Kazakhstan’s Permit to Attract Foreign Labour in 2026: The Quota, Categories 1–4, the Fee Scale and the Penalties

The permit to attract foreign labour is issued by the local executive body to the employer, not to the foreign worker, and without it an employment contract with a foreign national cannot be concluded. What governs entry is not an investment figure but the quota, the category of the position and the sector: in 2026 the fee for a single permit runs from 137 to 513 MRP — the monthly calculation index, the indexation unit used across Kazakhstani legislation — that is, from 592,525 to 2,218,725 tenge. A permit is valid only in the administrative-territorial units named in it and cannot be transferred to another employer.

Three things almost every account of this regime gets wrong.

One: the permit is governed by migration law, not employment law. The Law on Employment of the Population № 482-V of 6 April 2016 has been repealed — by the Social Code № 224-VII of 20 April 2023, with effect from 1 July 2023 — and there is no “employment law № 105-VII”: the number 105-VII belongs to a 2022 constitutional amendment law with nothing to do with labour. The operative statute is the Law on Population Migration of 22 July 2011 № 477-IV, articles 36-1, 37, 37-1, 37-2 and 37-3.

Two: the Rules are order № 279 of 30 June 2023, not “order № 279 of 27 June 2016”. Sources giving the second date have merged two different instruments: the 2016 rules were order № 559 of 27 June 2016(registered with the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) on 29 August 2016 under № 14170), and they were repealed by order № 279 of 30 June 2023. A citation to “№ 279 of 2016” is a reliable sign that the source was never checked against the primary text.

Three: the fee rates for 2026 sit in a new resolution, although the rates themselves did not change.Government Resolution № 157 of 3 April 2018 has been repealed; the instrument in force is Government Resolution № 819 of 3 October 2025, adopted under article 616(6) of the new Tax Code № 214-VIII. The MRP multiples are unchanged, but the MRP rose from 3,932 to 4,325 tenge on 1 January 2026, so the bill for an identical permit rose by roughly 10 per cent.

The Legal Framework: Where the Permit Actually Lives

The permit to attract foreign labour is governed by migration legislation. Employment legislation no longer applies to it: the relevant law was repealed in 2023 and its subject matter passed to the Social Code, which does not deal with the employment of foreign nationals at all.

The structure has four layers, and they must not be run together.

Layer	Instrument	What it governs
1. Statute	Law on Population Migration of 22 July 2011 № 477-IV, arts. 36-1, 37, 37-1, 37-2, 37-3	The existence of the permit, the quota, intra­-corpo­rate transfer, self-e­mploy­ment
2. Statute, adjacent	Labour Code of 23 November 2015 № 414-V, arts. 26, 30, 60	The bar on concluding a contract without a permit, and the tying of the contract term to the permit term
3. Subordinate, procedure	Order of the Deputy Prime Minister — Minister of Labour and Social Protection № 279 of 30 June 2023 (MoJ № 32977 of 30 June 2023)	Categories, local-co­ntent-i­n-staff ratios, durations, procedure, refusal and revocation
4. Subordinate, money and quota	Government Resolution № 819 of 3 October 2025 (fee rates); Order of the Minister of Labour and Social Protection № 397 of 12 December 2025 (the 2026 quota)	What it costs and how many permits may exist at all

Article 37-1 of the Law on Population Migration is the provision the whole regime grows out of. It was inserted by Law № 226-VII of 20 April 2023 with effect from 1 July 2023 — the same package by which the Social Code repealed the employment law. The regulation did not disappear; it changed statute.

Paragraph 3 of article 37-1 fixes the territorial and personal scope of the permit in terms: a permit issued by the local executive body “is not subject to transfer to other employers, is valid in the territory of the administrative-territorial units named in it, except where the employer sends foreign workers for whom permits have been obtained on assignment to organisations located in the territory of other administrative-territorial units, for a period not exceeding ninety calendar days in aggregate within one calendar year”.

A practical consequence worth fixing before any arithmetic: the permit is tied to three things at once — to the employer, to the region and to the specific position. A group reorganisation, a move of an employee into another entity of the same group, and a shift of operations into a neighbouring region each require a fresh decision, not a notification.

The chronology of the Rules in force runs to six links, the last of them dated 2026.

Instrument	Date	What it did	In force from
Order № 559	27 June 2016	The previous Rules	repealed
Order № 279	30 June 2023	The Rules in force; repealed order № 559	1 July 2023
Order № 390	30 September 2024	Reporting amendments	10 calendar days after publication
Order № 93	28 March 2025(MoJ № 35875 of 31 March 2025)	The substantive overhaul: the migra­tion.e­nbek.kz system, the 15-day vacancy posting, registration of the employment contract, verification of the legalisation of diplomas	1 September 2025
Order № 302	30 September 2025	Defined the migra­tion.e­nbek.kz system; made multi-region intra­-corpo­rate transfer permits free of charge	1 January 2026
Order № 222	29 May 2026	Digi­talisa­tion: filing through migra­tion.e­nbek.kz, electronic refusals under digital signature, automated checks against violation registers, integration with the employ­ment-co­ntract and migration police databases	12 July 2026

Author’s assessment: in three years the regime has not softened in a single parameter — it has been digitalised. The MRP multiples in the fee scale have not moved since 2018, the quota oscillates within tenths of a percentage point, and the categories and local-content ratios are unchanged. What changed is how the state sees the employer: since 12 July 2026 an application is screened by an automated check against the registers of administrative, migration and labour violations, and a refusal arrives as an electronic document in the employer’s personal cabinet.

A note on paragraph numbering. Order № 222 renumbered part of the Rules: the requirement to post the vacancy and wait 15 calendar days now sits in paragraph 2-1, while paragraph 10 is occupied by the register check. Any source citing “paragraph 10” for the 15-day period is describing the text as it stood before 12 July 2026.

Who Needs No Permit at All

The list of persons whose employment requires no permit is set by Government Resolution № 1041 of 24 November 2023 and contains 22 items. It should be checked before any quota or fee is calculated: if the worker falls inside it, there is no application, no quota consumption and no payment.

The resolution came into force on 9 December 2023 and was adopted under article 36-1(2)(8) of the Law on Population Migration. It repealed seven earlier instruments, the principal one being Government Resolution № 802 of 15 December 2016. The text in force reflects two amendments: Resolution № 602 of 25 July 2024 and Resolution № 635 of 18 August 2025.

The commercially significant entries, in the words of the list.

No.	Who	Wording and limits
9	Nationals of the EAEU member states	“nationals of states party to the Treaty on the Eurasian Economic Union of 29 May 2014” — Armenia, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, Russia
12	Staff of AIFC participants and bodies	“engaged by participants and bodies of the Astana International Financial Centre”
16	The chief executive and one deputy of a wholly foreign-owned company	“working as the first head and his deputy of a Kazakhstani legal entity with a one-hu­ndred-pe­r-cent foreign share in its charter capital (not more than one unit in those positions)”
17	Business travel	“on a business trip for business purposes not exceeding one hundred and twenty calendar days in aggregate within one calendar year”
18	Investment contracts — two independent grounds	“working as first heads of organisations that have concluded contracts with the Government of the Republic of Kazakhstan for an investment amount exceeding USD 50 million, and first heads of legal entities of the Republic of Kazakhstan carrying on investment activity in priority types of activity and having concluded a contract with the authorised investment body” — the second ground carries no dollar threshold at all
21	Investor visa holders	“holders of an investor visa, excluding family members and dependants”
2	Business immigrants	“arrived to carry on entre­preneu­rial activity”
1	Kandas	Ethnic Kazakhs granted that status
8	Students	Full-time students working “at educational institutions of the Republic of Kazakhstan outside study hours”

The remaining entries cover refugees and asylum seekers; humanitarian immigrants; persons sentenced to non-custodial penalties; victims of human trafficking; spouses of Kazakhstani citizens reuniting after at least three years of marriage; crews of sea, river, air and rail transport; performers, directors, conductors, athletes and coaches; space-industry specialists under international treaties; teaching staff under education treaties, capped at 50 per cent of the organisation’s headcount; faculty of educational institutions holding special status; heads of structural units of the national managing holding; members of its board of directors; and the managing coordinator of the TURAN special economic zone.

Entry 16 became stricter in August 2025, and the change went largely unnoticed. Resolution № 635 of 18 August 2025 inserted the parenthesis “(not more than one unit in those positions)”. The practical consequence: a wholly foreign-owned company is relieved of the permit requirement for exactly two people — one chief executive and one deputy. A third foreign national in a management role needs a permit on ordinary terms, however many deputies the constitutional documents provide for. The change took effect on 30 August 2025.

The exemption for EAEU nationals rests on a treaty, not on the resolution. Article 97(1) of the Treaty on the Eurasian Economic Union of 29 May 2014 provides that employers of a member state may engage workers of the member states “without regard to restrictions for the protection of the national labour market”, and that “a worker of a member state is not required to obtain a permit to carry on labour activity in the state of employment”. Entry 9 of the list merely restates that rule in domestic law.

Relief from the permit is not relief from everything else, and this is where most of the errors occur. An EAEU national needs no permit, but the employment contract still has to be filed in the unified system for recording employment contracts, which in turn requires an IIN (individual identification number). Article 97(4) of the Treaty expressly leaves the employment relationship to the law of the state of employment. Since 12 March 2026 a failure to file, or a late filing, in that register is a free-standing administrative offence — see the section on liability.

Astana Hub deserves its own paragraph, because it is the most frequently repeated error on this topic.

Astana Hub participants do not appear in the exemption list. The words “Astana Hub” occur neither in Resolution № 1041 nor in the Rules approved by order № 279. The cluster’s own provision — article 7-1 of the Law on the Astana Hub Innovation Cluster of 10 June 2014 № 207-V, inserted by Law № 220-VIII of 27 September 2025 — governs visas, record-keeping and the retention of qualification documents, and does not displace the permit requirement: employees of participants and their families “receive an entry visa valid for up to five years”, the Fund “maintains records of the foreign labour engaged by it and by Astana Hub participants”, and participants “are obliged to hold and retain, for each foreign national engaged, documents confirming their qualifications”. Author’s assessment: a five-year visa without a work permit is a right to enter, not a right to hire. An Astana Hub participant that does not fall within entry 16 of the list obtains a permit on ordinary terms and pays the standard fee. The cluster’s participation conditions and tax package are analysed in Astana Hub in 2026: New Participation Rules and the Mandatory Audit.

The AIFC exemption, by contrast, is real, and it sits at the level of a constitutional statute. Article 8(1) of the Constitutional Law on the Astana International Financial Centre of 7 December 2015 № 438-V provides that participants and bodies of the Centre may engage foreign nationals and stateless persons for activity in the Centre “without obtaining a permit for that purpose”. Paragraphs 2 and 3 preserve the duty to retain evidence of each employee’s high qualification and the duty of the Centre’s Administration to keep records. Entry 12 of Resolution № 1041 duplicates the rule at subordinate level, so the exemption has two independent foundations and cannot be narrowed by a Government resolution. The choice between an AIFC registration and an ordinary LLP is analysed in AIFC or LLP: Choosing a Jurisdiction Inside Kazakhstan in 2026, and the Centre’s structures and incentives in AIFC 2026: A Complete Breakdown.

The 2026 Quota: What It Actually Constrains

The quota for attracting foreign labour in 2026 is set by order № 397 of the acting Minister of Labour and Social Protection of 12 December 2025 and, since 10 May 2026, applies in the wording given by order № 153 of 24 April 2026: 0.3 per cent of the labour force for permits issued to employers and 2.85 per cent for permits issued to labour immigrants. These are two separate quotas for two separate instruments and must not be conflated.

