal entities established under the law of the Republic of Kazakhstan, with their seat in the territory of the Republic of Kazakhstan, whose workforce is no less than 95 per cent citizens of the Republic of Kazakhstan, excluding managers, executives and specialists working under intra-corporate transfer; and the number of foreign managers, executives and specialists working under intra-corporate transfer must be no more than 50 per cent of total headcount in each relevant category.

Article 131(7) excludes two categories from the requirements of article 131(1): subsoil users purchasing goods, works and services under public procurement legislation; and holders of subsoil use rights in which a national managing holding owns, directly or indirectly, 50 per cent or more of the voting shares or participation interests. In addition, the article does not apply to procurement under contracts for the exploration and production, or production, of hydrocarbons under complex projects (article 131(8)). Licensing and industry entry are covered separately in a piece on subsoil use in Kazakhstan in 2026. One practical point deserves emphasis: the 95 per cent staffing threshold and the 50 per cent cap on foreign managers on intra-corporate transfer are a question of workforce structure and foreign-labour permits, not of a single transaction; recruitment and documentation are covered by UPPERSETUP HR services.

Internal value development programmes under article 61-1 of Law No. 86-VII form the fourth layer. They are addressed not to suppliers but to large customers, and they generate demand for local content from above: where a solid-minerals subsoil user, a natural monopoly or a systemically important enterprise must agree target internal value indicators with the ministry, it will structure its procurement so as to meet them. For a foreign supplier this means that even absent a formal prohibition, the counterparty’s commercial incentive runs against imports.

Appeals Against Results and the Register of Unreliable Participants

Two institutions close the participation cycle: the ability to challenge a result, and the risk of ending up on a blacklist.

Appeals

Article 25(1) of Law No. 106-VIII gives a potential supplier the right to challenge, through the web portal, the acts, omissions and decisions of the customer, the organiser, the single organiser, the expert commission or the expert within three working days of publication of the results protocol of a procurement conducted by tender or auction. While the complaint is under consideration, the period for concluding the contract is suspended. The customer decides whether to uphold or dismiss the complaint within three working days of the expiry of the complaint period (article 25(2)).

Article 25(6) makes the pre-trial procedure mandatory. There is no direct route to court. At the same time, challenging the customer’s decision in administrative court proceedings does not suspend the procurement procedures (article 25(3)) — which means that by the time a court hears the case the contract will in all likelihood have been concluded and partly performed.

Article 25(7) contains a rule that foreign suppliers tend to discover too late: the results of procurements in which the winner is determined automatically by the web portal are not subject to appeal under that article.

How paragraphs 1 and 7 of article 25 fit together is not obvious on the present wording, and that should be stated honestly. Paragraph 1 names tenders and auctions expressly; yet paragraph 49 of the auction documentation (annex 18 to Rules No. 687) provides that the web portal automatically determines the auction winner on the basis of the lowest price, and paragraph 273 of the Rules that the web portal automatically compares participants’ conditional prices and determines the tender winner. A literal reading of paragraph 7 would empty paragraph 1 entirely, so the more reliable construction is the narrow one, under which paragraph 7 operates where a subordinate act says so expressly. The one such case is named in paragraph 297 of Rules No. 687: the results of a tender using the rating and points system are not subject to appeal under article 25 of the Law. Requests for price quotations and the electronic shop are not within article 25(1) in the first place, so that appeal procedure does not reach them at all.

The point at which effort should be applied therefore shifts. What must be challenged is not the result but the tender documentation, at the preliminary discussion stage, within two working days of publication of the announcement (paragraph 7 of the annex to Rules No. 687). The customer’s decision following the preliminary discussion is challengeable in the manner prescribed by the Law (paragraph 14 of the annex). This is where article 11(3) of Law No. 106-VIII operates, prohibiting qualification requirements that restrict and unreasonably complicate participation, or that do not arise from the obligations under the contract. It is not the only possible channel — article 7(6) and article 14(2) allow the authorised body and the state audit bodies to establish breaches at any stage — but it is the only one the supplier itself can start, on a predictable timetable.

The register of unreliable participants

The register of unreliable participants in public procurement is one of six registers maintained by the competent authority under article 8(1) of Law No. 106-VIII. Article 8(4) covers four categories: those who furnished false information; winners who evaded conclusion of the contract; suppliers who failed to perform their contractual obligations; and suppliers who performed them improperly.

Entries under sub-paragraphs 1, 3 and 4 are made on the basis of court judgments that have entered into legal force. The customer or organiser must file a claim no later than thirty calendar days from the date it learned of the breach, or from termination or expiry of the contract.

There is an important mitigation: under sub-paragraph 4, improper performance, the customer need not file a claim where three conditions are cumulatively met — the supplier has paid the penalty, fine or default interest; the contractual obligations have been performed; and the customer has suffered no loss.

