Transfer Pricing in Kazakhstan in 2026: the Local File, the Master File and Country-by-Country Reporting

Transfer pricing in Kazakhstan is governed by a standalone statute — Law of the Republic of Kazakhstan No. 67-IV of 5 July 2008 “On Transfer Pricing” — and not by the Tax Code. Three-tier reporting consists of the local file (form 013 МО), the master file (form 014 ОО) and the country-by-country report (form 012 МО), alongside the notification of participation in a multinational group (form 011 ЗУ). From 1 January 2026 the Law contains a new Article 10-2 on the accurate delineation of the controlled transaction and functional analysis — the most substantive change to the regime in years.

⚠️ The principal trap for 2026. Kazakhstan’s new Tax Code No. 214-VIII of 18 July 2025, in force from 1 January 2026, did not absorb transfer pricing: the rules remain in Law No. 67-IV, which was amended by the parallel Law No. 215-VIII of 18 July 2025 with effect from the same date. Law No. 67-IV itself, moreover, contains no reference to any Tax Code by number — it refers only generically to “the tax legislation of the Republic of Kazakhstan”. Material that looks for the transfer pricing rules inside the Code’s chapters, or that claims the Law is “stale because it cites the repealed Code No. 120-VI”, is wrong in both directions.

What Transfer Pricing Means Under Kazakh Law, and How It Departs From the OECD Model

Transfer pricing control in Kazakhstan applies to cross-border business transactions whether or not the parties are related. This is the decisive departure from the OECD model and from most neighbouring jurisdictions, and it is what most often catches foreign groups out.

Relatedness performs a different function in the Kazakh statute from the one international tax practitioners expect. It neither opens nor closes the gate to control. It determines only whether a party to the transaction must file the local fileunder Article 7-1.

The practical consequence can be stated in one line:

A Kazakh company’s transaction with a wholly independent foreign supplier is within transfer pricing control and can be adjusted, even though no local file is required for it.

The second peculiarity is what gets adjusted. The Law speaks of adjusting objects of taxation and objects connected with taxation, not the base of one named tax. In practice a single pricing adjustment can therefore reach corporate income tax, withholding tax, subsoil use payments, excise duties and export customs duties at the same time.

The third peculiarity is that control extends beyond price to the conditions of the transaction. Article 10-2, in force from 2026, speaks of “a deviation of the conditions of the transaction from market conditions or of the price of the transaction from market prices” — so a deviation in conditions is an independent trigger even where the price itself is arm’s length.

Parameter	Kazakhstan (Law No. 67-IV)	The classic OECD model
Condition for control to apply	A cross-border business transaction; relatedness is not required	A transaction between associated enterprises
What is adjusted	Objects of taxation and objects connected with taxation	The profits of an associated enterprise
Where the rules sit	A standalone statute	Usually the tax code
Trigger for adjustment	Deviation of co­nditio­ns or of price	Departure from the arm’s length principle

UPPERSETUP covers the UAE and Hong Kong transfer pricing regimes, which are built quite differently, separately: transfer pricing in the UAE in 2026 and transfer pricing in Hong Kong in 2026.

The Regulatory Framework: Which Instruments Actually Govern Transfer Pricing in 2026

Kazakhstan’s transfer pricing regime rests on one statute, two orders on forms and one order listing concessionary jurisdictions. What follows is limited to instruments in force, with the date of adoption and the date of entry into force stated separately.

The statute and its amendment chain

Law of the Republic of Kazakhstan No. 67-IV of 5 July 2008 “On Transfer Pricing” is in force in 2026. Its structure runs to Articles 1, 1-1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 5-1, 6, 7, 7-1, 7-2, 7-3, 7-4, 8, 9, 10, 10-1, 10-2, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 17-1, 17-2, 18, 19 and 20.

Amending law	Date	Entry into force	What it did
No. 122-VI	25 December 2017	in stages: 01.01.2016, 01.01.2018and 01.01.2019	Introduced three-tier reporting: Article 5-1 from 01.01.2018, Articles 7-1 and 7-2 from 01.01.2019, and Article 7-3 retroactively from 01.01.2016
No. 124-VI	26 December 2017	01.01.2018	Consequential amendments
No. 241-VI	2 April 2019	10 calendar days after first publication	Targeted amendments
No. 352-VI	29 June 2020	10 calendar days after first publication	Targeted amendments
No. 75-VII	24 November 2021	10 calendar days after first publication	Targeted amendments
No. 223-VII	19 April 2023	10 calendar days after first publication	Amended Article 18 — sources of information
No. 68-VIII	25 March 2024	60 calendar days after first publication	The most extensive amendment: excluded sub-paragraph 20) of Article 2, Article 3(3) and (4), Article 5-1(2), Article 7(2), Article 7-1(2) and sub-paragraph 15) of the second part of Article 11; added Articles 17-1 and 17-2; and amended Article 12, relaxing the rigid hierarchy of methods. In all it touched Articles 2, 3, 5, 5-1, 6, 7, 7-1, 7-2, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 17, 17-1 and 17-2
No. 107-VIII	1 July 2024	60 calendar days after first publication	Excluded the preamble and added Article 1-1, “Purpose, objectives and principles of regulation in the field of transfer pricing” — the preamble’s content was moved into a normative article
No. 215-VIII	18 July 2025	1 January 2026	Added Article 10-2; amended Articles 2, 3, 4 (including its heading), 5, 6, 7-2, 7-3, 8, 9, 10, 11 and 13 — twelve articles in all

Law No. 215-VIII of 18 July 2025 is the sole source of the transfer pricing changes that took effect in 2026. No separate law amended Law No. 67-IV in 2026.