The quota is set by ministerial order, not by Government resolution. The former procedure — Government Resolution № 802 of 15 December 2016 — has been repealed; the Rules on setting the quota in force are those approved by Order of the Deputy Prime Minister — Minister of Labour and Social Protection № 274 of 30 June 2023 (MoJ № 32955 of 30 June 2023).

The base of the calculation is the labour force, not the “economically active population”. Paragraph 4 of the Rules: the quota “is set as a percentage of the size of the labour force”. The term matters: the two indicators differ by hundreds of thousands of people, and the difference changes the absolute size of the quota.

Year	Employer permits	Labour immigrant permits	Instrument
2024	0.23%	3.1%	Order № 532 of 28 December 2023 (MoJ № 33831)
2025, as first set	0.2%	3.0%	Order № 505 of 30 December 2024 (MoJ № 35573)
2025, from 23 August 2025	0.25%	2.95%	Order № 234 of 1 August 2025
2026, as first set (from 2 January 2026)	0.25%	2.9%	Order № 397 of 12 December 2025
2026, from 10 May 2026	0.3%	2.85%	Order № 153 of 24 April 2026

The employer-permit quota has risen from 0.2 to 0.3 per cent in twelve months — a rise of 50 per cent — while the labour-immigrant quota has been cut over the same period from 3.0 to 2.85 per cent. Order № 397 was published on 22 December 2025 under number 218807 and took effect ten calendar days after publication; order № 153 applies from 10 May 2026. Author’s assessment: this is neither a loosening nor a tightening but a reallocation. The state is shifting volume out of the low-skilled household channel and into the corporate hiring channel, where there is a corporate employer, a fee, reporting obligations and a local-content-in-staff requirement.

The absolute figures are published separately, and they need reading with care. According to an official statement of 20 April 2026, “for 2026 the quota for attracting foreign labour is 23,600 persons, and the quota for attracting labour immigrants is 221,800 persons”.

Both figures belong to the original version of order № 397 and were published before the increase took effect. The statement is dated 20 April 2026; order № 153 came into force on 10 May 2026. At 0.3 per cent the same base yields roughly 28,000 permits, but the authorised body had published no updated absolute figure as at August 2026. This analysis gives 23,600 as the last officially stated figure and says expressly that it corresponds to the 0.25 per cent rate rather than to the rate now in force.

A separate caveat on the 221,800 figure: it does not reconcile arithmetically with a rate of 2.85–2.9 per cent against a labour force of some 9.8 million — the calculation yields about 280,000. The discrepancy cannot be resolved from official sources, so the figure is given as published by the authorised body rather than as the output of a calculation.

The allocation of the quota across regions and activities is not adopted as a normative act. Paragraph 19 of the Rules: the authorised body “shall by 1 January set the quota … and distribute it among the regions, the cities of republican significance and the capital, and within three working days of the distribution shall publish the decision on its official internet resource”. Paragraph 20 provides for distribution “by category of foreign and seasonal workers”.

That is itself a material planning fact: the regional split of the quota is published administratively rather than promulgated as law. Order № 397 runs to two lines and carries no annex. The practical consequence: an employer cannot check the remaining quota for its region in any legal database — only by enquiry to the local executive body or from the decision posted on the authorised body’s internet resource. Planning a hire for the end of the calendar year, when the regional allocation is already exhausted, is a common and expensive mistake.

Intra-corporate transfer is outside the quota altogether. Paragraph 2 of the quota Rules: these Rules “do not apply to foreign nationals and stateless persons carrying on labour activity in the Republic of Kazakhstan under an intra-corporate transfer”.

Actual take-up runs systematically below the ceiling. According to the authorised body, as at 1 November 2025 there were 14,463 foreign workers in Kazakhstan on permits issued by local executive bodies — 544 in the first category, 2,245 in the second, 3,774 in the third, 1,118 in the fourth, 2,780 seasonal workers and 4,003 on intra-corporate transfer. By sector: construction 4,908; agriculture, forestry and fishing 2,808; mining 1,173; manufacturing 1,105. By country: China 5,405; Uzbekistan 2,455; Türkiye 1,042; India 1,012.

> The comparison supports a conclusion that is rarely drawn: at republic level the quota is not a real constraint. Against a ceiling of roughly 19,400 permits in 2025, the actual stock was about 14,500 people — and more than a quarter of that number were intra-corporate transfers, which do not count against the quota at all. Author’s assessment: the constraint operates not as a national ceiling but as a regional shortage in a handful of high-demand oblasts, and it is there that it becomes the governing factor in timing. The take-up figures come from statements by the authorised body — secondary-level confirmation, not the text of a normative act.

Categories 1–4: Who Falls Into Which

The Rules divide foreign workers into four categories, and the category determines three things at once: the term of the permit, whether it can be extended, and the size of the fee. Getting the category wrong at the application stage means not an overpayment but a refusal at the fourth stage and the loss of a place in the quota.

Paragraph 5 of the Rules approved by order № 279 draws the division in these words:

Category	Wording of the Rules	Qualification reference
First	“heads and their deputies”	None — the only category with no cro­ss-refe­rence to the handbooks
Second	“heads of structural units meeting the qualification requirements established by professional standards, the qualification handbook of positions of managers, specialists and other employees, and the model qualification chara­cteri­stics of positions of managers, specialists and other employees of orga­nisa­tions”	Professional standards and the positions handbook
Third	“specialists meeting the qualification requirements established by professional standards, the qualification handbook of positions of managers, specialists and other employees, and the model qualification chara­cteri­stics of positions of managers, specialists and other employees of orga­nisa­tions”	Professional standards and the positions handbook
Fourth	“skilled workers meeting the qualification requirements established by professional standards, the Unified Tariff and Qualification Handbook of Works and Occupations of Workers, and the tariff and qualification chara­cteri­stics of workers’ occupations”	Professional standards and the Unified Handbook

The text in force says “heads and their deputies”, not “the first head and his deputies”. That is not a cosmetic edit: the wording does not confine the first category to one person and does not require the position to be styled “first head”. The practical consequence: the whole management layer, deputies included, falls into the first category — which is precisely why the first category is the only one for which two- and three-year permits exist.

The Rules set no numeric education or experience requirement for categories 1–4. Compliance is tested by cross-reference: the level of education and the practical experience of the foreign worker must “meet the qualification requirements applicable to workers’ occupations and to positions … in accordance with professional standards or the Unified Tariff and Qualification Handbook”. The specific years of experience come from the relevant professional standard, not from the Rules.

A statutory qualification test does exist, but it is not yet in force, and this is the most under-appreciated fact in the whole area. Paragraph 7 of article 37-1 of the Law on Population Migration, which expressly requires the education and experience of foreign labour to meet the qualification requirements, is set out in the wording of Law № 15-VIII of 4 July 2023 and comes into force on 1 January 2030. Until that date there is no statutory qualification test — only the subordinate cross-reference to professional standards and handbooks. Author’s assessment: until 2030 a dispute about qualifications is fought over conformity with a handbook rather than over a provision of the statute, and the burden of proof sits squarely on the education documents and their legalisation.

The legalisation of education documents is checked by a separate enquiry. The Rules provide that the local executive body sends enquiries to establish the authenticity of the legalisation stamp or apostille on education documents. That requirement was introduced by the overhaul of the Rules in force from 1 September 2025.

Intra-corporate transfer runs on its own three-tier classification, which does not map onto categories 1–4.Paragraph 45 of the Rules: “the following categories of workers are established: 1) heads; 2) managers; 3) specialists.” There is no skilled-worker tier in the intra-corporate transfer regime at all.

> Category determines price, duration and the very possibility of staying — in that order. First category: one, two or three years, extendable. Second and third: twelve months, extendable no more than three times, giving an outer horizon of four years. Fourth: twelve months with no extension. The planning consequence: a fourth-category worker cannot by definition spend more than a year in Kazakhstan on a single permit, and any model that assumes retaining that person must be built either on a move into the third category or on replacing the individual.

Local Content in Staff: The 70 and 90 Per Cent Ratios

A permit is issued only if the ratio of Kazakhstani to foreign staff is respected: at least 70 per cent Kazakhstani citizens in the payroll headcount of employees in the first and second categories, and at least 90 per cent in the third and fourth. Breaching the ratio is a free-standing ground for revoking the permit.

Paragraph 19 of the Rules puts the condition in these terms:

“The issue or extension of permits by the local executive body is carried out subject to the following conditions: 1) the number of citizens of the Republic of Kazakhstan is not less than 70% of the payroll headcount of employees in the first and second categories, taking into account employees of the sending party working under a contract for the supply of personnel; 2) the number of citizens of the Republic of Kazakhstan is not less than 90% of the payroll headcount of employees in the third and fourth categories, taking into account employees of the sending party working under a contract for the supply of personnel.”

The ratio is computed across two combined pools, not across four separate categories. The first and second categories form one pool with a 70 per cent floor; the third and fourth form a second pool with a 90 per cent floor.

Personnel supplied under an outstaffing contract count towards the calculation. The formula “taking into account employees of the sending party working under a contract for the supply of personnel” closes the obvious route around the rule: moving foreign nationals off payroll into a staffing agency and computing the ratio on in-house staff alone will not work.

Nationals of EAEU member states are excluded from the foreign-worker side of the calculation. Paragraph 19 says so expressly: in computing local content in staff, “nationals of states party to the Treaty on the Eurasian Economic Union are not counted” among foreign workers.

This rule matters more than it might appear, and it works in the employer’s favour twice over. A Russian, Belarusian, Armenian or Kyrgyz national needs no permit — and at the same time does not worsen the ratio. The practical consequence: all else being equal, hiring a specialist from an EAEU state consumes neither quota, nor fee, nor local-content headroom, whereas hiring a specialist from a third country consumes all three resources at once.

Paragraph 20 takes five groups of employers outside the rule entirely.

Who is exempt from the ratio	Limit
Small business entities	headcount of not more than 20 employees
State institutions and enterprises	no limit
A foreign worker who arrived for self-e­mploy­ment	on a certificate of qualification conformity
Permits within cou­ntry-of-o­rigin quotas	where a ratified international treaty on labour migration exists
Re­prese­ntative offices and branches of foreign legal entities	headcount of not more than 10 employees

The gap between the small-business threshold (20 people) and the branch threshold (10 people) is not a drafting slip but a deliberate asymmetry. A branch gets a narrower exemption than a standalone LLP of comparable size. Author’s assessment: for a foreign group planning a presence staffed largely by expatriates, this is an argument for a subsidiary LLP rather than a branch — at the eleventh employee a branch falls under the 70/90 ratio, whereas an LLP stays outside it until the twenty-first. The other differences between a branch and an LLP — tax, currency and registration — are outside the scope of this analysis.

The sanction for breaching the ratio is not a fine but revocation of the permit and a twelve-month bar. That mechanism is set out in the section on revocation below.

Permit Duration and Extension

The term of a permit is determined by category and by nothing else. The first category runs for one, two or three years at the employer’s choice, with a right of extension; the second and third run for twelve months, extendable no more than three times; the fourth runs for twelve months with no right of extension at all.

Paragraph 25 of the Rules establishes four regimes.