The scale of the register shows where the real risk lies. According to the public procurement web portal as at 14 September 2026, entries break down by ground as follows.

The rows above sum to 216,884 entries. The aggregate the portal displays in its “Total” line is 224,710, which does not match the breakdown, so the total figure should be verified directly on the portal. The shares in the table are computed on the sum of the rows, not on the “Total” line. The register of unreliable participants in quasi-public sector procurement is far smaller, at 155 entries.

The portal’s ground labels are historical and do not track the wording of the operative Law. Article 8(4) of Law No. 106-VIII recognises four categories, while the portal shows five, breaking out late furnishing of contract performance security as a separate line. The line “breach of the requirements of article 6 of the Law” refers to article 6 of the formerprocurement law, where the restrictions sat; in Law No. 106-VIII article 6 is headed “The public procurement process” and imposes no restrictions.

The structure of the data is instructive. Some 98 per cent of all entries arise from failures at or after the contract stage: non-performance, late furnishing of performance security and evasion of signature. False information in a bid accounts for under 1 per cent. For a foreign supplier that is a direct indication of where the risk sits — not at the bidding stage but after winning. Winning a lot and then missing the deadline for performance security because of bank transfer timing is the second most common route onto the Kazakhstani blacklist, and the most avoidable of them.

The restriction in article 7(1)(7) of the Law extends beyond the company itself: sub-paragraphs 3, 5 and 6 also close access to entities whose director, founder or major shareholder is connected with the management, establishment or share capital of persons on the register, or is himself or herself listed on it. Sub-paragraph 4 stands apart: it concerns a director’s connection with legal entities affiliated with the customer, not with the register. Article 7(2) extends the restrictions in sub-paragraphs 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 to persons on the register of unreliable participants in quasi-public sector procurement and on the sovereign wealth fund’s list of unreliable potential suppliers.

Step-by-Step Route into Kazakhstan’s Public Procurement

The sequence below is written for a foreign company that has not previously worked in Kazakhstan’s public procurement market. The order matters: at several steps the answer may be negative, and further spending becomes pointless.

Step 1. Identify the ENSTRU code for your goods, works or services. Restrictions in Kazakhstan operate not by industry label but by code from the single nomenclature classifier of goods, works and services: the lists approved by the sector ministry under paragraph 3 of each exemption resolution are written in those codes. The National Catalogue of Goods (article 3(32-1) of Law No. 106-VIII) is a separate object whose unique code is entered at the contract performance stage.

Step 2. Check the code against the operative exemption lists. The “National treatment” section of the public procurement web portal carries a table of operative resolutions with their lists attached. As at 14 September 2026 these are Government Resolutions No. 824, No. 149 and No. 314, together with the trusted software and electronics register row, which the portal shows without an expiry date and without a link to an operative resolution. Check the validity period of each row: Resolution No. 447 of 7 June 2024 expired on 6 July 2026.

Step 3. If the code is on a list, weigh three options. The first is to bid through a Kazakhstani production entity entered in the register of Kazakhstani goods producers. The second, for vehicles and agricultural machinery, is paragraph 23(1) of Rules No. 687: persons entered in the register of representatives — distributors or dealers — of manufacturers of such machinery are also admitted to closed lots. A dealership agreement alone is not enough: the web portal checks register entry automatically against data held by the competent authority for industrial development. The third is to wait for the repeat procurement: under the fourth part of paragraph 23, where no bids are received the procurement is run among all potential suppliers.

Step 4. Test yourself against article 7 of Law No. 106-VIII. Check sub-paragraph 12 separately — registration in states on the list of offshore zones. The check reaches the operating company itself as well as its founders or shareholders and persons affiliated with them, and its outcome may require the group to be reorganised before the first bid. Note that under paragraph 212(3) of Rules No. 687 for tenders and paragraph 394(3) for auctions, the grounds in sub-paragraphs 10, 11 and 12 are checked by the commission against open sources, not automatically by the web portal.

Step 5. Check for tax arrears. The threshold under article 11(1)(2) of the Law is six times the monthly calculation index, which is 25,950 tenge in 2026.

Step 6. Decide on the form of presence. For regular participation involving supply, warranty service and settlement in tenge, a Kazakhstani legal entity is the practical answer. A one-off supply is possible directly, using paragraph 523 of Rules No. 687, which permits a paper contract with a non-resident.

Step 7. Arrange access to the web portal. An electronic digital signature is required. For suppliers from EAEU member states, article 88(1) of the EAEU Treaty and paragraph 4 of Annex No. 25 provide for mutual recognition of the electronic digital signature, but the recognition rules are assigned to the Council of the Commission, so the technical applicability of the mechanism to a particular signature should be confirmed with the single operator before bidding.

Step 8. Open a bank account and settle the security instrument. Paragraph 105 of Rules No. 687 permits money in the portal’s electronic wallet or a bank guarantee in the form of an electronic document; a paper guarantee is available only in the article 26 cases. Discuss the issue of a guarantee in electronic form with the bank in advance, not after winning.