The table covers amendments from 2017 onwards. Before that the statute was amended by Laws No. 288-IV of 9 June 2010, No. 452-IV of 5 July 2011, No. 21-V of 22 June 2012, No. 152-V of 5 December 2013, No. 159-V of 13 January 2014 and No. 248-V of 7 November 2014. None of these affects the reporting architecture in force, but they explain why Article 4 has no sub-paragraphs 2), 4) or 5) — Law No. 159-V excluded them without renumbering the rest.

A caveat on Article 4. The note to Article 4 records that Law No. 215-VIII amended its heading, yet the heading — “Powers of the authorised body” — reads identically in the redactions before and after 1 January 2026. The change should be treated as formal; it cannot be asserted that Article 4 acquired a new heading.

Two details of the chain are almost nowhere reported correctly. First, Article 7-3 on country-by-country reporting was introduced with retroactive effect from 1 January 2016, even though Law No. 122-VI was itself adopted in December 2017 — so that Kazakhstan could exchange reports for earlier financial years. Second, Articles 17-1 and 17-2 on the range and profitability indicators were not amended by Law No. 68-VIII but added by it — before 2024 the statute contained no formalised procedure for determining the range at all.

Subordinate instruments

Instrument	Ministry of Justice registration	Status	Subject matter
Order of the Minister of Finance No. 1104 of 24 December 2018 approving the forms of the local, master and country­-by­-country transfer pricing reports and the rules for completing them	No. 18034 of 26 December 2018	In force, text as at 01.01.2026	Forms 013 МО, 014 ОО and 012 МО and their completion rules — six annexes
Order of the Minister of Finance No. 178 of 14 February 2018 approving the form of the notification of participation in a multinational group and the rules for completing it	No. 16462 of 1 March 2018	In force	Form 011 ЗУ and its completion rules
Order of the Minister of Finance No. 492 of 12 September 2025 approving the list of states with concessionary taxation	No. 36853 of 16 September 2025	In force from 1 January 2026	The list of concessionary jurisdictions — 56 entries, issued under Article 20(3) of the Tax Code
Order of the Minister of Finance No. 176 of 16 March 2015 approving the Rules on the monitoring of transactions	No. 10760 of 17 April 2015	In force	The Rules on monitoring of transactions — a separate regime that is not part of three-tier reporting
Order of the Minister of Finance No. 782 of 17 December 2025 amending certain orders of the Minister of Finance	No. 37601 of 18 December 2025	In force from 1 January 2026	Restated the Rules on monitoring of transactions in a new redaction and excluded paragraph 1 of Order No. 419
Order of the Deputy Prime Mini­ster–Mi­nister of Finance No. 414 of 15 April 2022 approving the Rules on concluding a transfer pricing agreement	No. 27623 of 19 April 2022	In force	The procedure for concluding a transfer pricing agreement

Order No. 1104 has been amended three times: by Order No. 514 of 18 May 2022, Order No. 633 of 19 September 2024 and Order No. 419 of 4 August 2025. Order No. 178 has been amended three times: by Order No. 514 of 18 May 2022, Order No. 84 of 24 February 2025 and Order No. 439 of 11 August 2025.

No new order on transfer pricing forms was issued for 2026. Both 2018 orders remain the operative instruments; the 2026 changes arrived through Orders No. 419 and No. 439 of August 2025. Material promising “new transfer pricing forms from 2026” is unsupported.

What Order No. 419 of 4 August 2025 (MoJ No. 36577 of 6 August 2025) actually did. Its paragraph 2 restated the second part of paragraph 4 of the Rules for completing the country-by-country report: where a constituent entity prepares its accounts in a different currency, its financial indicators are translated into the currency of the consolidated financial statements “using the arithmetic mean official exchange rate determined by sub-paragraph 3) of Article 21 of the Tax Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan”. Paragraph 1 of the same order, which concerned the Rules on monitoring of transactions, was excluded by Order No. 782 of 17 December 2025 before it ever took effect.

And here is a discrepancy worth knowing before filing. In Tax Code No. 214-VIII, sub-paragraph 3) of Article 21 defines the official exchange rate, while the arithmetic mean official exchange rate for a period is defined in sub-paragraph 6) of the same article (the formula R = (R₁ + R₂ + … + Rₙ) / n over the official rates for each working day of the period). The cross-reference in the completion rules therefore points to a sub-paragraph that does not contain the quantity it refers to. In substance sub-paragraph 6) applies: it is the provision that introduces the arithmetic mean rate, and that is the quantity the rule itself names. The mismatch is a drafting defect in the subordinate instrument, not an alternative method of calculation.

Order No. 492 repealed three predecessor lists: Order No. 142 of 8 February 2018, Order No. 920 of 25 September 2020 and Order No. 1215 of 30 November 2022. None of them may be cited in 2026.

How Law No. 67-IV relates to Tax Code No. 214-VIII

Law No. 67-IV contains no reference to any Tax Code by number — neither to the current No. 214-VIII nor to the repealed No. 120-VI. Article 1 defines transfer pricing legislation as resting on the Constitution, the Law itself and other normative legal acts. Cross-references in the text run generically to “the tax legislation of the Republic of Kazakhstan” — in the definition of a state with concessionary taxation in Article 2, for instance, and in the currency clause of Article 7-3. A separate cross-reference in Article 9(2) runs to the Entrepreneurial Code.