Category	Term	Extension	Outer horizon
First — heads and their deputies	“for one, two or three years” at the employer’s request	“with extension of the permit for one, two or three years” — the Rules set no cap on the number of extensions	not limited by the text
Second — heads of structural units	“for twelve months”	“with extension for twelve months, but not more than three times”	four years
Third — specialists	“for twelve months”	“with extension for twelve months, but not more than three times”	four years
Fourth — skilled workers	“for twelve months”	“without extension”	one year
Seasonal foreign workers	“up to ninety, one hundred and eighty, two hundred and seventy, three hundred and sixty-five calendar days”	“without extension”	up to one year

The asymmetry between the first category and the rest is the central structural feature of the regime, and it drives the whole economics of hiring. An executive can be given a three-year permit at once and the fee is paid once. A third-category specialist will pay four times over four years, each time at the MRP in force on the date of payment. The practical consequence: over a horizon longer than two years the difference in total cost between the first and third categories is smaller than the headline rates suggest, while the administrative load differs by a multiple — one application against four.

There is no special banking-sector regime in the current wording of paragraph 25. Assertions that second- and third-category permits run for one to three years for financial institutions appear in secondary material but are not borne out by the text of the Rules. This analysis states no such rule, because the primary text does not contain one.

The Rules impose no physical-presence requirement on the foreign worker. The condition for extension is compliance with the Rules, not a number of days spent in the country.

The term of the employment contract is tied to the term of the permit by the Labour Code. Article 30(1)(6) of the Labour Code permits a fixed-term contract “within the periods established by the legislation of the Republic of Kazakhstan for the permit to attract foreign labour, the labour immigrant permit and the certificate of qualification conformity”.

> The Labour Code contains no free-standing ground of termination reading “the permit has expired”. Expiry operates indirectly: the contract is concluded within the term of the permit under article 30(1)(6) and ends under article 49(2) — expiry of the fixed term — through article 51. The practical consequence: where an employer has concluded an open-ended contract with a foreign national, or a contract running beyond the permit, expiry of the permit does not terminate it — a different mechanism operates. Article 60 of the Labour Code, “Grounds for terminating an employment contract as a result of a breach of the conditions of its conclusion”, provides for termination where the breach makes it impossible to continue the employment relationship, and sub-paragraph 3) names precisely the case of “concluding an employment contract with foreign nationals and stateless persons without obtaining, in the established manner, certificates of qualification conformity for self-employment or a permit to attract foreign labour”. A contract concluded without a permit therefore ends under article 60, not by expiry under article 51.

What a Permit Costs: The 2026 Fee Scale

The fee for issuing or extending a permit to attract foreign labour is set by Government Resolution № 819 of 3 October 2025 and runs from 137 to 513 MRP depending on category, term and sector. At the 2026 MRP of 4,325 tenge that is 592,525 to 2,218,725 tenge for a single permit.

The enabling provision changed on 1 January 2026, although the rates themselves did not. The previous rates were approved by Government Resolution № 157 of 3 April 2018 under article 554(9) of Tax Code № 120-VI. Neither instrument survives: Code № 120-VI was repealed with effect from 1 January 2026, and Resolution № 157 was repealed by Resolution № 819 together with Resolutions № 588 of 16 September 2020 and № 811 of 12 November 2021.

The delegating provision now in force is article 616(6) of the Code on Taxes and Other Obligatory Payments to the Budget (Tax Code) of 18 July 2025 № 214-VIII, which provides that the rates of the fee for issuing or extending a permit to attract foreign labour “are established by the Government of the Republic of Kazakhstan”.

Resolution № 819 came into force ten calendar days after first official publication and applies to relations arising from 1 January 2026. The MRP is the same unit in which the Tax Code expresses its other thresholds — for instance the compulsory VAT registration threshold, analysed in VAT in Kazakhstan 2026: Registration, the 10,000 MCI Threshold and the 16% Rate.

The rate table is built on 21 sectors and has six numeric columns, not four. The first three columns are the permit terms available to the first category (one, two and three years); the remaining three are a single twelve-month rate for the second, third and fourth categories. The sectors fall into three price bands.

Band A — the base scale (16 sectors). Agriculture, forestry and fishing; electricity, gas, steam and air conditioning supply; water supply, sewerage, waste collection and distribution; transport and storage; accommodation and food service; information and communication; financial and insurance activities; real estate operations; professional, scientific and technical activities; administrative and support service activities; public administration and defence, compulsory social security; education; health and social services; arts, entertainment and recreation; activities of households; activities of extraterritorial organisations and bodies.

Category and term	Rate in MRP	Amount in 2026
First category, 1-year permit	137	592,525 ₸
First category, 2-year permit	274	1,185,050 ₸
First category, 3-year permit	411	1,777,575 ₸
Second category, 12 months	158	683,350 ₸
Third category, 12 months	179	774,175 ₸
Fourth category, 12 months	200	865,000 ₸

Band B — the elevated scale (4 sectors). Mining and quarrying; manufacturing; wholesale and retail trade and the repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles; other service activities.

Category and term	Rate in MRP	Amount in 2026
First category, 1-year permit	154	666,050 ₸
First category, 2-year permit	308	1,332,100 ₸
First category, 3-year permit	462	1,998,150 ₸
Second category, 12 months	178	769,850 ₸
Third category, 12 months	202	873,650 ₸
Fourth category, 12 months	225	973,125 ₸

Band C — construction, the only sector in its band and the most expensive.

Category and term	Rate in MRP	Amount in 2026
First category, 1-year permit	171	739,575 ₸
First category, 2-year permit	342	1,479,150 ₸
First category, 3-year permit	513	2,218,725 ₸
Second category, 12 months	198	856,350 ₸
Third category, 12 months	224	968,800 ₸
Fourth category, 12 months	250	1,081,250 ₸

Seasonal foreign workers are charged on a flat scale that does not vary by sector.

Permit term	Rate in MRP	Amount in 2026
up to 90 calendar days	12	51,900 ₸
up to 180 calendar days	24	103,800 ₸
up to 270 calendar days	36	155,700 ₸
up to 365 calendar days	48	207,600 ₸

Intra-corporate transfer carries no fee at all. Paragraph 44 of the Rules: the issue or extension of permits under an intra-corporate transfer “is carried out free of charge”.

Construction costs exactly a quarter more than the base scale, and band B about 12.5 per cent more; the coefficients hold across all six columns. 171 to 137, 198 to 158, 250 to 200 — a ratio of 1.25 in every pair. Author’s assessment: the scale does not track skills shortages, it tracks political priority. Construction has the largest actual foreign workforce of any sector — 4,908 people at 1 November 2025 — and it is construction that carries the top coefficient. Here the fee operates as a fiscal deterrent rather than as a charge for a service.

> The most common budgeting error is to read the table as “four categories, four rates”. The three columns showing 137, 274 and 411 all belong to the same first category and differ only by term. The practical consequence: anyone treating 274 MRP as the second-category rate will overstate the cost of a specialist by roughly 75 per cent, and anyone treating 137 MRP as the price of a three-year executive permit will understate it by two thirds.

When and How the Fee Is Paid

The fee is payable not on filing but after a positive decision: the employer has ten working days from receipt of the notification to produce proof of payment. This is an express exception to the general rule of the Tax Code, under which fees are paid before documents are filed.

The general rule — article 614(1) of Tax Code № 214-VIII: amounts of fees “are calculated at the established rates and paid at the place of the payer’s location before the relevant documents are filed”.

The exception for foreign labour — paragraph 4 of the same article: the fee for issuing or extending an employer’s permit to attract foreign labour “is levied within ten working days of receipt of the notification of the local executive body … of the decision to issue or extend the permit”.

The procedural side sits in paragraphs 23 and 24 of the Rules. Paragraph 23: the employer, from the day of receiving notification of the issue of the permit, “shall submit to the local executive body within ten working days documents confirming payment of the fee”. Paragraph 24: the local executive body, from the day it receives proof of payment, “within one working day generates and sends the permit to the employer’s personal cabinet”.

Stage	Who acts	Time
Decision to issue and notification	Local executive body	8 working days
Payment of the fee and filing of proof	The employer	10 working days from notification
Generation and delivery of the permit	Local executive body	1 working day
Total statutory service time	19 working days

Nineteen working days is 8 + 10 + 1, and ten of them belong to the employer, not to the state. More than half the statutory service period is consumed by the applicant’s own act. The practical consequence: an applicant with funds ready who pays the day after notification gets the permit in about ten working days rather than nineteen. An applicant whose treasury process takes a fortnight loses the permit altogether.For a foreign group that means the Kazakhstani bank account has to be open and operational before the application is filed, not after a positive decision; the timelines and requirements are set out in Opening a Bank Account in Kazakhstan for a Foreign Company and a Non-Resident.

Missing the ten-working-day deadline extinguishes both the decision and the permit. Paragraph 23 of the Rules: where the employer fails to submit proof of payment within ten working days, “the decision of the local executive body to issue the permit, and the permit itself, cease to have effect”. No separate administrative fine attaches — the sanction is the loss of the permit and, with it, of the place in the quota.

The rate is tied to the MRP on the date of payment, not on the date of the decision. Article 616(1) of the Tax Code: the rates of fees for issuing permitting documents “are determined as a multiple of the MRP in force on the date of payment of such fees”.

That linkage produces an effect that is expensive in December. The MRP for 2026 is set by article 7 of the Law on the Republican Budget for 2026–2028 of 8 December 2025 № 239-VIII at 4,325 tenge, against 3,932 tenge in 2025 — a rise of almost 10 per cent. The practical consequence: an employer that was notified in the last ten days of December 2025 but paid in January 2026 paid roughly 10 per cent more for the same permit than it would have done had the payment cleared before the new year. The ten-day payment window makes it possible to choose which side of the year-end the payment falls on — and in December that is the only variable in the calculation the employer controls.

The payer is the employer, not the foreign worker. Article 613(1) of the Tax Code treats as payers of fees “persons, and also structural units of legal entities, in whose interests authorised state bodies perform actions in respect of which the levying of fees is provided for”.

The exemption from the fee sits in the Tax Code itself, as a referral provision. Article 613(2) in terms: “Persons attracting foreign labour are not payers of the fee for issuing or extending a permit to attract foreign labour into the Republic of Kazakhstan in the cases determined by the legislation of the Republic of Kazakhstan on social protection and the legislation of the Republic of Kazakhstan on population migration.” The practical consequence: the Code does not enumerate the exempt persons itself but delegates the list wholesale to migration legislation. That is why the free treatment of intra-corporate transfer under paragraph 44 of the Rules operates as a tax exemption rather than as an administrative courtesy — and why an exemption must be looked for in the Rules and in Resolution № 1041, not in the Tax Code.

The fee is payable afresh on every extension. The title of Resolution № 819 itself — “for issuing or extending” — and paragraph 34 of the Rules, which imposes the same ten-day payment obligation on extension, leave no room for construction.

The total cost of a four-year cycle for a third-category specialist is four payments, not one. In a base-scale sector that is 179 MRP a year; in construction, 224 MRP a year. With the multiple fixed and the MRP rising, each successive payment is nominally larger than the last, and a correct budget model has to build in MRP indexation rather than a fixed tenge sum.

Refund of the fee is not expressly regulated, and that should be stated honestly.

> A refusal creates no refund problem: the obligation to pay arises only after a positive decision, so on a refusal there is nothing to pay. The harder case is where the fee has been paid and the worker never arrives or leaves early. This analysis checked both relevant provisions of Tax Code № 214-VIII: the foreign-labour permit fee appears neither in the list of payments not subject to offset or refund, nor in the list of payments for which a sum is deemed overpaid. The text says neither “is refundable” nor “is not refundable”. In practice the fee is not returned, and the Rules provide, instead of a refund, for re-issue of the permit in respect of a different foreign worker — that is the mechanism by which the payment is preserved. Author’s assessment: do not plan for a refund; plan for a substitution.