Step 9. Move from announcements to annual plans. Customers publish annual procurement plans on the web portal. The five working days under paragraph 164 of Rules No. 687 leave no time to prepare from scratch.

Step 10. At the preliminary discussion stage, submit comments on the draft tender documentation. The deadline is two working days from publication of the announcement (paragraph 7 of the annex to Rules No. 687). This is in practice the only moment at which a supplier can have a discriminatory requirement removed on its own initiative, relying on article 11(3) of the Law.

Step 11. Calculate your price floor. For ordinary goods, works and services a reduction of more than 10 per cent below the allocated sum is treated as dumping (paragraph 94 of Rules No. 687). A deeper cut is possible only against an additional sum furnished on top of the contract performance security (paragraph 95).

Step 12. Prepare origin and beneficial ownership documents. For goods of foreign origin, obtain a certificate of origin issued by the competent authority of the country of import; it is required where the contract value exceeds one thousand times the monthly calculation index, that is 4,325,000 tenge. In every case, complete annex 4 to the tender documentation with the beneficial owner’s details.

Step 13. Furnish bid security separately for each lot. Paragraph 104 of Rules No. 687: 1 per cent for a tender and an auction, 3 per cent for a request for price quotations and for a turnkey construction tender.

Step 14. Once the results protocol is published, count three working days. That is the appeal period under article 25(1) of the Law, which covers tenders and auctions. Note that paragraph 297 of Rules No. 687 excludes the results of a rating-and-points tender from that procedure, and that requests for price quotations and the electronic shop fall outside article 25(1) altogether.

Step 15. After winning, furnish the contract performance security immediately. Late furnishing of performance security accounts for 27.30 per cent of all entries in the register of unreliable participants — second among all grounds.

Step 16. If you have built production in Kazakhstan, apply to the register of Kazakhstani goods producers early.Digital verification takes three working days and production assessment ten working days, and the assessment period is suspended for the duration of any on-site inspection, for which the Rules set no outer limit. Most of the 26 verification criteria rest on tax reporting for the preceding calendar year, so the realistic horizon is at least one full reporting year of operation.

Legal review of the ownership structure, the contractual documentation and compliance with the article 7 restrictions is best carried out before the first bid: legal support at that stage costs less than restructuring after a bid has been rejected.

Common Mistakes and What They Cost

Mistake 1. Working to “Kazakhstani content” and the CT-KZ certificate. Article 68 of Law No. 86-VII and the Unified Methodology approved by order No. 260 provided that the certificate of origin in form “CT-KZ” and the industrial certificate retained their effect until 1 January 2026, and that their issue stopped on the same date. The supporting document is now the extract from the register of Kazakhstani goods producers. Cost: without the extract, the coefficient Mi in the internal value calculation is taken as zero, and under paragraph 5.1(4) of the model contract a supply of goods subject to an exemption cannot be properly documented — leading to refusal of acceptance and a dispute over improper performance.

Mistake 2. Assuming either that a Kazakhstani supplier has no price advantage left, or that it is still 20 per cent.Both extremes are wrong. The discount of up to 20 per cent has gone from the procurement statute, but paragraph 271-1 of Rules No. 687 gives a bidder in the register of Kazakhstani goods producers a 3 per cent conditional discount, and paragraph 261 adds 2 per cent for presence in the administrative-territorial unit where the works or services are performed. Twenty per cent survives only in article 131(1) of the Code on Subsoil and Subsoil Use for subsoil users’ procurement of works and services in hydrocarbon operations. Cost: a mispriced bid in either direction — either a redundant 20 per cent cushion and lost margin, or an assumption of parity and defeat by a registered competitor on a gap of under 3 per cent.

Mistake 3. Relying on an outdated list of exemptions. Resolutions No. 893, No. 904, No. 99, No. 190 and No. 191 have been repealed; Resolution No. 207 lapsed on the expiry of its two-year term, and Resolution No. 447 expired on 6 July 2026. Cost: in one direction, abandoning preparation for a procurement that is in fact open; in the other, the cost of preparing a bid the portal will reject automatically, together with the loss of bid security of 1 to 3 per cent of the lot value if the company then evades at a later stage.

Mistake 4. Preparing a paper bank guarantee from a foreign bank. Paragraph 105 of Rules No. 687 permits only money in the potential supplier’s electronic wallet or a bank guarantee in the form of an electronic document; paper is available only in the article 26 cases, that is under the special procedure for procurement involving state secrets. Cost: the bid is not accepted by the web portal and participation in the lot is lost, with no possibility of correction within the submission period.