The practical consequence: there is no “dangling reference to the repealed Code No. 120-VI” problem in the transfer pricing law, and nothing to write about on that score. The substantive link to the new Code runs through three of its articles — Article 14, “Related parties”, Article 20, “State with concessionary taxation”, and Article 21, “Other concepts”, which defines the monthly calculation index (sub-paragraph 1)), the official exchange rate (sub-paragraph 3)) and the arithmetic mean official exchange rate for a period (sub-paragraph 6)).

An important qualification to the “no references” point: it holds for the statute itself but not for the subordinate level. Order No. 492 was issued “in accordance with Article 20(3) of the Tax Code”, and the Rules for completing the country-by-country report, as restated by Order No. 419, cross-refer directly to Article 21 of the Code. In other words, the Code enters the transfer pricing regime through the orders, not through the statute.

The architecture of Code No. 214-VIII itself, in force from 1 January 2026, is covered separately: Kazakhstan’s tax system in 2026.

Which Transactions Fall Within Transfer Pricing Control: Article 3 Verbatim

Transfer pricing control applies to cross-border business transactions and to four categories of transaction concluded in Kazakhstan that are directly connected with a cross-border business transaction. The list in Article 3(1) is closed.

Category 1 — cross-border business transactions. This is the foundation of control. The definition sits in sub-paragraph 31) of Article 2 and has three limbs, not two:

“cross-border business transactions – transactions in which one party is a non-resident not registered in the Republic of Kazakhstan and the other party is a resident of the Republic of Kazakhstan or a non-resident carrying on activity in the Republic of Kazakhstan through a permanent establishment, and also transactions of residents of the Republic of Kazakhstan performed outside the territory of the Republic of Kazakhstan”.

The third limb — transactions of Kazakhstan residents performed outside Kazakhstan — is almost never reproduced, and it widens the perimeter more than any other part of the definition. A transaction between two Kazakhstan residents performed abroad is a cross-border business transaction and falls under control through sub-paragraph 1) of Article 3(1) directly — with no relatedness requirement and no condition of connection to any other transaction.

Category 2 — four types of domestic transaction directly connected with a cross-border business transaction:

Sub-category	Condition
Minerals	Sales of minerals extracted by a subsoil user that is one of the parties
Tax reliefs	One of the parties enjoys tax reliefs
Losses	One of the parties has a loss per its tax returns for the two most recent tax periods preceding the year of the transaction
Differing CIT rates	The parties apply different corporate income tax rates

The practical point for groups with a Kazakh link: a purely domestic transaction between two residents falls within transfer pricing control where one of them has been loss-making for two consecutive years, enjoys a tax relief or applies a different CIT rate — provided the transaction is directly connected with a cross-border business transaction. This catches holding structures in which a manufacturing company sells to a trading company and the trading company exports.

A precision point that matters when quoting. The four domestic categories are not numbered sub-paragraphs: they are unnumbered indents subordinate to sub-paragraph 2) of Article 3(1). The first reads, verbatim, “on minerals sold that were extracted by a subsoil user that is one of the parties” — with no closing word “to the transaction”. The condition of direct connection with a cross-border business transaction sits in the chapeau of sub-paragraph 2) and governs all four indents without exception.

Article 3(3) and (4) were excluded by Law No. 68-VIII of 25 March 2024. Material still citing them is out of date. The consolidated text does not reproduce what those paragraphs used to say, and this article does not reconstruct them.

The forms of control are listed in Article 3(2), and the chapeau attributes all of them to the authorised body: control is exercised through the conduct by the authorised body of monitoring of transactions, audits, and other procedures established by the laws of the Republic of Kazakhstan. No other state body applies these forms of control.

Article 3 is recorded as amended by Law No. 215-VIII with effect from 1 January 2026, yet a comparison of the redactions before and after that date reveals no difference in the text of paragraphs 1 and 2. The change should be treated as formal; the perimeter of control was not substantively widened in 2026.

UPPERSETUP covers how transfer pricing interacts with the recognition of a permanent establishment separately: permanent establishment of a non-resident in Kazakhstan in 2026.

Related Parties: Article 11 and Its Twenty Limbs

Related parties are individuals and/or legal entities having special relations that influence the economic results of transactions between them. The definition sits in Article 11 of Law No. 67-IV itself, not in the Tax Code, and is elaborated through sub-paragraphs of the second part numbered 1) to 20). Nineteen limbs are operative: sub-paragraph 15) was excluded by Law No. 68-VIII of 25 March 2024.

The limbs fall into two groups, and the division has direct consequences for reporting.

Group A — sub-paragraphs 1) to 14): formal control, affiliation, family and trust management. This group reads considerably wider than it is usually summarised:

Sub-paragraph	Limb
1)	One person is an affiliate of the other
2)	A person is a major shareholder or major participant (holding ten per cent or more of voting shares or participation interests) in a party to the transaction
3)	A person is related to a party to the transaction by a contract, including trust management of property, under which it may determine the trustee’s decisions
4)	The owner of property and the person to whom one or more owner’s powers (possession, use, disposal) have been transferred, where the owner may determine that person’s decisions
5)	A person is an officer of a party to the transaction or of a legal entity listed in sub-pa­ra­graphs 2), 3), 6) to 10), other than an independent director
6)	A legal entity controlled by a major shareholder, major participant or officer of a party to the transaction
7)	A legal entity in which a major shareholder, major participant or officer of a party to the transaction is itself a major shareholder or major participant
8)	A legal entity in which the party to the transaction itself is a major shareholder or major participant
9)	A legal entity that is under the control of a third person jointly with the party to the transaction
10)	A person that alone or together with its affiliates holds, uses or disposes of ten per cent or more of the voting shares or participation interests in a party to the transaction or in the legal entities listed in sub-pa­ra­graphs 2), 3), 6) to 9)
11)	An individual who is the spouse, a close relative (parent, son, daughter, adoptive parent, adopted child, brother, sister, grandmother, grandfather, grandchild) or an in-law of a major shareholder, major participant or officer, other than an independent director, of a party to the transaction
12)	Two trustees, where the settlor under both trust management contracts is the same person able to determine their decisions
13)	A trustee and an orga­nisa­tion in which the settlor is a major shareholder or major participant (ten per cent or more), where the settlor can determine the trustee’s decisions
14)	A trustee under one contract and a beneficiary under another, where the settlor under both contracts is the same person

Three things about Group A that are most often mis-stated. First, cross-shareholding is not among the limbs. Sub-paragraph 10) is an attribution rule — holdings together with affiliates, and holdings up the chain of entities listed in sub-paragraphs 2), 3), 6) to 9) — not reciprocal ownership. Second, the family limb in sub-paragraph 11) is one of the most frequently triggered in practice and is almost always dropped from summaries. Third, the independent-director carve-out appears twice — in sub-paragraph 5) and again in sub-paragraph 11) — not only in relation to officers.

Group B — sub-paragraphs 16) to 20): economic dependence. These five limbs, and the non-resident carve-out attached to them, entered the statute only in 2024 — Law No. 68-VIII of 25 March 2024 added them; before that the list ended at sub-paragraph 15). It is these five limbs that are excluded from the local file perimeter by Article 7-1, which is why they need to be known precisely:

Sub-paragraph	Limb
16)	A person manufactures or trades using another person’s (and its related party’s) intangible assets and/or intellectual property rights, for which it must make payments amounting in aggregate to more than fifty per cent of the initial cost (or prime cost) of those products
17)	A person and/or its related party supplies more than fifty per cent of the total value of the raw materials, materials or input product (excluding depreciation of fixed assets) used by another person to manufacture finished goods
18)	A person and/or its related party generates more than fifty per cent of another person’s revenue for the reporting calendar year on transactions that are cross-border business transactions
19)	A person whose total indebtedness to another person, at the date the transaction is concluded or its principal terms revised, exceeds fifty per cent of its equity, or where no less than ten per cent of total debt at the end of the reporting calendar year is guaranteed by the other person — save where one of them is an independent international financial organisation or a state institution of a foreign state, or holds a licence to carry out banking and other operations issued in the Republic of Kazakhstan or in a foreign state
20)	A person granted rights for the reporting calendar year as an agent, distributor or dealer of a company in buying or selling goods (works, services) under a written agreement

Note the qualification in sub-paragraph 18): the fifty per cent revenue test is measured only on transactions that are cross-border business transactions, not on total revenue. That narrowing is easy to miss.

Sub-paragraph 19) needs even closer reading: the ten per cent limit attaches not to the debt itself but to how much of it is guaranteed by the other person. Reading “ten per cent of total debt” as a freestanding debt test manufactures relatedness where none exists.

The carve-out for non-residents with transparent reporting

The carve-out is set out in a separate, third part of Article 11: the conditions in sub-paragraphs 16) to 20) do not apply to a non-resident party to the transaction in three cases, and it can remove a company from the local file perimeter altogether:

Case	Condition
1	The non-re­si­dent’s financial statements are published under IFRS in the public domain and/or presented on the stock exchanges of OECD member countries
2	The non-resident is a participant in a multinational group whose financial statements are published under IFRS in the public domain and/or presented on OECD-country exchanges
3	The non-re­si­dent’s financial statements are provided to the authorised body on its request no later than sixty calendar days from receipt of the request. The requirement of confirmation by an independent audit organisation appears in the statute as a separate sentence following that indent

The practical consequence: a transaction with a listed foreign company, or with a member of a group whose consolidated accounts are disclosed under IFRS, does not create relatedness on the economic-dependence limbs — and so does not drag a local file obligation along with it.

Registration of a counterparty in a state with concessionary taxation is not, of itself, a limb of relatedness — no such sub-paragraph appears in Article 11. A concessionary jurisdiction bites elsewhere: on the permissible sources of information under Article 18, and on the special regime in Article 10-1.

Article 11 is recorded as amended by Law No. 215-VIII with effect from 1 January 2026, but the list of limbs did not change: the numbering still runs 1) to 20), sub-paragraph 15) remains excluded, and the wording of sub-paragraphs 16) to 20) and of the non-resident carve-out matches the redaction in force before 2026. Claims that new limbs of relatedness were added from 2026 — in particular that “spouses were added” — are unsupported: the spouse has been in sub-paragraph 11) since before the 2024 redaction.

Three-Tier Reporting: the Map of the Four Documents

Transfer pricing reporting consists of three types — local, master and country-by-country; the notification of participation in a multinational group is filed separately from them. Article 7(1) says so in terms: “Transfer pricing reporting consists of the following types of reporting: 1) local; 2) master; 3) country-by-country. The forms of transfer pricing reporting and the procedure for completing them are approved by the authorised body.”

The article numbering is the first thing people get wrong: these are Articles 5-1, 7-1, 7-2 and 7-3, not Articles 4-1 to 4-5. Article 4 is headed “Powers of the authorised body” and has no sub-articles.