How the Procedure Works and How Long It Takes

The procedure does not begin with an application. It begins with a vacancy posting: the employer must publish the vacancy on the electronic labour exchange and wait 15 calendar days before filing. This is the labour-market test, and there is no way around it.

Paragraph 2-1 of the Rules states the requirement in terms: the employer “upon expiry of 15 (fifteen) calendar daysfrom the date of submitting information on vacancies to the electronic labour exchange shall file an application for a permit”.

The application is filed electronically, through one of three channels. Paragraph 3 of the Rules: the employer “or a person authorised by it shall submit to the local executive body at the place where the foreign labour will work, through the e-government portal www.egov.kz, www.elicense.kz … or the migration.enbek.kz portal, an application”. The third channel was added by order № 222 and has been available since 12 July 2026.

Stage	Who	Time
0. Post the vacancy on the electronic labour exchange and wait	Employer	15 calendar days
1. File the application via egov.kz, elicense.kz or migra­tion.e­nbek.kz	Employer	—
2. Check the package for completeness and register the application	Local executive body	1 working day
3. Screen against the information systems for recorded violations	Local executive body	within the decision period
4. Preliminary decision where refusal grounds exist, and the hearing	Local executive body	under article 73 of the Admi­nistra­tive Procedural Code
5. Decision and notification to the personal cabinet	Local executive body	8 working days
6. Pay the fee and file proof of payment	Employer	10 working days
7. Issue of the permit	Local executive body	1 working day

Separate statutory periods apply to the adjacent actions.

Action	Statutory period
Issue of a permit — the full cycle	19 working days
Re-issue of a permit	6 working days
Extension of a permit	3 working days
Agreement of a permit valid in more than one admini­strative-te­rritorial unit	3 working days
Intra­-corpo­rate transfer: issue	8 working days
Intra­-corpo­rate transfer: re-issue	6 working days
Intra­-corpo­rate transfer: extension	6 working days
Re-issue of a permit in respect of a different foreign worker	5 working days under paragraph 29 of the Rules

There is a discrepancy between two provisions on the re-issue period, and it is worth knowing. Row 5 of Annex 2 gives a single unqualified “re-issue of a permit — 6 (six) working days”, while paragraph 29 of the Rules sets five working days for re-issuing a permit in respect of a different foreign worker. Both figures appear in the text in force. The practical conclusion: plan a substitution against the longer period — six working days — and invoke the five-working-day rule if the authority runs late.

An extension takes three working days; a first issue takes nineteen. The sixfold difference dictates the whole tactic. An employer running a four-year cycle in the second or third category is better off never missing an extension: a lapse sends it back to the start of the nineteen-day procedure, the fifteen-day vacancy posting included. The practical consequence: a gap in a foreign worker’s status costs not three days but a month and a half, the labour-market test included.

The automated check against violation registers has applied since 12 July 2026. Order № 222 rewrote paragraph 10 of the Rules: in taking its decision the local executive body “carries out a check for information on violations recorded in the information systems”. The same order introduced integration between the foreign-labour system and the employment-contract registration database and the migration police databases.

A refusal is not delivered by silence but through a hearing procedure. Where grounds for refusal exist, a preliminary decision is sent to the employer’s personal cabinet under article 73 of the Administrative Procedural Code — the general statute on administrative procedure, not to be confused with the Code of Administrative Offences — that is, with a right to make representations before the final decision is taken.

A foreign employer may act through an authorised representative. That possibility is present in the Rules as they now stand; it could not be attributed to order № 222 from the available mirrors, so this analysis states the rule without dating its introduction.

Grounds for Refusal

There are six grounds for refusal, and they sit not in the body of the Rules but in Annex 2, the “List of Principal Requirements for the Provision of the State Service”. Five of the six are standard for any state service; the only one specific to foreign labour is non-conformity of the submitted materials with the requirements of Kazakhstani legislation.

No.	Ground
1	“establishing that the documents submitted by the employer for the state service, and/or the data contained in them, are unreliable”
2	“no­n-confo­rmity of the service recipient and/or of the submitted materials, objects, data and information required for the provision of the state service with the requirements established by the normative legal acts of the Republic of Kazakhstan”
3	“there is a court decision (judgment) in force against the service recipient prohibiting its activity or certain types of activity”
4	“there is a court decision in force by which the service recipient has been deprived of a special right connected with the receipt of the state service”
5	“the absence of the service recipient’s consent to access to restricted personal data required for the provision of the state service”
6	“other grounds for refusal provided for by the Laws of the Republic of Kazakhstan”

Ground 2 is the workhorse of the whole mechanism. It is the route through which a breach of the quota, a failure of the local-content ratio, a mismatch between qualifications and the professional standard, and a mismatch between the position and the declared category are all caught.

Quota discipline is anchored in two separate paragraphs. Paragraph 16: the local executive body issues permits “within the quota distributed by the authorised body for population migration”. Paragraph 17: the number of valid, previously issued permits in the territory of the relevant administrative-territorial unit “shall not exceed” the quota distributed for the corresponding calendar year.

There is an internal inconsistency in the Rules that is worth knowing in advance. Paragraphs 12 and 18 refer, for the grounds of refusal, to “paragraph 9 of the List of Requirements for the Provision of the State Service”, whereas in the current version of the List the refusal grounds sit at row 11, row 9 being occupied by the service provider’s working hours. The discrepancy appears in the consolidated text on more than one mirror, so it is a defect in the act rather than a publisher’s error. It makes no difference to the outcome of a case, but in challenging a refusal the citation should be to the content of row 11, not to the number given by the internal cross-reference.

A refusal is challenged under the Administrative Procedural Code, not through a special procedure in the Rules. The Rules approved by order № 279 contain no review mechanism of their own: they only oblige the local executive body to send the employer a preliminary decision and to hear its representations under article 73 of the Administrative Procedural Code before refusing. The practical consequence: the only built-in opportunity to influence the outcome is the response to the preliminary decision. Once a refusal is issued, the dispute moves into the general administrative and judicial route, and the place in the quota is not reserved meanwhile.

Revocation and the Twelve-Month Bar

Revocation costs more than the permit itself: two of the three grounds additionally close off access to new permits for twelve months. This is the heaviest sanction in the regime, and it is not a fine.

Paragraph 40 of the Rules lists the grounds:

No.	Ground of revocation	Triggers the twelve-month bar
1	“engaging a foreign worker in an occupation or speciality not matching the position named in the permit”	Yes
2	“the employer’s failure to comply with the conditions established by paragraph 19 of these Rules” — that is, the 70 and 90 per cent ratios	Yes
3	“the employer’s submission of unreliable documents to obtain or extend a permit”	Revocation without the stated bar

The bar is stated expressly: the established facts “are a ground for refusing to issue permits for twelve months from the day such a fact is established”.

A twelve-month bar is a suspension-of-activity sanction imposed by subordinate legislation and without a judicial process. For a company whose model rests on expatriate staff, losing access to permits for a year means being unable to replace a single departing foreign worker and unable to extend a single expiring permit. Author’s assessment: in commercial terms the bar outweighs any fine in the Code of Administrative Offences — even the maximum — 1,000 MRP on a repeat offence by a large business, which is 4,325,000 tenge — whereas a year without permits in a construction or mining business costs incomparably more.

The 70/90 ratio is easier to breach than it looks, and this is the key operational risk. The ratio is computed on headcount, including personnel supplied under an outstaffing contract. The practical consequence: cutting Kazakhstani headcount — on a restructuring, or on closing a site — can by itself push the company outside the ratio, though not a single new foreign national has been hired. The ground of revocation is failure to comply with the condition, not an act of hiring.

Cessation of a permit is a separate institution, and its triggers are wider. Paragraph 41 of the Rules names: expiry of the term; revocation; cessation of activity or liquidation of the employer; voluntary surrender of the permit; failure to file copies of documents confirming payment of the fee; and re-issue of the permit in respect of a different foreign worker.

Substituting the foreign worker is the mechanism that preserves the fee already paid. Paragraph 28 of the Rules: re-issue of a permit already granted in respect of a different foreign worker “is permitted where the foreign worker for whom the permit was issued fails to arrive at the place of work, or where the employment contract with him is terminated or ends early … before the expiry of the permit”. The decision is taken within five working days of the documents being accepted.

The fourth category carries a duty to replace foreign workers with Kazakhstani citizens. Paragraph 14 of the Rules: “On the issue of fourth-category permits the employer shall replace foreign workers with citizens of the Republic of Kazakhstan in identical positions, or in other positions falling within the fourth category, within a period of between six months and one year.” Details of the replacement are entered into the migration.enbek.kz system.

> The replacement duty and the ban on extending fourth-category permits are one policy expressed twice. A skilled-worker permit runs for twelve months with no extension, and within six to twelve months the employer must substitute a Kazakhstani citizen for the foreign national. The practical consequence: the fourth category is designed as a temporary bridge, not as a way to staff a plant. A model in which foreign workers form a permanent part of the headcount is not provided for by the regime and will be caught either by a quota refusal or by revocation on the 90 per cent ratio.

Intra-Corporate Transfer: A Parallel Regime With No Quota and No Fee

Intra-corporate transfer is a separate route for moving an employee within an international group. It consumes no quota, carries no fee and is granted in eight working days — but it is capped at three years with a single extension and requires the acceptance of special conditions that the ordinary permit no longer carries.

The definition contains the WTO link, and that link sits in the Rules rather than in the statute. Sub-paragraph 3) of paragraph 2 of the Rules: intra-corporate transfer is “the temporary transfer, for the term fixed by the employment contract but not more than three years, with a right of extension for one year, of a foreign national or stateless person working in the position of head, manager or specialist in a legal entity established in the territory of a member state of the World Trade Organization”.

Article 37-3 of the Law on Population Migration confirms the term at statutory level: the transfer is effected on the basis of permits issued by the local executive body “for the term fixed by the employment contract, but not more than three years, with a right of extension for one year”. The article was inserted by Law № 226-VII of 20 April 2023 with effect from 1 July 2023.

Parameter	Ordinary permit	Intra­-corpo­rate transfer
Ca­tego­ries	Four: heads and deputies, heads of units, specialists, skilled workers	Three: heads, managers, spe­ciali­sts. No ski­lled-wo­rker tier
Quota	Issued within the distributed quota	Does not apply — the quota Rules expressly do not extend to transfers
Fee	137 to 513 MRP	Nil — “free of charge”
La­bour-ma­rket test	15 calendar days of vacancy posting	Not imposed
Term	By category: 12 months to 3 years	Up to 3 years, extendable once, for 12 months
Outer horizon	4 years for the second and third categories	4 years
Service with the sending entity	No numeric requirement	At least one year
Local content in staff	70% and 90%	Does not apply to the transfer itself
Special conditions	Do not apply	Apply
Time to issue	19 working days	8 working days

The length-of-service requirement is the only numeric qualification requirement anywhere in the Rules. Paragraph 46 requires at least one year of prior service with the sending legal entity established in a WTO member state, together with qualifications matching Kazakhstani standards.