Mistake 5. Ignoring the offshore restriction when structuring the group. Article 7(1)(12) of Law No. 106-VIII closes access where founders, shareholders or persons affiliated with them are registered in a state on the list of offshore zones. Cost: rejection by the tender commission under paragraph 212(3) of Rules No. 687 irrespective of the quality of the offer; correction requires reorganisation of the ownership structure, that is months and corporate expense, not a re-filed bid.

Mistake 6. Reacting to announcements rather than annual plans. The minimum bid submission period under paragraph 164 of Rules No. 687 is five working days. Cost: structural inability to bid for procurements that require translation of technical documentation, pricing approval from head office and issue of a bank guarantee — in effect the loss of the entire large-lot segment.

Mistake 7. Cutting the price by more than 10 per cent without additional security. Paragraph 94 of Rules No. 687 treats a price more than 10 per cent below the allocated sum as dumping, and paragraph 95 permits such a cut only against a sum furnished, in addition to the contract performance security, equal to the reduction below the minimum permissible price. Under paragraphs 85 to 93 dumping prices may not be submitted at all. Cost: rejection of the bid, or an unplanned diversion of working capital equal to the whole amount of the reduction.

Mistake 8. Assuming any procurement result can be appealed. Article 25(1) of Law No. 106-VIII names only tenders and auctions; requests for price quotations and the electronic shop are outside that procedure altogether, and paragraph 297 of Rules No. 687 expressly excludes appeals against the results of a tender using the rating and points system. Cost: the two-day preliminary discussion window — in practice the only moment at which a supplier can have a discriminatory requirement removed on its own initiative — is missed; once the protocol is published for a request for price quotations, the electronic shop or a rating-and-points tender, no remedy under article 25 remains, and any challenge has to go through general administrative procedure, which does not suspend the procurement.

Mistake 9. Relaxing after the award. Late furnishing of contract performance security accounts for 59,217 entries in the register of unreliable participants, 27.30 per cent of all grounds and second only to non-performance. Cost: entry in the register on the basis of a court judgment, followed by closure of access not only for the company itself but, under article 7(1)(3), (5) and (6) of the Law, for legal entities connected through a shared director, founder or major shareholder.

Mistake 10. Incorporating a Kazakhstani company immediately before applying to the register of Kazakhstani goods producers. Most of the 26 digital verification criteria in paragraph 12 of Rules No. 327 rest on tax reporting for the calendar year preceding the year of application. Cost: a low production-activity score and an automatic reasoned refusal under paragraph 14 of Rules No. 327 before the production assessment stage is even reached; a further application is possible only once the deficiencies have been cured, which in practice means once a genuine operating record exists.

Who Should Pursue Kazakhstan’s Public Procurement, and Who Should Not

It makes sense where at least one of the following holds:

•          The company is registered in an EAEU member state. Paragraph 30 of Annex No. 25 to the EAEU Treaty stands behind it, as does the mutual recognition of electronic digital signatures provided for by article 88(1) of the Treaty — a mechanism whose technical applicability to a particular signature still has to be confirmed with the single operator. Paragraph 286 of Rules No. 687 also supplies identifiers expressly: INN and SNILS for residents of the Russian Federation, UNP for residents of the Republic of Belarus.

•          The goods or services appear on none of the operative exemption lists. That covers the overwhelming majority of the nomenclature: the closed perimeters take in the paper, light, machine-building, chemical, metallurgical, construction and furniture industries, and the trusted software row, which the portal applies without citing an operative resolution.

•          The goods fall into a category not produced in the territory of the Republic of Kazakhstan and, decisively, the ENSTRU code does not appear on the sector ministry’s approved list. All three operative resolutions carry the express carve-out for goods not produced in Kazakhstan, but that carve-out takes effect through omission from the ministry’s code list, not through the bidder’s own assessment: the portal checks the code, not the market.

•          The company is willing to localise production. A Kazakhstani legal entity with foreign participation is a resident and, with genuine production, can enter the register of Kazakhstani goods producers — with access to closed lots and to the mandatory 30 per cent advance under paragraph 24 of Rules No. 687.

•          The subject is complex equipment or technology for which no Kazakhstani equivalent exists and where competition does not in substance arise.

It does not make sense where:

•          The product is on an exemption list, the company does not intend to establish production in Kazakhstan, and it is not a manufacturer of vehicles or agricultural machinery, for which paragraph 23 of Rules No. 687 opens a route through a distributor or dealer. There is no pricing solution: the filter sits on the subject and is applied when the bid is submitted.

•          A holding company in a jurisdiction on the list of states with preferential taxation sits above the operating entity. Article 7(1)(12) of Law No. 106-VIII closes access at the level of the ownership structure.

•          The business model rests on aggressive price undercutting. The 10 per cent corridor in paragraph 94 of Rules No. 687 and the outright prohibition on dumping under paragraphs 85 to 93 make that strategy unworkable.

•          The company cannot operate to deadlines of five working days for bidding and three working days for appeals.