Document	Article	Form	Who files	Deadline	Trigger
No­tifi­cation of participation in a multinational group	5-1	011 ЗУ	Every participant in a multinational group	no later than 1 September of the year following the reporting financial year	Automatic
Local file	7-1	013 МО	A party to the transaction that meets the revenue threshold	no later than 12 monthsfollowing the reporting financial year	Automatic
Master file	7-2	014 ОО	Four categories of participant in a multinational group	within 30 calendar daysof receiving the demand	On demand only
Cou­ntry-by­-country report	7-3	012 МО	A Kaza­kh-re­sident parent or an authorised participant	no later than 12 monthsfollowing the reporting financial year	Automatic; under the secondary mechanism, 12 months from the demand

A trap in the form indices: the local file carries index 013 МО and the country-by-country report carries index 012 МО. The letters are identical because both abbreviations collapse to “МО” — местная отчётность (local reporting) and межстрановая отчётность (country-by-country reporting). The forms are distinguished by the digits, not the letters. Filing the wrong form through the tax reporting system leaves the obligation undischarged.

All four forms are annual — the forms themselves use the word “ежегодная” — and are classified as forms for the collection of administrative data.

Two provisions of Article 7 that answer half the practical questions

The first is Article 7(3): corrected reporting is filed outside the deadlines. Where a party to a transaction and/or a constituent entity of a multinational group discovers incompleteness, inaccuracies or errors in a report already filed, that participant must file a corrected report, and “the deadlines for filing reports established by this Law do not apply to the filing of a corrected report”. The rule operates for all three reports — local, master and country-by-country — and the mirror provision in Article 5-1(3) does the same for the notification. The practical consequence: a report filed on time and later corrected creates no default; a report never filed does.

The second is Article 7-4, which is almost never written about. It consists of a single sentence: “The authorised body has the right to use transfer pricing reporting for taxation purposes.” The article was added by Law No. 122-VI and has been in force since 1 January 2018. It is the express statutory basis for using local, master and country-by-country data in an assessment rather than for analysis alone. Transfer pricing reporting is not “informational” — it is the evidentiary base of an audit.

The heading of Article 7 was amended by Law No. 68-VIII, which deleted the words “filed by a constituent entity of a multinational group” from it, because the local file is filed by a party to a transaction, not by a constituent entity of a group.

The Notification of Participation in a Multinational Group: Article 5-1

A participant in a multinational group must file a notification of its participation with the authorised body no later than 1 September of the year following the reporting financial year. Article 5-1 sets no monetary threshold at all — the obligation attaches solely to the status of being a participant in a multinational group.

The form is 011 ЗУ, filed annually. The form and its completion rules are approved by Order of the Minister of Finance No. 178 of 14 February 2018.

The filing channel is electronic, authenticated by electronic digital signature. Paper filing is permitted only on a documented system failure.

Article 5-1(3) imposes a correction duty: where a participant discovers incomplete information, inaccuracies or errors in a notification already filed, that participant must file a corrected notification reflecting the updated information. The 1 September deadline does not apply to the corrected notification — a correction may therefore be made at any time and does not of itself create a default.

Article 5-1(4) refers expressly to liability: failure to file the notification, or filing a notification containing inaccurate information, entails liability under the laws of the Republic of Kazakhstan.

Article 5-1(2) was excluded by Law No. 68-VIII of 25 March 2024.

Article 5-1 was added by Law No. 122-VI of 25 December 2017 and came into force on 1 January 2018 — a year before three-tier reporting itself.

The practical conclusion: the notification is due earlier, and from a wider population, than any of the three reports.A company that meets none of the reporting thresholds must still file the notification if it is a participant in a multinational group. This is the single most common point of first breach.

The Local File: Article 7-1 and a Threshold Measured With a Two-Step Lag

The local file for a reporting financial year is filed by a party to the transaction with the authorised body no later than 12 months following the reporting financial year. Filing is automatic — no demand from the authority is required.

Article 7-1(2), which provided for filing on demand, was excluded by Law No. 68-VIII of 25 March 2024. Material stating that the local file is filed “on request from the tax authority” describes a repealed text.

The threshold: three conditions, each easy to misread

Article 7-1(3) applies the obligation to a party to the transaction that cumulatively:

Condition 1. Entered, during the reporting financial year, into transactions specified in Article 3(1) of the Law with related parties.

Condition 2. Transactions with persons treated as related parties under sub-paragraphs 16) to 20) of the second part of Article 11 — that is, on the economic-dependence limbs — are excluded.

Condition 3. Has revenue, per its financial statements for the financial year preceding the reporting financial year, of no less than five million times the monthly calculation index set by the republican budget law and in force on 1 January of the year preceding the reporting financial year.

Three traps in that threshold, each of which changes the answer:

First, the test measures the party’s own revenue, not the value of its controlled transactions. A company with a single USD 100,000 controlled transaction and revenue above the threshold files; a company with a billion in intra-group turnover and revenue below the threshold does not.

Second, the revenue taken is that of the year preceding the reporting year. For reporting year 2026 one looks at 2025 revenue.

Third, and most treacherous: the monthly calculation index is neither the reporting year’s nor the preceding year’s, but the one in force on 1 January of the year preceding the reporting year. That is a two-step lag.

The threshold in tenge

Reporting financial year	Revenue of which year is tested	MCI as at which date	MCI amount	Local file threshold
2026	2025	1 January 2025	KZT 3,932	KZT 19,660,000,000
2027	2026	1 January 2026	KZT 4,325	KZT 21,625,000,000

The local file threshold for reporting year 2026 is KZT 19,660,000,000 of 2025 revenue.