Special conditions survive only here, and this is an important change that secondary material has largely missed.In the version of the Rules in force since 1 September 2025 the phrase “special conditions” occurs exclusively in the intra-corporate transfer block — in paragraphs 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 69, 70 and 71, and in annexes 8 and 11 — and never in the paragraphs governing the ordinary permit. The ordinary permit no longer carries special conditions at all: their role is performed by the 70/90 ratio in paragraph 19 and by the fourth-category replacement duty in paragraph 14.

What the special conditions consist of — paragraph 54. The employer selects one of four undertakings: vocational training of its own Kazakhstani employees in the speciality of the incoming foreign worker; retraining; upgrading their qualifications; or creating additional jobs for Kazakhstani citizens. Paragraph 55 relieves an employer that runs its own programme. Paragraph 56 narrows the choice by tier: a transferred manager may use all four options, a specialist three (retraining is excluded). Paragraph 57 ties the number of special conditions accepted to the number of permits issued. Paragraph 69 requires a special condition to be chosen afresh on extension.

The economics of the two routes invert over the medium term, and this is worth modelling before choosing. Intra-corporate transfer is free and twice as fast, but obliges the employer to train staff or create jobs and is capped at four years with no exceptions. A first-category ordinary permit costs 411 to 513 MRP for a three-year term but carries neither special conditions nor a numeric cap on extensions. Author’s assessment: for a group moving an executive in for up to four years, the transfer is almost always cheaper; for a group that expects to keep a manager in Kazakhstan indefinitely, the first category of the ordinary permit is the only route without a built-in ceiling.

Multi-region permits under a transfer are issued free of charge. Paragraph 22, in the wording given by order № 302 and in force since 1 January 2026, confirms this separately.

Self-Employment: A Certificate Instead of a Permit

The certificate of qualification conformity is an alternative route on which the document is obtained by the foreign national rather than by the employer. It is issued free of charge, outside the quota, for not more than three months, extendable for the term of the employment contract but not beyond three years, and only for occupations on a closed list of priority sectors.

The statutory basis is article 37-2 of the Law on Population Migration, and the procedure is approved by Order of the Deputy Prime Minister — Minister of Labour and Social Protection № 236 of 22 June 2023 (MoJ № 32887 of 23 June 2023), in force from 1 July 2023. The Rules were amended by orders № 426 of 30 December 2025 and № 222 of 29 May 2026.

Article 37 of the statute sets the frame in terms: foreign workers may arrive for self-employment “in occupations in demand in the priority sectors of the economy and subject to obtaining a certificate of qualification conformity issued by the local executive body, for a period of not more than three months with a right of extension for the term of the employment contract but not more than three years”.

Parameter	Employer permit	Certificate of qualification conformity
Issued to	The employer	The foreign worker
Filed from	By the employer, inside Kazakhstan	By the worker himself through www.e­go­v.kz, www.e­lice­nse.kz or www.migra­tion.e­nbek.kz
Quota	Within the distributed quota	Outside the quota
Charge	Fee of 137 to 513 MRP	Free of charge
Term	12 months to 3 years by category	3 months, extendable for the contract term but not beyond 3 years
Tie to the employer	Rigid: the permit is non-tra­nsfe­rable	The worker is not tied to one employer in the same way
Local content in staff	70% and 90%	Does not apply — an express carve-out in paragraph 20 of the Rules
Range of occupations	Any, within the categories	A closed list of priority sectors

Qualification is scored on a points system with a threshold of six. Higher education in a priority-sector speciality scores 3; an academic degree in such a speciality 4; a certificate to teach English 3; experience in the speciality of “from 1 to 3 years” scores 2, “from 4 to 10 years” 4, and “from 11 years and above” 6. The pass mark is 6 points, and failing to reach it is a free-standing ground for refusal. Eleven years of experience is therefore sufficient on its own, whereas higher education without experience is not: three points fall short of the threshold.

The list of priority sectors covers six blocks. Education — teachers of biology, computer science, physics, chemistry, foreign languages and mathematics; supplementary-education teachers; research fellows. Healthcare — anaesthetist-intensivists, paediatric surgeons, general practitioners, neonatologists, oncohaematologists, oncologists, pathologists, paediatricians, psychiatrist-narcologists, TB specialists and engineering physicists. Information technology — software support specialists, programmers, database administrators, systems architects, systems analysts. Culture and sport — performers, prop-makers, audio and video equipment engineers, art historians. Transport — aviation dispatchers, aviation engineers, mentor captains, mentor mechanics, shipbuilding engineers. Industry — chief engineers, process engineers, electrical engineers, and specialists in metallurgy, petrochemicals and equipment manufacture.

> For an IT company this is the most under-used route in the whole system. Programmers, database administrators, systems architects and systems analysts are all on the list, and a certificate consumes neither quota, nor fee, nor local-content headroom — paragraph 20 of the Rules expressly takes such a worker outside the 70/90 ratio. Author’s assessment: a company hitting its third-category ratio can meet part of its need through the self-employment route without spending its allowance. The constraint is neither cost nor the filing channel — the application goes in electronically through www.egov.kz, www.elicense.kz or www.migration.enbek.kz — but the identity of the applicant: it is the foreign national, and the employer can neither file for him nor control the timetable. The route works only with a person already identified and committed, and only where the occupation is on the closed list.

Seasonal Foreign Workers

A seasonal permit is issued for 90, 180, 270 or 365 calendar days with no right of extension, and only for occupations on an approved list. The fee is flat and sector-independent: 12 to 48 MRP, or 51,900 to 207,600 tenge.

The list of occupations is approved by Order of the Deputy Prime Minister — Minister of Labour and Social Protection № 235 of 22 June 2023, in force from 1 July 2023 and amended by order № 209 of 9 July 2025. That order repealed Order of the Minister of Labour and Social Protection № 379 of 25 September 2020 (MoJ № 21295 of 28 September 2020).

Order № 379 of 2020 still appears as current in a great deal of material. It ceased to have effect on 1 July 2023 and must not be cited.

The occupations on the current list: gardeners and horticulturalists; field and vegetable growers; workers manufacturing tobacco products; unskilled workers in crop production; unskilled workers in animal husbandry; unskilled workers in mixed crop and livestock production; unskilled construction labourers; unskilled workers in grounds maintenance (snow clearing, site cleaning); and unskilled workers in services (waiting staff, sales assistants).

Permit term	Fee rate	Amount in 2026
up to 90 calendar days	12 MRP	51,900 ₸
up to 180 calendar days	24 MRP	103,800 ₸
up to 270 calendar days	36 MRP	155,700 ₸
up to 365 calendar days	48 MRP	207,600 ₸

Seasonal permits sit inside the general employer-permit quota and are allocated as a separate line. Paragraph 20 of the quota Rules provides for distribution “by category of foreign and seasonal workers”. In 2025 the seasonal sub-allocation was up to 4,097 people, and the actual seasonal presence at 1 November 2025 was 2,780.

> The seasonal route is the cheapest in the system and the only one whose rate does not depend on the sector. 48 MRP for a year-long permit against 250 MRP for a year-long fourth-category permit in construction — a difference of more than five times. The practical consequence: where the work genuinely falls within the seasonal occupations list, processing it as a fourth-category hire means paying five times over and simultaneously assuming a replacement duty that the seasonal permit does not carry. The constraint is symmetrical: the list is closed, no extension exists, and after 365 days a fresh permit and the full procedure are required.

Liability: What Working Without a Permit Costs

Engaging foreign labour without a permit attracts a fine of up to 700 MRP for a large business, and up to 1,000 MRP — 4,325,000 tenge — on a repeat offence within a year. The foreign worker is liable separately: a fine of 25 MRP, administrative arrest for up to ten days, or administrative expulsion.

Employer liability sits in article 519 of the Code of Administrative Offences of 5 July 2014 № 235-V.

Part	Offence	Individual	Official	Small business and NPOs	Medium business	Large business
1	Engaging foreign labour without a permit from the local executive body, or using the labour of foreign nationals without a certificate of qualification conformity or a labour immigrant permit	30 MRP	50 MRP	100 MRP	200 MRP	700 MRP
2	Engaging a foreign worker in a position not matching the one named in the permit	30 MRP	50 MRP	100 MRP	200 MRP	700 MRP
3	A repeat within a year of a penalty being imposed	50 MRP	100 MRP	200 MRP	300 MRP	1,000 MRP
5	An individual employer engaging labour immigrants in the household without a permit, or contracting simu­lta­neously with more than five labour immigrants	30 MRP	—	—	—	—
6	A repeat within a year	50 MRP	—	—	—	—

In 2026 money that comes to the following.

Sanction	In MRP	In tenge at MRP 4,325
Minimum fine (individual)	30	129,750 ₸
Official	50	216,250 ₸
Small business	100	432,500 ₸
Medium business	200	865,000 ₸
Large business	700	3,027,500 ₸
Large business, repeat offence	1,000	4,325,000 ₸

Article 519 provides for neither suspension of activity nor expulsion — the sanction is exhausted by the fine. Part 4 of the article was removed by Law № 272-V of 29 December 2014. The last amendment to the article was made by Law № 327-VI of 13 May 2020; it was not amended between 2021 and 2026.

The fine under part 2 is identical to the fine under part 1, and that matters more than it appears. An employer that holds a permit but actually uses the foreign national in a different position is liable on exactly the same scale as an employer with no permit at all. The practical consequence: moving a foreign worker to another position inside the company without re-issuing the permit carries the same risk exposure as hiring with no permit at all — and is in addition a ground for revocation under paragraph 40(1) of the Rules, with the twelve-month bar attached.

The foreign national’s own liability sits in article 517(5) of the Code of Administrative Offences. Carrying on labour activity without a certificate of qualification conformity or without a permit, “where obtaining such a certificate or permit is a necessary condition of carrying on labour activity”, attracts a fine of 25 MRP (108,125 tenge), or administrative arrest for up to ten days, or administrative expulsion from the Republic of Kazakhstan. Part 7 of the same article provides, for a repeat within a year, administrative arrest for up to fifteen days together with administrative expulsion.

A separate and recent offence covers failure to register the employment contract in the unified register. Article 98 of the Code of Administrative Offences was supplemented with parts 1-1 and 2-1 by Law № 257-VIII of 9 January 2026, in force from 12 March 2026.

Part	Offence	Official	Small business and NPOs	Medium business	Large business
1-1	Failure to enter, late or incomplete entry, or entry of unreliable information on the conclusion and termination of an employment contract in the unified register of employment contracts	30 MRP	60 MRP	80 MRP	150 MRP
2-1	A repeat within a year	60 MRP	80 MRP	100 MRP	200 MRP

This offence bites hardest on precisely those employers who obtain no permit at all — the employers of EAEU nationals. A Russian or Kyrgyz national needs no permit, but the contract is registrable on ordinary terms, and since 12 March 2026 failing to register it is punishable in its own right. Author’s assessment: before 2026 relief from the permit was widely misread as relief from registration. That misreading now has a price — up to 150 MRP, or 648,750 tenge, for a large business on the first occasion.

No separate fine is imposed for breaching the 70/90 ratio or for failing to file in migration.enbek.kz. The sanction there is revocation of the permit and the twelve-month bar on obtaining new ones, together with refusal of issue and extension. Failure to pay the fee within the ten-working-day window likewise attracts no fine — the permit itself simply ceases to have effect.

What Is Changing: The 2025–2026 Digitalisation and Where Policy Is Heading

Six changes have been made to the regime in the last twelve months, and none of them relaxed a requirement: almost all of them concern how the state collects and cross-checks data about the employer. The rates, the categories, the 70/90 ratio and the durations are unchanged.