•          The company’s only competitive advantage is an international track record. Article 11(1)(5) of the Law counts work experience only under contracts within public procurement and other contracts recorded in the digital systems of Kazakhstan’s state bodies.

•          The company expects protection under the WTO Agreement on Government Procurement. Kazakhstan is not a party to it — only an observer, since 19 October 2016.

A middle path. For companies that want a market presence without immediate localisation, two structures work: supply through a Kazakhstani distributor that meets the qualification requirements in its own right, and participation as a subcontractor or co-performer. In the second case it should be remembered that the article 11(1) requirements of Law No. 106-VIII apply expressly to engaged subcontractors and co-performers, and that among the article 7 restrictions sub-paragraphs 9, 10 and 11 of paragraph 1 name them expressly, so the whole chain is screened.

A separate decision point is the choice of legal form of presence in the country. The differences between a limited liability partnership and structures within the Astana International Financial Centre are analysed in AIFC or LLP: choosing a jurisdiction inside Kazakhstan. For public procurement purposes what matters is that the register of Kazakhstani goods producers requires resident status in the Republic of Kazakhstan and genuine production, not a registered address.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can a foreign company take part in Kazakhstan’s public procurement?

Yes. Law of the Republic of Kazakhstan No. 106-VIII does not prohibit non-resident participation and expressly contemplates it: article 11(5) sets out the documents of a non-resident potential supplier, paragraph 523 of Rules No. 687 permits a paper contract with a non-resident, and the price quotation form contains fields for foreign identifiers and for the bid currency. A restriction arises only where the Government has imposed an exemption from national treatment for the particular ENSTRU code.

What is an exemption from national treatment in Kazakhstan?

An exemption from national treatment is an act of the Government of the Republic of Kazakhstan excluding goods, works or services of foreign origin from equal access to public procurement for no more than two years. The basis is article 9(2) of Law No. 106-VIII. Under paragraph 23 of Rules No. 687, the closed lots admit only three classes of person: those entered in the register of Kazakhstani goods producers; those entered in the register of representatives — distributors or dealers — of manufacturers of vehicles and agricultural machinery; and those entered in the register of trusted software and electronics industry products.

Does the 20 per cent Kazakhstani content discount still apply in 2026?

Not in public procurement, though a smaller price advantage survives. The conditional reduction of the bid price, recorded at paragraph 943 of the WTO Working Party Report on Kazakhstan’s accession as “up to 20 per cent” for goods producers and “up to 15 per cent” for suppliers of services and works, does not appear in Law No. 106-VIII. In its place, paragraph 271-1 of Rules No. 687 gives a 3 per cent conditional discount for presence in the register of Kazakhstani goods producers, and paragraph 261 gives 2 per cent for presence in the administrative-territorial unit where the works or services are performed. The 20 per cent conditional reduction survives only in article 131(1) of the Code on Subsoil and Subsoil Use for subsoil users’ procurement of works and services in hydrocarbon exploration or production operations.

Is a CT-KZ certificate needed to bid in Kazakhstan in 2026?

No. Article 68 of the Law of the Republic of Kazakhstan No. 86-VII “On Industrial Policy”, as amended by the Law of 19 May 2025 No. 188-VIII, provided that certificates of origin in form “CT-KZ” and industrial certificates retained their effect until 1 January 2026 and that their issue stopped on the same date; the Unified Methodology approved by order No. 260 repeats the rule at the level of the calculation. The supporting document is now the extract from the register of Kazakhstani goods producers issued under order of the Minister of Industry and Construction of the Republic of Kazakhstan of 27 August 2025 No. 327.

Can a non-resident enter the register of Kazakhstani goods producers?

No. Article 1(7-1) of Law No. 86-VII “On Industrial Policy” and paragraph 3(1) of Rules No. 327 define a Kazakhstani goods producer and an applicant as a business entity that is a resident of the Republic of Kazakhstan. A non-resident does not fall within the definition of applicant. The available route is a Kazakhstani legal entity with genuine production; the share of foreign ownership in it is irrelevant.

What bid security is required in Kazakhstan’s public procurement?

One per cent of the sum allocated for the purchase for a tender and an auction; 3 per cent for a request for price quotations and for a turnkey construction tender — paragraph 104 of Rules No. 687. Only two forms are permitted: money in the potential supplier’s electronic wallet on the web portal, or a bank guarantee in the form of an electronic document. Where several lots are bid for, security is furnished separately for each lot.

Is Kazakhstan a party to the WTO Agreement on Government Procurement?

No. As at 14 September 2026 Kazakhstan is listed as an observer on the WTO Committee on Government Procurement with effect from 19 October 2016, flagged as pending accession negotiations. The commitment to open negotiations by submitting an Appendix I offer within four years of WTO accession is recorded at paragraph 949 of Working Party Report WT/ACC/KAZ/93 of 23 June 2015; the accession application was filed on 29 November 2019.