The filing channel is electronic, through the state revenue authority’s tax reporting reception and processing system, authenticated by electronic digital signature. Paper filing by registered post or in person is available only where electronic filing is unavailable.

The form is 013 МО, approved by Order of the Minister of Finance No. 1104 of 24 December 2018 (annexes 1 and 2).

Article 7-1 was added by Law No. 122-VI of 25 December 2017 with effect from 1 January 2019 and amended by Law No. 68-VIII of 25 March 2024.

The practical conclusion worth running before the year closes: the local file obligation for 2026 is fixed by numbers that are already settled — 2025 revenue and the MCI in force on 1 January 2025. It cannot be influenced during 2026; it can only be discovered in time.

The Master File: Article 7-2, Filing Only on Demand, and a Twelve-Month Shield

The master file for a reporting financial year is filed by a participant in a multinational group with the authorised body on that body’s demand — within thirty calendar days of receiving the demand. There is no automatic master file filing in Kazakhstan.

The protection most often overlooked: the master file may not be demanded from a participant earlier than the expiry of twelve months following the end of the relevant financial year. A demand for a 2026 master file therefore cannot arrive before 1 January 2028 where the financial year is the calendar year.

Thirty calendar days is a hard deadline, and this is the only one of the four documents measured in days rather than months. A group master file cannot be built from nothing in thirty days, so the only workable strategy is to have it ready in advance.

Who must file the master file

Article 7-2(2) names four categories:

Category	Who
1	The parent company of the multinational group that is a resident of the Republic of Kazakhstan
2	An authorised participant in the multinational group
3	A resident that is a participant in the multinational group and is neither the parent company nor the authorised participant
4	A non-resident that is a participant in the multinational group and carries on business in Kazakhstan through a structural subdivision or permanent esta­bli­shment, where the group’s parent company or authorised participant is not a resident of the Republic of Kazakhstan

A precision point worth recording: the non-residence condition is printed at the end of sub-paragraph 4), not in the chapeau of paragraph 2 and not in sub-paragraph 3). Whether it also governs sub-paragraph 3) is not stated in the statute — that is a question of construction, not of text. In practice it is safer to assume that a Kazakh participant which is neither the parent nor the authorised participant may receive a demand in any event.

The obligation of categories 3 and 4 is treated as discharged where the master file is filed on their behalf by an authorised participant, or by the group’s parent company, in the manner determined by the authorised body. It is separately discharged by filing a notarised copy of the master file of the non-resident parent company or authorised participant.

The threshold: two cumulative conditions, and the second turns on where the parent is resident

Article 7-2(3) applies the Article to a participant that meets both of the following:

Condition 1. The participant entered, in the reporting financial year, into transactions specified in Article 3 of the Law.

Condition 2. The group’s consolidated revenue for the financial year immediately preceding the reporting financial year is no less than:

•          the amount equivalent to EUR 750 million, applying the arithmetic-mean official exchange rate determined under Kazakh tax legislation for the relevant financial year — where the group’s parent company is a Kazakh resident;

•          the amount established by the legislation of the foreign state of which the parent company or authorised participant is a resident — in every other case.

This distinction has direct practical consequences and is almost nowhere reported correctly: for a group with a foreign parent, the master file threshold is the parent jurisdiction’s threshold, not EUR 750 million. Where the parent sits in a jurisdiction with a lower threshold, the Kazakh participant is caught sooner than intuition suggests; where the parent’s jurisdiction has no such threshold, the position needs separate analysis.

The form is 014 ОО, annexes 3 and 4 to Order No. 1104.

Article 7-2 was added by Law No. 122-VI with effect from 1 January 2019 and amended by Law No. 215-VIII from 1 January 2026.

Country-by-Country Reporting: Article 7-3 and the Secondary Mechanism

The country-by-country report for a reporting financial year is filed with the authorised body no later than 12 months following the reporting financial year, by the group’s parent company where that parent is a Kazakh resident, or by an authorised participant.

Article 7-3(2) names exactly two categories of primary filer:

1)       the parent company of the multinational group that is a resident of the Republic of Kazakhstan;

2)       an authorised participant in the multinational group, where the parent company has given that participant authority to file the country-by-country report.

The secondary mechanism: when an ordinary Kazakh participant has to file

Article 7-3(3) places the obligation, on demand from the authorised body, on two categories of participant, not only on Kazakh residents: 1) a resident that is a participant in the group and is neither the parent company nor the authorised participant; and 2) a non-resident that is a participant in the group and carries on business in Kazakhstan through a structural subdivision or permanent establishment — subject to conditions analogous to those applying to the first category. Each of the two categories is caught where any one of four conditions is met:

No.	Condition
1	The parent company or authorised participant is not a Kazakh resident and has no obligation to file a country­-by­-country report under the law of its state of residence
2	The parent company or authorised participant has failed to discharge its country­-by­-country filing obligation — where the authorised body has information to that effect, including from a foreign competent authority
3	There is no international treaty on the exchange of information with the parent company’s state of residence
4	The foreign state sy­stema­tically fails to comply with automatic exchange

“Systematic failure” is defined in the statute itself rather than left to the authority’s discretion. The closing indent of Article 7-3(3) recognises two cases: the authorised body received a refusal from a foreign competent authority to supply country-by-country information despite an international treaty on the exchange of information being in force; or a foreign competent authority did not carry out the automatic exchange of country-by-country data in respect of a group one of whose participants is a Kazakh resident or a non-resident operating in Kazakhstan through a structural subdivision or permanent establishment.