Change	Instrument	In force from	Substance
Procedural overhaul	Order № 93 of 28 March 2025	1 September 2025	The migra­tion.e­nbek.kz system; compulsory 15-ca­lenda­r-day vacancy posting; registration of the employment contract after arrival; an IIN for the worker; verification of legalisation and apostille on education documents
Narrowing of an exemption	Government Resolution № 635 of 18 August 2025	30 August 2025	The words “not more than one unit in those positions” added to entry 16 of the exemption list
New basis for the rates	Government Resolution № 819 of 3 October 2025	to relations from 1 January 2026	The rates moved under article 616(6) of Tax Code № 214-VIII; the MRP multiples unchanged
Definitions and free of charge	Order № 302 of 30 September 2025	1 January 2026	Defined the migra­tion.e­nbek.kz system; confirmed that multi-region intra­-corpo­rate transfer permits are free
Liability for contract regi­stra­tion	Law № 257-VIII of 9 January 2026	12 March 2026	Parts 1-1 and 2-1 of article 98 of the Code of Admi­nistra­tive Offences: fines for failing to file in the unified register of employment contracts
Quota reallocated	Order № 153 of 24 April 2026	10 May 2026	0.25 → 0.3 per cent for employer permits; 2.9 → 2.85 per cent for labour immigrants
Di­gitali­sation of the procedure	Order № 222 of 29 May 2026	12 July 2026	Filing through migra­tion.e­nbek.kz; electronic refusals signed with the digital signature of the head of the local executive body; automated screening against the registers of admi­nistra­tive, migration and labour violations; integration with the employ­ment-co­ntract registration database and the migration police databases

Order № 222 changes not the rules but the employer’s position within the procedure. Before 12 July 2026 the local executive body examined the documents submitted; afterwards, the applicant is screened automatically against violation registers, and information about it flows in from the employment-contract registration database and the migration police databases. Author’s assessment: the practical consequence is that past violations stop being something the authority has to discover and become something it sees by default. A company with unexpired administrative penalties under articles 519 or 98 should assume they will be taken into account when it applies.

What has been announced but is not law.

The Concept of Migration Policy of the Republic of Kazakhstan to 2030 was approved by Government Resolution № 1081 of 15 December 2025. It is a policy document: it does not abolish permits but reframes the targets — “target indicators are oriented towards filling scarce competencies and raising productivity, rather than towards quantitative parameters of permit issuance”.

At the end of April 2026 the signing of a presidential decree on improving migration policy was announced, moving “from a permit-and-quota model to an incentive model”, with new visa categories including the “Altyn visa” and an instruction to the Government to implement the measures by the end of 2026.

As at August 2026 neither document has changed the Law on Population Migration or the Rules approved by order № 279. The number and precise date of the decree cannot be established from official sources: reports date the signing to 30 April 2026, while individual publications give a different date and number that could not be confirmed. This analysis treats it as an announcement of intent rather than as a rule in force, and gives no decree number. As at August 2026 the permit-and-quota model applies in full.

> Author’s assessment on the direction of travel. For three consecutive years the state has raised the quota for corporate permits and cut the quota for labour immigrants, while leaving the MRP multiples in the fee scale untouched. At the same time it has introduced blanket digital screening of the employer and a penalty for an unregistered employment contract. That is the profile of a policy that does not liberalise access but reallocates it in favour of transparent corporate hiring and makes opaque hiring more expensive. Companies planning beyond a two-year horizon are better advised to build on the Rules in force than on the announced reform.

Step by Step: From Vacancy to Permit

Sequence matters more than speed: the fifteen calendar days of vacancy posting cannot be shortened, and the ten working days for paying the fee cannot be extended.

1.        Start by checking whether a permit is needed at all. Run the case against the list in Government Resolution № 1041: EAEU nationals, staff of AIFC participants, the first head and one deputy of a wholly foreign-owned company, business travel of up to 120 calendar days a year, investor-visa holders, business immigrants and kandas all fall outside the permit requirement.

2.        Check whether an alternative route fits. Intra-corporate transfer — no quota, no fee. A certificate of qualification conformity — no quota, no fee and no 70/90 ratio, but only for occupations on the priority list. A seasonal permit — only for listed seasonal occupations, at a flat 12 to 48 MRP.

3.        Fix the category before filing, not after. First: heads and their deputies. Second: heads of structural units. Third: specialists. Fourth: skilled workers. The category sets the term, the right of extension and the fee simultaneously.

4.        Compute local content in staff as at the filing date. At least 70 per cent Kazakhstani citizens in the first-and-second-category pool and at least 90 per cent in the third-and-fourth pool, counting personnel supplied under a staffing contract and excluding EAEU nationals from the foreign side.

5.        Check whether you are exempt from the ratio. A small business of up to 20 employees, a state institution or enterprise, or a branch or representative office of a foreign legal entity with up to 10 employees is outside it.

6.        Confirm the remaining regional quota with the local executive body. The regional allocation is published on the authorised body’s internet resource, not in any legal database, and cannot be looked up in legal information systems.

7.        Post the vacancy on the electronic labour exchange and wait 15 calendar days. No application may be filed before that period expires.

8.        Assemble the education documents with legalisation or apostille. The authenticity of the stamp is checked by a separate enquiry from the local executive body.

9.        File through egov.kz, elicense.kz or migration.enbek.kz. A foreign employer may act through an authorised representative.

10.    Respond to the preliminary decision if one arrives. It is the only built-in opportunity to influence the outcome before a refusal, and it operates under article 73 of the Administrative Procedural Code.

11.    On notification of a positive decision, pay the fee and file proof within ten working days. Missing the deadline extinguishes both the decision and the permit.

12.    In December, treat the payment date as a separate variable. The rate is computed on the MRP in force on the date of payment, so a payment made in January costs more than one made in December, by the amount of the MRP increase.

13.    Register the employment contract in the unified register. Since 12 March 2026 failing to do so attracts a fine of up to 150 MRP for a large business — and this applies to employers of EAEU nationals too.

14.    Conclude the employment contract strictly within the term of the permit. Article 30(1)(6) of the Labour Code; an open-ended contract with a foreign national against a fixed-term permit is unlawful and does not terminate automatically.

15.    Keep the actual position aligned with the one named in the permit. A divergence costs the same as having no permit at all, and additionally triggers revocation with the twelve-month bar.

16.    On fourth-category permits, start the replacement of foreign workers with Kazakhstani citizens between six and twelve months in, and file the details in migration.enbek.kz.

17.    Extend early and never let a gap open. An extension takes three working days; a first issue takes nineteen, plus fifteen calendar days of vacancy posting.

18.    If the worker does not arrive or leaves, apply to re-issue the permit for someone else rather than seeking a refund. The decision takes five working days; the Rules provide no refund mechanism.

Common Mistakes and What They Cost

Mistake 1. Treating the regime as governed by employment legislation. The Law on Employment of the Population № 482-V was repealed by the Social Code № 224-VII with effect from 1 July 2023, and no “employment law № 105-VII” exists; the governing statute is the Law on Population Migration № 477-IV. Cost: working from a repealed act means checking the wrong provisions. In 2023 the regulation did not merely change statute — the categories, the local-content ratios and the procedure changed with it, so a calculation built on the old source diverges from the law in force on all three parameters.

Mistake 2. Citing “order № 279 of 27 June 2016”. The 2016 rules were order № 559 of 27 June 2016, now repealed; the Rules in force are order № 279 of 30 June 2023. Cost: every deadline, category and condition taken from the 2016 text is invalid, and a hiring timetable built on it collapses at the filing stage.

Mistake 3. Reading the fee table as “four categories, four rates”. The 137, 274 and 411 MRP columns all belong to the first category and differ only by term. Cost: the budget for a third-category specialist is overstated by roughly 75 per cent, and the budget for a three-year executive permit understated by two thirds — and the second error surfaces only after a positive decision, with days left on the ten-day payment window.

Mistake 4. Treating the fee as an ordinary invoice payment. The window is ten working days from notification and cannot be extended. Cost: missing it extinguishes both the decision to issue and the permit itself. The whole cycle has to be run again, fifteen-day vacancy posting included, and by then the regional quota may be taken.

Mistake 5. Treating Astana Hub participation as a permit exemption. The words “Astana Hub” appear neither in Resolution № 1041 nor in the Rules; article 7-1 of Law № 207-V grants a five-year visa and imposes record-keeping duties, but does not displace the permit. Cost: hiring without a permit under article 519 of the Code of Administrative Offences — up to 700 MRP, or 3,027,500 tenge, for a large business — while the foreign national risks expulsion under article 517(5).

Mistake 6. Assuming a wholly foreign-owned company is exempt across its whole management team. Since 30 August 2025 entry 16 of the list exempts not more than one unit in the position of first head and not more than one in the position of deputy. Cost: the third and any further foreign managers are working without a permit, squarely within article 519(1), and the company is additionally consuming 70 per cent ratio headroom without realising it.

Mistake 7. Moving a foreign worker to another position inside the company without re-issuing the permit. Article 519(2) of the Code of Administrative Offences punishes this on the same scale as having no permit at all. Cost: a fine of up to 700 MRP plus revocation under paragraph 40(1) of the Rules and a twelve-month bar on new permits — a sanction that, for a company staffed by expatriates, costs more than any fine.

Mistake 8. Failing to recompute the 70/90 ratio when Kazakhstani headcount falls. The ground of revocation is non-compliance with the condition, not the act of hiring a foreign national. Cost: a company that has cut local headcount without hiring a single new foreign national gets its permits revoked and a twelve-month bar. The ratio cannot be restored retrospectively.

Mistake 9. Reading the EAEU permit exemption as an exemption from registration. Article 97(4) of the EAEU Treaty leaves the employment relationship to the law of the state of employment, and the contract is registrable in the unified register. Cost: since 12 March 2026, a fine under article 98(1-1) of the Code of Administrative Offences of up to 150 MRP — 648,750 tenge — for a large business, and up to 200 MRP on repetition.

Mistake 10. Counting on an extension of a fourth-category permit. Paragraph 25 of the Rules: twelve months with no extension. Cost: a production schedule built on retaining foreign workers beyond a year fails in the twelfth month — and the duty to replace them with Kazakhstani citizens falls due at the same moment.

Mistake 11. Processing seasonal work as a fourth-category hire. A 365-day seasonal permit costs 48 MRP against 250 MRP for the fourth category in construction. Cost: a fivefold overpayment — 207,600 tenge against 1,081,250 tenge — plus a replacement obligation assumed for no reason.

Mistake 12. Planning a hire for the end of the calendar year. The regional quota is allocated by 1 January and published on the authorised body’s internet resource, not in any legal database. Cost: a refusal on ground 2 of Annex 2 to the Rules with the paperwork in perfect order, because the region’s quota is exhausted. The remaining allowance cannot be checked in any public legal system — only by enquiry.

Mistake 13. Concluding an open-ended employment contract with a foreign national. Article 30(1)(6) of the Labour Code permits a fixed-term contract within the term of the permit. Cost: expiry of the permit does not end such a contract, and it will have to be terminated under article 60 of the Labour Code as concluded in breach of the conditions of its conclusion — a ground that records a breach by the employer, rather than the neutral expiry of a fixed term.

Mistake 14. Expecting a refund of the fee when the worker does not arrive. Neither the list of non-refundable payments nor the list of payments deemed overpaid in Tax Code № 214-VIII names this fee. Cost: the money stays with the budget, and the only route the Rules provide for preserving it is re-issue of the permit in respect of a different foreign worker while the permit is still running. Miss that moment and the employer loses both the permit and the payment.