How long is the bidding window in a Kazakhstani tender?

No less than five working days from publication of the preliminary discussion protocol and the approved tender documentation — paragraph 164 of Rules No. 687. For a tender using the rating and points system, no less than three working days. For repeat procurements, no less than three working days. By comparison, paragraph 2(3) of Annex No. 1 to the Protocol on the Procedure for Regulating Procurement under the EAEU Treaty requires publication no less than fifteen calendar days before the close of bidding.

What happens if no Kazakhstani producer bids for a “closed” lot?

The procurement is declared to have failed for want of bids and is run again by the competitive methods specified in article 10 of the Law among all potential suppliers. This is expressly provided by the fourth part of paragraph 23 of Rules No. 687 and is the principal way for a foreign supplier to reach a closed industry without localising — alongside the distributor channel under paragraph 23(1) for vehicles and agricultural machinery. The repeat procurement is a contingency rather than a strategy: it arises only where no bid at all was submitted first time round, and a supplier cannot bring it about.

How far can the price be cut without triggering anti-dumping measures?

For ordinary goods, works and services the line is 10 per cent below the sum allocated for the tender (paragraph 94 of Rules No. 687). A deeper cut is permitted only against a sum furnished, in addition to the contract performance security, equal to the reduction below the minimum permissible price (paragraph 95). For construction and installation works the threshold is 2 per cent and for medium repair of motor roads 5 per cent, and in those categories dumping prices may not be submitted at all (paragraph 96).

Can the results of a public procurement in Kazakhstan be appealed?

Only for tenders and auctions, within three working days of publication of the results protocol, through the web portal, and the pre-trial procedure is mandatory (article 25(1) and (6) of Law No. 106-VIII). Article 25(7) removes from that procedure results in which the winner is determined automatically by the web portal, and paragraph 297 of Rules No. 687 names such a case expressly — a tender using the rating and points system. Requests for price quotations and the electronic shop are not within article 25(1) at all. Court proceedings do not suspend the procurement.

Is a certificate of origin required for imported goods?

Yes, where the contract value exceeds one thousand times the monthly calculation index, that is 4,325,000 tenge at the 2026 index of 4,325 tenge. Paragraph 5.1(4) of the model contract requires the original or a copy of the certificate of origin issued by the competent authority or organisation of the country of import in accordance with ratified international treaties or with the Rules approved by order of the Minister of Trade and Integration of the Republic of Kazakhstan of 13 July 2021 No. 454-NQ.

Key Takeaways

1.        National treatment in Kazakhstan’s public procurement is not a presumption: under article 9(1) of Law No. 106-VIII it is granted only in the cases and on the conditions provided for by ratified international treaties.

2.        In practice this means that a treaty entitlement to national treatment belongs to suppliers from EAEU member states; suppliers from third countries have no such basis, because Kazakhstan is not a party to the WTO Agreement on Government Procurement.

3.        The absence of national treatment is not the same as a prohibition on participation: Law No. 106-VIII expressly contemplates non-resident participation, and Rules No. 687 contain specific provisions for cross-border transactions.

4.        The conditional discount of up to 20 per cent for Kazakhstani content has not applied in public procurement since 1 January 2025; what remains at subordinate-act level is a 3 per cent conditional discount for presence in the register of Kazakhstani goods producers (paragraph 271-1 of Rules No. 687) and 2 per cent for territorial presence at the place of the works or services (paragraph 261), with exemptions from national treatment as the principal instrument.

5.        As at 14 September 2026 three exemption resolutions are in force — No. 824 of 7 October 2025 (paper industry), No. 149 of 4 March 2026 (light industry, including works and services by foreign suppliers) and No. 314 of 23 April 2026 (machine building, chemicals, metallurgy, the construction industry and furniture) — alongside the restriction operating through the register of trusted software and electronics industry products, which the portal shows without an expiry date and without a link to an operative resolution.

6.        Access to the closed lots under paragraph 23 of Rules No. 687 runs to entities in the register of Kazakhstani goods producers, to representatives — distributors or dealers — of manufacturers of vehicles and agricultural machinery, and to entities in the register of trusted software; a Kazakhstani goods producer under article 1(7-1) of Law No. 86-VII can only be a resident of the Republic of Kazakhstan.

7.        Where no bid is received for a closed lot, the procurement is repeated among all potential suppliers — the fourth part of paragraph 23 of Rules No. 687.

8.        The “CT-KZ” certificate and the industrial certificate retained effect until 1 January 2026 under article 68 of Law No. 86-VII; they have been replaced by an extract from the register of Kazakhstani goods producers stating the internal value share.

9.        The internal value calculation under the Unified Methodology approved by order No. 260 serves monitoring and control, not the selection of a winner in public procurement.