The deadline under the secondary mechanism is fundamentally different: a country-by-country report filed on demand is due no later than 12 months from receipt of the demand, not thirty days as for the master file. The rule sits in Article 7-3(1), which refers forward to paragraph 3, rather than in paragraph 3 itself — the pin-cite should be given that way.

The threshold is the equivalent of EUR 750 million of consolidated revenue for the financial year immediately preceding the reporting year.

The Law sets no fixed tenge amount. Article 7-3(4) reads: “equivalent to EUR 750 million, applying the arithmetic-mean official exchange rate determined under the tax legislation of the Republic of Kazakhstan for the relevant financial year”. The threshold is therefore recomputed each year at the arithmetic-mean official euro rate for that financial year. Any publication quoting a hard tenge figure as the statutory country-by-country threshold is wrong.

The obligation is treated as discharged by filing a notarised copy of the country-by-country report of the non-resident parent company or authorised participant; notarisation is not required for electronic filing.

The form is 012 МО, annexes 5 and 6 to Order No. 1104. The channel is electronic, in a format permitting computer processing, through the state revenue authority’s system.

Methods for Determining the Market Price: Article 12 and a Softened Hierarchy

One of five methods listed in Article 12(1) of Law No. 67-IV is used to determine the market price.

No.	Method	Article
1)	Comparable uncontrolled price	13
2)	Cost plus	14
3)	Resale price	15
4)	Profit split	16
5)	Net profit	17

Note the ordering: the Kazakh statute puts cost plus second and resale price third — the reverse of the OECD sequence. A reference to “the second method” without naming it means something different in Kazakhstan from what it means in international practice.

The hierarchy was relaxed in 2024

Article 12(2) reads: “Where the comparable uncontrolled price method cannot be applied, one of the methods specified in paragraph 1 of this Article is applied — the one which, taking into account the actual circumstances and conditions of the transaction, permits the most well-founded conclusion as to whether the transaction price corresponds to market prices.”

That is a two-step, not a five-step, construction: only the comparable uncontrolled price method has priority; where it cannot be applied, the other four rank equally and the most well-founded is chosen. The rigid cascade under which the third method could be reached only if the second failed does not exist in the current text — Article 12 was amended by Law No. 68-VIII of 25 March 2024.

Article 12(3) requires the choice of method to be justified, and it lists three circumstances, not two. The party takes into account: 1) the choice of method by reference to the nature of the transaction, determined by analysing the functions performed by each participant, the assets used and the risks envisaged; 2) the availability of reliable information needed to apply the chosen method; and 3) the degree of comparability of the controlled and uncontrolled transactions, including the reliability of adjustments made to achieve comparability.

The third circumstance is what stops the “soft hierarchy” collapsing into free choice. A method for which information happens to be available and which suits the taxpayer still falls away where comparability is low and the adjustments needed to achieve it are unreliable. Paragraph 2 grants the freedom to choose among four methods; paragraph 3 constrains it. They cannot be read apart.

The practical conclusion: justifying the choice of method in the local file is not a formality but an express requirement of Article 12(3) — and from 2026 it interlocks with the functional analysis under Article 10-2.

The Price Range and the Profitability Range: Article 17-1

The range is determined by three rules according to how many observations there are. Article 17-1 applies to methods 1), 2), 3) and 5) of Article 12(1) — all of them except profit split — unless Article 13 provides otherwise.

Number of observations	How the range is determined
One value	The range equals that market price or profitability value
No more than three values	The range runs from the minimum to the maximum value inclusive
Four or more values	The range runs between the twe­nty­-fifth and seventy-fifth percentiles inclusive

A separate rule worth knowing when working with price reporting agencies: a price range stated in an information source as two values separated by a dash is also treated as a range of no more than three values. A quotation such as “120–130” therefore falls under the second rule and does not become an interquartile range.

Article 17-1 has three paragraphs, and the second and third govern different ranges — a distinction usually lost.

Paragraph 2 concerns the price range only: the values used to calculate a price range must be determined in accordance with, and using, one and the same information source. Sources may not be mixed within a single price range.

Paragraph 3 concerns the profitability range only, and imposes a separate requirement absent from paragraph 2:to calculate a range of profitability (margin), financial data for three consecutive calendar years immediately preceding the calendar year in which the transaction under analysis was made must be used.

The practical consequence: a profitability range for a 2026 transaction is built on data for 2023, 2024 and 2025. A single-year set of comparables does not satisfy Article 17-1(3) however well selected, and the one-source rule does not extend to the profitability range.

The Differential: How the Kazakh Mechanism Differs From Comparability Adjustments

The differential is defined in Article 2 as the amount of adjustment applied to bring the transaction price, or a price from an information source, into comparable economic conditions. Its operative mechanics sit in Article 13(5), within the comparable uncontrolled price method.

The differential is built from three blocks:

Block 1 — delivery costs. “Costs justified and confirmed by documents and/or by information sources that are necessary to deliver the goods (works, services) to the relevant market.” Confirmation by an information source is a freestanding route of proof, equal in rank to a document, and dropping it from summaries narrows the provision.