Who the Regime Suits, Who It Does Not, and When Professional Review Is Needed

The regime is built for an employer hiring a limited number of foreign specialists against a predominantly Kazakhstani headcount, and prepared to keep the 70/90 ratio under continuous control.

It suits:

•          international groups moving managers in for up to four years — intra-corporate transfer is free, consumes no quota and is granted in eight working days;

•          wholly foreign-owned companies that need one chief executive and one deputy — those two positions require no permit at all;

•          AIFC participants and bodies — the exemption sits in a constitutional statute and is duplicated in the list, so it cannot be narrowed by a Government resolution;

•          employers hiring EAEU nationals — no permit, no fee, and no consumption of local-content headroom;

•          companies in priority sectors recruiting IT specialists, doctors and engineers — the self-employment route is free and sits outside the 70/90 ratio.

It does not suit:

•          plants that depend on a permanent foreign workforce — the fourth category runs for twelve months with no extension and carries a duty to replace foreign workers with Kazakhstani citizens;

•          companies whose management layer is more than 30 per cent foreign — the 70 per cent floor across the first and second categories makes that structure unworkable;

•          branches of foreign legal entities with more than ten employees — a branch’s exemption from the ratio is half that of a standalone small business;

•          anyone who needs timing certainty late in the calendar year — the regional quota may be exhausted by then, and the remaining allowance cannot be checked in any public source;

•          employers counting on a refund of the fee — the Rules provide no refund mechanism.

Professional review is needed: when fixing the category of a position, because an error costs a refusal rather than an overpayment; when computing the 70/90 ratio in structures using outstaffing, because personnel of the sending party are counted in; when choosing between an ordinary permit and an intra-corporate transfer over a horizon beyond three years; when choosing between a branch and a subsidiary LLP, because the exemption thresholds differ; on any reorganisation, because the permit is non-transferable; and where unexpired administrative penalties exist, because since 12 July 2026 the local executive body sees them automatically.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much does a permit to attract foreign labour cost in 2026?

From 137 to 513 MRP — 592,525 to 2,218,725 tenge — depending on category, term and sector. The rates are set by Government Resolution № 819 of 3 October 2025. In base-scale sectors a one-year first-category permit costs 137 MRP, the second category 158 MRP, the third 179 MRP and the fourth 200 MRP. In construction the same positions cost 171, 198, 224 and 250 MRP. Intra-corporate transfer carries no fee.

Who pays the fee — the employer or the foreign worker?

The employer. Article 613(1) of Tax Code № 214-VIII treats as payers of fees those “in whose interests authorised state bodies perform actions”. The fee falls due not on filing but within ten working days of notification of a positive decision.

For how long is a permit issued?

The first category for one, two or three years with a right of extension; the second and third for twelve months, extendable no more than three times; the fourth for twelve months with no extension. Seasonal permits run for 90, 180, 270 or 365 calendar days and are not extendable. The outer horizon for the second and third categories is four years.

Is a permit needed for nationals of Russia, Belarus, Armenia and Kyrgyzstan?

No. Article 97(1) of the Treaty on the Eurasian Economic Union expressly relieves workers of the member states from obtaining a permit, and entry 9 of the list in Government Resolution № 1041 restates the rule in domestic law. But the employment contract with an EAEU national is still registrable in the unified register of employment contracts, and since 12 March 2026 failing to register it attracts a fine of up to 150 MRP for a large business.

Are Astana Hub participants exempt from the permit?

No. The words “Astana Hub” appear neither in the exemption list nor in the Rules. Article 7-1 of the Law on the Astana Hub Innovation Cluster gives employees of participants a visa valid for up to five years and imposes record-keeping duties on the Fund, but does not displace the permit requirement. The constitutional-law exemption belongs to AIFC participants, not to Astana Hub.

What quota applies in 2026?

0.3 per cent of the labour force for permits issued to employers, and 2.85 per cent for labour immigrant permits.Order № 397 of 12 December 2025 originally set 0.25 and 2.9 per cent; order № 153 of 24 April 2026 changed them with effect from 10 May 2026. The last officially stated absolute figure — 23,600 permits — corresponds to the 0.25 per cent rate and was published before the increase.

What happens if a foreign national is hired without a permit?

A fine under article 519(1) of the Code of Administrative Offences: 30 MRP for an individual, 50 for an official, 100 for a small business, 200 for a medium business and 700 MRP for a large business — 3,027,500 tenge. On a repeat within a year, up to 1,000 MRP. The foreign worker is liable under article 517(5): a fine of 25 MRP, administrative arrest for up to ten days, or administrative expulsion.

How long does obtaining a permit take?

Nineteen working days from filing, plus fifteen calendar days of compulsory vacancy posting before filing. Of the nineteen days, eight belong to the authority’s decision, ten to the employer’s payment of the fee and one to issuing the permit. An extension takes three working days, a re-issue six, and an intra-corporate transfer permit eight.

How many Kazakhstani employees must there be?

At least 70 per cent Kazakhstani citizens among employees in the first and second categories, and at least 90 per cent among those in the third and fourth. Personnel supplied under a staffing contract count; nationals of EAEU states are not counted among foreign workers. Small businesses of up to 20 employees, state institutions and enterprises, and branches and representative offices of foreign legal entities with up to 10 employees are exempt from the ratio.

Is the fee refunded if the worker never arrives?

The point is not expressly regulated, and in practice the fee is not returned. Tax Code № 214-VIII names this fee neither among the payments that are not refundable nor among those for which a sum is deemed overpaid. Instead of a refund the Rules provide for re-issue of the permit in respect of a different foreign worker — a decision taken within five working days.

Can a foreign worker be moved to another position?

Only by re-issuing the permit. Working in a position that does not match the one named in the permit is punished under article 519(2) of the Code of Administrative Offences on the same scale as working with no permit at all, and is simultaneously a ground for revoking the permit with a twelve-month bar on obtaining new ones.

How does intra-corporate transfer differ from an ordinary permit?

It is free, consumes no quota, is granted in eight working days and requires no labour-market test — but it is capped at three years with a single twelve-month extension and obliges the employer to accept special conditions. It is available only to heads, managers and specialists from entities established in WTO member states, with at least one year of service with the sending entity. There is no skilled-worker tier in this regime.

Key Takeaways

•          The permit is governed by the Law on Population Migration № 477-IV, not by employment legislation: employment law № 482-V was repealed with effect from 1 July 2023, and no “law № 105-VII” exists.

•          The Rules in force are order № 279 of 30 June 2023, not a 2016 order; the 2016 rules were order № 559, now repealed.

•          The fee rates run from 137 to 513 MRP, set by Government Resolution № 819 of 3 October 2025 under article 616 of Tax Code № 214-VIII.

•          The MRP for 2026 is 4,325 tenge, and the rate is computed on the MRP in force on the date of payment, not on the date of the decision.

•          The 2026 quota is 0.3 per cent for employer permits and 2.85 per cent for labour immigrants following the change of 10 May 2026.

•          Local content in staff is 70 per cent for the first and second categories and 90 per cent for the third and fourth; EAEU nationals are not counted among foreign workers.

•          The fourth category cannot be extended and carries a duty to replace foreign workers with Kazakhstani citizens between six and twelve months in.

•          Special conditions survive only for intra-corporate transfer and no longer attach to the ordinary permit.

•          Revocation on two of the three grounds triggers a twelve-month bar on obtaining new permits.

•          The fine for hiring without a permit runs to 700 MRP, and to 1,000 MRP on repetition; separately, since 12 March 2026 failing to register an employment contract is punishable in its own right.

•          Astana Hub participants are not exempt from the permit; AIFC participants are, by constitutional statute.

•          The statutory qualification requirement for foreign workers does not come into force until 1 January 2030.

Summary

The permit to attract foreign labour in Kazakhstan is issued by the local executive body to the employer under the Law of the Republic of Kazakhstan on Population Migration of 22 July 2011 № 477-IV, articles 36-1, 37, 37-1, 37-2 and 37-3, and the Rules approved by Order of the Deputy Prime Minister — Minister of Labour and Social Protection № 279 of 30 June 2023 (MoJ № 32977), as amended by orders № 390 of 30 September 2024, № 93 of 28 March 2025, № 302 of 30 September 2025 and № 222 of 29 May 2026. The Law on Employment of the Population № 482-V of 6 April 2016 was repealed by the Social Code № 224-VII with effect from 1 July 2023 and cannot be applied. Foreign workers fall into four categories: the first covers heads and their deputies, the second heads of structural units, the third specialists and the fourth skilled workers; the second, third and fourth categories must meet the qualification requirements of professional standards and the qualification handbooks, while the statutory education-and-experience requirement in article 37-1(7) does not come into force until 1 January 2030. A first-category permit is issued for one, two or three years with a right of extension; second- and third-category permits for twelve months, extendable no more than three times, giving a maximum of four years; fourth-category permits for twelve months with no extension; and seasonal permits for 90, 180, 270 or 365 calendar days with no extension. Issue is conditional on local content in staff: at least 70 per cent Kazakhstani citizens among employees in the first and second categories and at least 90 per cent among the third and fourth, counting personnel supplied under a staffing contract and excluding nationals of EAEU states from the foreign side; small businesses of up to 20 employees, state institutions and enterprises, branches and representative offices of foreign legal entities with up to 10 employees, and workers who arrived for self-employment are exempt from the ratio. The 2026 quota was set by order № 397 of 12 December 2025 and, following its amendment by order № 153 of 24 April 2026 in force from 10 May 2026, stands at 0.3 per cent of the labour force for employer permits and 2.85 per cent for labour immigrant permits; intra-corporate transfer is outside the quota. The fee rates are set by Government Resolution № 819 of 3 October 2025 under article 616(6) of the Tax Code of 18 July 2025 № 214-VIII and are, in base-scale sectors, 137, 274 and 411 MRP for a first-category permit of one, two and three years, 158 MRP for the second category, 179 MRP for the third and 200 MRP for the fourth; in mining, manufacturing, wholesale and retail trade and other services, 154, 308, 462, 178, 202 and 225 MRP; in construction, 171, 342, 513, 198, 224 and 250 MRP; and for seasonal workers 12, 24, 36 and 48 MRP. At the 2026 MRP of 4,325 tenge, set by article 7 of the Law on the Republican Budget for 2026–2028 of 8 December 2025 № 239-VIII, that is 592,525 to 2,218,725 tenge. The fee is paid by the employer within ten working days of notification of a positive decision under article 614(4) of the Tax Code and is computed on the MRP in force on the date of payment; the statutory service period is nineteen working days, and filing is preceded by a compulsory fifteen-day posting of the vacancy on the electronic labour exchange. Intra-corporate transfer permits are issued free of charge for up to three years with a single twelve-month extension, for heads, managers and specialists of entities in WTO member states with at least one year of prior service. No permit is required for the persons listed in Government Resolution № 1041 of 24 November 2023, including nationals of EAEU states, staff of AIFC participants and bodies, the first head and one deputy of a wholly foreign-owned company, persons on business travel of up to 120 calendar days a year and investor-visa holders; Astana Hub participants are not on the list. Revocation under paragraph 40 of the Rules for a position mismatch or a breach of the 70/90 ratio bars the issue of permits for twelve months. Hiring without a permit is punished under article 519 of the Code of Administrative Offences by a fine of 30 to 700 MRP, and up to 1,000 MRP on repetition; the worker is liable under article 517(5) to a fine of 25 MRP, arrest for up to ten days or expulsion; and failing to register an employment contract in the unified register is punished under article 98(1-1) and (2-1) from 12 March 2026 by a fine of up to 200 MRP.