10.    The 20 per cent conditional price reduction survives only in subsoil users’ procurement of works and services in hydrocarbon operations — article 131(1) of Code No. 125-VI, conditioned on citizens of Kazakhstan making up at least 95 per cent of total headcount excluding managers, executives and specialists on intra-corporate transfer, and on foreign managers, executives and specialists on intra-corporate transfer making up no more than 50 per cent of headcount in each relevant category.

11.    The financial parameters are strict: bid security of 1 to 3 per cent, only an electronic wallet or an electronic bank guarantee, and a dumping threshold of 10 per cent for ordinary procurement and 2 per cent for construction and installation works.

12.    The deadlines are short: no less than five working days to bid and three working days to appeal the results of a tender or auction, with a mandatory pre-trial procedure; the results of a rating-and-points tender cannot be appealed under the article 25 procedure, and requests for price quotations and the electronic shop fall outside it as well.

Summary

Public procurement in the Republic of Kazakhstan is governed by the Law of 1 July 2024 No. 106-VIII, in force since 1 January 2025, and by the Public Procurement Rules approved by order of the Minister of Finance of 9 October 2024 No. 687. National treatment is extended to foreign goods, works, services and non-resident suppliers only in the cases and on the conditions provided for by ratified international treaties (article 9(1)), which in practice means the member states of the Eurasian Economic Union; Kazakhstan is not a party to the WTO Agreement on Government Procurement and as at 14 September 2026 remains an observer on the WTO Committee with effect from 19 October 2016. The Law contains no prohibition on non-resident participation. The conditional discount of up to 20 per cent for Kazakhstani content has not applied in public procurement since 1 January 2025; in its place paragraph 271-1 of Rules No. 687 provides a 3 per cent conditional discount for presence in the register of Kazakhstani goods producers and paragraph 261 a 2 per cent discount for territorial presence at the place of the works or services. The principal protectionist instrument is now exemptions from national treatment, imposed by the Government for no more than two years (article 9(2)); as at 14 September 2026 exemptions are in force under Resolutions No. 824 of 7 October 2025, No. 149 of 4 March 2026 and No. 314 of 23 April 2026, together with the restriction operating through the register of trusted software and electronics industry products. Closed lots admit entities in the register of Kazakhstani goods producers, distributors and dealers of manufacturers of vehicles and agricultural machinery, and entities in the register of trusted software; only a resident of the Republic of Kazakhstan may be entered in the register of Kazakhstani goods producers under article 1(7-1) of the Law of 27 December 2021 No. 86-VII. The “CT-KZ” certificate and the industrial certificate were effective until 1 January 2026 under article 68 of that Law and have been replaced by an extract from the register of Kazakhstani goods producers. The 20 per cent preference survives only in subsoil users’ procurement of works and services under article 131(1) of the Code of 27 December 2017 No. 125-VI. Bid security is 1 to 3 per cent and is furnished as money in an electronic wallet or as an electronic bank guarantee; a price more than 10 per cent below the allocated sum is treated as dumping in ordinary procurement; the bidding period is no less than five working days; the appeal period is three working days and the pre-trial procedure is mandatory. The monthly calculation index for 2026 is 4,325 tenge.

Sources

Laws and codes of the Republic of Kazakhstan

1.        Law of the Republic of Kazakhstan of 1 July 2024 No. 106-VIII “On Public Procurement”

2.        Law of the Republic of Kazakhstan of 27 December 2021 No. 86-VII “On Industrial Policy”

3.        Law of the Republic of Kazakhstan of 8 June 2021 No. 47-VII “On Procurement by Certain Quasi-Public Sector Entities”

4.        Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan of 27 December 2017 No. 125-VI “On Subsoil and Subsoil Use”

5.        Digital Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan of 9 January 2026 No. 255-VIII

6.        Law of the Republic of Kazakhstan of 19 March 2010 No. 257-IV “On State Statistics”

7.        Law of the Republic of Kazakhstan of 8 December 2025 No. 239-VIII “On the Republican Budget for 2026 – 2028”

8.        Law of the Republic of Kazakhstan of 19 May 2025 No. 188-VIII on amendments concerning the determination of the country of origin of goods

9.        Law of the Republic of Kazakhstan of 15 March 2025 No. 172-VIII

10.    Law of the Republic of Kazakhstan of 18 July 2025 No. 215-VIII

11.    Law of the Republic of Kazakhstan of 9 January 2026 No. 256-VIII

12.    Law of the Republic of Kazakhstan of 11 June 2026 No. 306-VIII

13.    Law of the Republic of Kazakhstan of 24 June 2026 No. 324-VIII

14.    Law of the Republic of Kazakhstan of 14 July 2026 No. 350-VIII

15.    Law of the Republic of Kazakhstan of 23 July 2026 No. 352-VIII

16.    Law of the Republic of Kazakhstan of 30 December 2025 No. 249-VIII amending the Code “On Subsoil and Subsoil Use”

Subordinate legislation of the Republic of Kazakhstan

17.    Order of the Minister of Finance of the Republic of Kazakhstan of 9 October 2024 No. 687 approving the Public Procurement Rules (reg. No. 35238)

18.    Order of the Minister of Finance of the Republic of Kazakhstan of 7 October 2024 No. 671 approving the Rules for public procurement under the special procedure (reg. No. 35220)

19.    Government Resolution of the Republic of Kazakhstan of 15 October 2024 No. 853 approving the Rules for establishing exemptions from national treatment in public procurement

20.    Government Resolution of the Republic of Kazakhstan of 13 August 2025 No. 619 amending Resolution No. 853

21.    Government Resolution of the Republic of Kazakhstan of 7 October 2025 No. 824 on certain matters of establishing an exemption from national treatment (paper industry)

22.    Government Resolution of the Republic of Kazakhstan of 4 March 2026 No. 149 on certain matters of establishing an exemption from national treatment (light industry)

23.    Government Resolution of the Republic of Kazakhstan of 23 April 2026 No. 314 on certain matters of establishing an exemption from national treatment (machine building, chemicals, metallurgy, construction, furniture)

24.    Government Resolution of the Republic of Kazakhstan of 20 March 2024 No. 207 on establishing an exemption from national treatment (lapsed on expiry of its two-year term)

25.    Order of the Minister of Industry and Construction of the Republic of Kazakhstan of 27 August 2025 No. 327 approving the Rules for maintaining the register of Kazakhstani goods producers (reg. No. 36717)

26.    Order of the Minister for Investment and Development of the Republic of Kazakhstan of 20 April 2018 No. 260 approving the Unified Methodology for the calculation by organisations of internal value when procuring goods, works and services

27.    Order of the Minister of Trade and Integration of the Republic of Kazakhstan of 13 July 2021 No. 454-NQ approving the Rules for determining the country of origin of goods, issuing the certificate of origin and cancelling its effect (reg. No. 23514)

28.    Order of the Minister of Defence and Aerospace Industry of the Republic of Kazakhstan of 28 March 2018 No. 53/NQ approving the Rules for forming and maintaining the register of trusted software and electronics industry products (reg. No. 16750)

International treaties and acts of international organisations

29.    Treaty on the Eurasian Economic Union (Astana, 29 May 2014), ratified by the Law of the Republic of Kazakhstan of 14 October 2014 No. 240-V; section XXII and Annex No. 25

30.    Decision of the Council of the Eurasian Economic Commission of 23 November 2015 No. 69 approving the procedure for the Commission’s examination of notifications of exemptions from national treatment

31.    Order of the Council of the Eurasian Economic Commission of 13 July 2018 No. 19 on mutual recognition of the electronic digital signature in procurement

32.    Decision of the Board of the Eurasian Economic Commission of 22 August 2023 No. 120 on the Rules for recognising the electronic digital signature in an electronic document

33.    Advisory Opinion of the Grand Chamber of the Court of the Eurasian Economic Union of 11 January 2021 interpreting paragraphs 11 and 31 of Annex No. 25 to the EAEU Treaty

34.    Report of the Working Party on the Accession of the Republic of Kazakhstan to the WTO, document WT/ACC/KAZ/93 of 23 June 2015 (official Russian text in the Adilet system)

35.    Parties, observers and acceding governments of the WTO Agreement on Government Procurement

36.    WTO accession page for the Republic of Kazakhstan

Official information resources

37.    “National treatment” section of the public procurement web portal of the Republic of Kazakhstan

38.    Register of unreliable participants in public procurement

39.    Information resource of the Prime Minister of the Republic of Kazakhstan, publication of 10 August 2026 on support for domestic goods producers

40.    Samruk-Kazyna statement of 28 January 2025 on the fund’s 2024 results, including support for domestic goods producers

On method. Every legal proposition has been verified against the operative texts of the instruments in the Adilet legal information system of the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Kazakhstan (database updated to 11 September 2026), against the official website of the World Trade Organization, against the website of the Eurasian Economic Commission and against the public procurement web portal of the Republic of Kazakhstan, as at 14 September 2026. The amendment chains were checked separately: the most recent amendment to Rules No. 687 was made by the order of 31 August 2026 No. 587, and the most recent law amending Law No. 106-VIII is that of 23 July 2026 No. 352-VIII. The lists of goods subject to exemption from national treatment were counted directly from the files published on the public procurement web portal. Repealed instruments and expired exemptions are identified as such in the text and are not relied on in the conclusions. Statistical figures that could not be traced to a publication by an official body have been left out; where an official source’s own figures do not reconcile with one another, the discrepancy is shown rather than concealed.

Disclaimer. This material is for information purposes only and does not constitute legal, tax, financial, investment or consulting advice. Before taking any decision, individual professional advice should be obtained that takes into account the specific situation, the jurisdiction, the status of the company and the current requirements of the regulators.

September 2026.