If you are planning to hire foreign specialists in Kazakhstan, or testing an existing structure against the 70/90 ratio and the quota, the UPPERSETUP team can take you through the whole route — from choosing the track and the category to filing, paying the fee and running the annual reporting cycle: company formation and support in Kazakhstan.

Sources

Statutes of the Republic of Kazakhstan

1.        Law on Population Migration of 22 July 2011 № 477-IV — full text, prg.kz mirror

2.        Law on Population Migration — article 11, the powers of the authorised body, zakon.mybuh.kz mirror

3.        Law on Population Migration — article 37-1, the permit to attract foreign labour, kodeksy-kz.com mirror

4.        Law on Population Migration — article 37-3, intra-corporate transfer, kodeksy-kz.com mirror

5.        Law on Population Migration — article 37, self-employment, pavlodar.com mirror

6.        Law on Population Migration — article 37-2, pavlodar.com mirror

7.        Law on Population Migration — article 43-2, the labour immigrant permit, pavlodar.com mirror

8.        Law on Employment of the Population of 6 April 2016 № 482-V — repealed by the Social Code № 224-VII with effect from 1 July 2023, zakon.uchet.kz mirror

9.        Social Code of 20 April 2023 № 224-VII — article 263, commencement and the list of repealed acts, kodeksy-kz.com mirror

10.    Labour Code of 23 November 2015 № 414-V — article 30, the term of the employment contract, kodeksy-kz.com mirror

11.    Labour Code — article 49, grounds of termination, kodeksy-kz.com mirror

12.    Labour Code — article 51, termination of a fixed-term contract, kodeksy-kz.com mirror

13.    Labour Code — article 60, termination for breach of the conditions of conclusion, kodeksy-kz.com mirror

14.    Constitutional Law on the Astana International Financial Centre of 7 December 2015 № 438-V — article 8, engagement of foreign labour, pavlodar.com mirror

15.    Constitutional Law on the AIFC — official publication by the AIFC Court (PDF)

16.    Law on the Astana Hub Innovation Cluster of 10 June 2014 № 207-V — article 7-1, the cluster’s foreign-labour provisions, zakon.uchet.kz mirror

17.    Law on the Republican Budget for 2026–2028 of 8 December 2025 № 239-VIII — article 7, MRP of 4,325 tenge from 1 January 2026, zakon.uchet.kz mirror

The Tax Code

18.    Code on Taxes and Other Obligatory Payments to the Budget (Tax Code) of 18 July 2025 № 214-VIII — article 616, rates of fees for permitting documents, kodeksy-kz.com mirror

19.    Tax Code № 214-VIII — article 616, pavlodar.com mirror

20.    Tax Code № 214-VIII — article 614, payment of fees and the ten-day rule for foreign labour, pavlodar.com mirror

21.    Tax Code № 214-VIII — article 613, payers of fees and exemptions, kodeksy-kz.com mirror

22.    Tax Code № 214-VIII — article 120, when a sum is deemed overpaid, pavlodar.com mirror

23.    Tax Code № 214-VIII — article 121, payments not subject to offset or refund, kodeksy-kz.com mirror

24.    Tax Code № 214-VIII — article 412, self-assessed individual income tax, including the income of a resident labour immigrant, pavlodar.com mirror

25.    Tax Code № 214-VIII — article 696, income tax for a non-resident labour immigrant, pavlodar.com mirror

Subordinate legislation: rules, rates, quota, lists

26.    Order of the Deputy Prime Minister — Minister of Labour and Social Protection № 279 of 30 June 2023 approving the Rules and Conditions for Issuing or Extending Employers’ Permits to Attract Foreign Labour and for Intra-Corporate Transfer (MoJ № 32977) — consolidated text, zakon.uchet.kz mirror

27.    Order № 279 of 30 June 2023 — consolidated text, zakon.mybuh.kz mirror

28.    Order of the acting Minister of Health and Social Development № 559 of 27 June 2016 (MoJ № 14170) — repealed by order № 279 of 30 June 2023, zakon.uchet.kz mirror

29.    Order of the acting Minister of Labour and Social Protection № 93 of 28 March 2025 (MoJ № 35875 of 31 March 2025), in force from 1 September 2025, zakon.uchet.kz mirror

30.    Review of the amendments made by order № 222 of 29 May 2026, in force from 12 July 2026 — prg.kz

31.    Government Resolution № 819 of 3 October 2025 establishing the rates of the fee for issuing or extending a permit to attract foreign labour — zakon.uchet.kz mirror

32.    Government Resolution № 819 of 3 October 2025 — zakon.mybuh.kz mirror

33.    Government Resolution № 157 of 3 April 2018 — repealed by Resolution № 819 of 3 October 2025, zakon.uchet.kz mirror

34.    Order of the Deputy Prime Minister — Minister of Labour and Social Protection № 274 of 30 June 2023 approving the Rules on Setting the Quota for Attracting Foreign Labour (MoJ № 32955) — zakon.uchet.kz mirror

35.    Order of the acting Minister of Labour and Social Protection № 397 of 12 December 2025 setting the 2026 quota — consolidated text as amended by order № 153 of 24 April 2026, zakon.uchet.kz mirror

36.    Order of the Minister of Labour and Social Protection № 532 of 28 December 2023 — the 2024 quota (MoJ № 33831), zakon.uchet.kz mirror

37.    Order of the Minister of Labour and Social Protection № 505 of 30 December 2024 — the 2025 quota (MoJ № 35573), consolidated text as amended by order № 234 of 1 August 2025, zakon.uchet.kz mirror

38.    Amendment of the 2026 quota by order № 153 of 24 April 2026, in force from 10 May 2026 — prg.kz

39.    Government Resolution № 1041 of 24 November 2023 determining the list of persons for whom no local executive body permit is required — consolidated text, zakon.uchet.kz mirror

40.    Government Resolution № 602 of 25 July 2024 — amendments to the list, zakon.uchet.kz mirror

41.    Government Resolution № 635 of 18 August 2025 — the “not more than one unit in those positions” qualification, zakon.uchet.kz mirror

42.    Government Resolution № 802 of 15 December 2016 — repealed, zakon.uchet.kz mirror

43.    Order of the Deputy Prime Minister — Minister of Labour and Social Protection № 236 of 22 June 2023 approving the Rules on Issuing Certificates of Qualification Conformity for Self-Employment (MoJ № 32887) — zakon.uchet.kz mirror

44.    Order of the Deputy Prime Minister — Minister of Labour and Social Protection № 235 of 22 June 2023 approving the list of occupations for seasonal foreign workers — prg.kz

45.    Order of the Minister of Labour and Social Protection № 379 of 25 September 2020 (MoJ № 21295) — repealedwith effect from 1 July 2023, zakon.uchet.kz mirror

46.    Order of the Minister of Labour and Social Protection № 123 of 15 April 2022 approving the Rules on Issuing, Extending and Revoking a Labour Immigrant Permit (MoJ № 27595) — consolidated text, zakon.uchet.kz mirror

47.    Rules on submitting and obtaining information on employment contracts in the unified register — zakon.uchet.kz mirror

48.    Government Resolution № 1081 of 15 December 2025 approving the Concept of Migration Policy of the Republic of Kazakhstan to 2030 — zakon.uchet.kz mirror

Administrative liability

49.    Code of Administrative Offences of 5 July 2014 № 235-V — article 519, engaging foreign labour in breach of the law, pavlodar.com mirror

50.    Code of Administrative Offences — article 519, independent kodeksy-kz.com mirror

51.    Code of Administrative Offences — article 517, breach of migration law by a foreign national, pavlodar.com mirror

52.    Code of Administrative Offences — article 98, breach of the procedure for filing in the unified register of employment contracts, pavlodar.com mirror

53.    Law № 257-VIII of 9 January 2026 amending the Code of Administrative Offences, in force from 12 March 2026 — prg.kz

The Treaty on the Eurasian Economic Union

54.    Section XXVI of the EAEU Treaty of 29 May 2014, article 97 — official publication by the Eurasian Economic Commission (PDF)

55.    Eurasian Economic Commission — labour migration within the EAEU, official guidance

Official statistics and statements of the authorised body

56.    The 2026 quota: 23,600 employer permits and 221,800 labour immigrant permits, statement of 20 April 2026 — prg.kz

57.    Numbers and structure of the foreign workforce at 1 November 2025 — Caravan

58.    Numbers and structure of the foreign workforce at 1 October 2025 — Informburo

59.    Structure of the foreign workforce at 1 October 2024 — Delovoy Kazakhstan

60.    The 2025 quota split by category and the seasonal sub-allocation — statement of the authorised body

61.    Setting of the 2026 quota — Kazinform state news agency

Professional commentary (used for cross-check only)

62.    EY Kazakhstan — amendments to the list of persons requiring no permit (Resolution № 635)

63.    EY Kazakhstan — the new rules on attracting foreign labour (order № 93)

A note on sources and levels of confirmation. The official portal adilet.zan.kz is closed to automated access, so the texts were read on mirrors, and the mirror is named beside every citation. The fee rates were checked against two independent mirrors of Resolution № 819 — zakon.uchet.kz and zakon.mybuh.kz — row by row, and both returned identical values across all six numeric columns and all three price bands. Paragraphs 19, 20, 25 and 40 of the Rules, the 2026 quota, articles 613, 614 and 616 of the Tax Code, article 7 of the budget law, articles 517, 519 and 98 of the Code of Administrative Offences, entries 16, 17, 18 and 21 of the exemption list, and paragraphs 3, 6 and 7 of article 37-1 of the Law on Population Migration were read directly.

What could not be confirmed, and is therefore not asserted here. The 2026 regional and sectoral allocation of the quota is not available in any published normative source: under paragraph 19 of the quota Rules it is not adopted as a normative act but posted on the authorised body’s internet resource, and order № 397 carries no annex. No updated absolute quota figure has been published since the increase to 0.3 per cent; this analysis gives 23,600 as the last officially stated figure and says expressly that it corresponds to the earlier rate. The figure of 221,800 does not reconcile arithmetically with a rate of 2.85–2.9 per cent against a labour force of some 9.8 million; the discrepancy cannot be resolved from official sources and is flagged here rather than smoothed over. The number and precise date of the presidential decree on improving migration policy, reported as signed at the end of April 2026, could not be established from official sources, so no decree number is given and the document is described as an announcement rather than as a rule in force. Ministry of Justice registration numbers and dates for orders № 302 of 30 September 2025 and № 222 of 29 May 2026 are absent from the available mirrors; the number, date of issue and date of commencement are given instead. The assertion that second- and third-category permits run for one to three years for financial-sector organisations appears in secondary sources but is not borne out by the text of paragraph 25 of the Rules and is not reproduced here.

On non-primary sources. This analysis does not rely on publications by local consultancies, company-formation firms, migration agencies or “top 10” round-ups. Every threshold, rate, deadline and sanction is taken from the texts of statutes, codes, Government resolutions and orders of the authorised body; the figures on the actual size of the foreign workforce come from statements by the authorised body, with their secondary character stated expressly.

Disclaimer

This material is for information only and does not constitute legal, tax, financial, investment or consulting advice. Before taking any decision you should obtain individual professional advice reflecting your specific circumstances, jurisdiction, company status and the regulators’ current requirements.

Material current as at: August 2026.