Block 2 is not a list of its own but a cross-reference. Article 13(5) refers to “conditions affecting the extent of the deviation of the transaction price from the market price specified in paragraph 7 of this Article”. Paragraph 7 is open-ended (“may include”) and has five sub-paragraphs:

Sub-paragraph of para 7	What it covers
1)	The quantity (volume) of goods supplied, works performed or services rendered
2)	Payment terms applied in transactions of that kind, and any other conditions capable of influencing prices
3)	Discounts from, or mark-ups to, the price, including those caused by: seasonal fluctuations in demand; loss of quality or other consumer properties; partial improvement or restoration of lost qualities; expiry, or the approach of expiry, of shelf life or sale dates; marketing policy in promoting new goods with no analogues and in entering new markets; and the sale of prototypes and samples to familiarise consumers
4)	Market reputation, country of origin and the presence of a trademark
5)	Margin, the commission (agency) fee of a trading broker, trader or agent, or compensation for their trade­-interme­diary functions

Block 3 — the quality of the goods (works, services).

Article 13(6) adds an express evidentiary requirement: the components of the differential must be confirmed by documents or by information sources. Article 13(8) closes off retrospective revision: no amendment or addition may be made in respect of the Article 13(5) differential to the monitoring report — neither for the period under audit during a comprehensive or thematic transfer pricing audit, nor for the period under appeal during the time allowed for lodging and hearing the appeal.

The key departure from international practice: the Kazakh differential is not a “comparability adjustment” in the broad sense but a structurally closed mechanism tied to the comparable uncontrolled price method and requiring documentary support for each component. A cost not supported by a document or an information source does not enter the differential.

Profitability indicators are defined in Article 17-2: gross cost margin, gross sales margin, operating cost margin, operating sales margin and operating return on assets — five indicators.

The Headline 2026 Change: Article 10-2 on Accurate Delineation and Functional Analysis

From 1 January 2026 Law No. 67-IV contains a new Article 10-2, “Comparison of the conditions of a transaction with market conditions, and functional analysis”, inserted by Law No. 215-VIII of 18 July 2025. It is the most substantive change to the Kazakh transfer pricing regime in years, and it imports the accurate-delineation methodology into national law.

Article 10-2 has ten paragraphs, and that matters because most commentary describes only the first four.Paragraphs 1 to 4 cover accurate delineation, the economically significant characteristics, the comparison, and the analysis of intangibles. Paragraphs 5 to 9 cover the consequences of a gap between ownership and functions, the ceiling on a funder’s return, the primacy of actual conduct over the contract, and a four-step risk analysis. Paragraph 10 confers the power to disregard the transaction. An account confined to paragraphs 1 to 4 misses the entire operative half of the reform.

Article 10-2(1) sets the starting point: “In order to establish a deviation of the conditions of the transaction from market conditions, or of the price of the transaction from market prices, the controlled transaction must be accurately delineated.” Accurate delineation becomes a mandatory first step preceding any price comparison.

The five economically significant characteristics

Article 10-2(2) requires five characteristics to be established:

No.	Cha­racte­ristic
1)	The conditions of the transa­ctio­ns, based both on written contracts or other written evidence and on the actual conduct of the parties, in order to determine obligations, risks and benefits and how they are allocated between the parties
2)	The functions performed by each party, taking into account the assets used and the risks assumed, including how those functions, assets and risks relate to the creation of value
3)	The chara­cteri­stics of the goods or services capable of affecting the conditions of the transaction
4)	The economic circumstances of the parties and of the market, including geographic location and market size, regional specific factors such as location savings, regulation, labour costs, capital and other factors of production, general economic development and the level of competition
5)	The market (commercial) strategies of the parties, including market penetration strategy, product or rights life cycles, innovation, product development, risk avoidance and changes of policy

Sub-paragraph 1) is the most consequential novelty: the contract is no longer conclusive evidence of the conditions of the transaction. The Law expressly directs that the conditions be established “both on written contracts … and on the actual conduct of the parties”. A divergence between what the contract says and how the parties behaved is now resolved in favour of the actual conduct.

Article 10-2(3): once the controlled transaction has been delineated, the conditions and prices of the controlled transaction are compared with market conditions or market prices, taking the economically significant characteristics into account.

Intangibles: a DEMPE-style analysis

Article 10-2(4) imports into Kazakh law the analysis of development, enhancement, maintenance, protection and exploitation functions in relation to intangible assets. The identification and analysis of the effect of intangibles is carried out, in the statute’s own words, having regard “in particular but not exclusively” — so the list of three sub-paragraphs is open, not closed:

Sub-paragraph 1) — legal ownership and the contractual terms of use. And here sits a rule capable of deciding a dispute: “Where the legal owner of an intangible asset is not identified in accordance with the governing contracts, that person is the taxpayer that controls the decisions concerning the exploitation of the intangible asset and has the practical ability to restrict others from using it.”

Sub-paragraph 2) — the category and characteristics of the intangibles: exclusivity, the extent and duration of legal protection, geographic scope, useful life, stage of development and other characteristics.

Sub-paragraph 3) — the contractual and actual functions connected with the intangibles, including functions relating to the control of risks associated with development, enhancement, maintenance and protection of the asset.

The practical conclusion for groups running intra-group royalties: from 2026 a legal owner of a trademark or technology that performs no actual development or protection functions is in an exposed position. Where the contract does not identify a legal owner, the statute appoints as owner whoever controls the decisions on exploiting the asset — which is usually the operating company, not the holding company.

Funding without functions: paragraphs 5 and 6

Article 10-2(5) is the sanction for a gap between legal ownership and actual functions. Where the functions listed in sub-paragraph 3) of paragraph 4 — contractual and actual functions, including control of the risks of development, enhancement, maintenance and protection of the asset — and control over the associated risks are not performed by the legal owner, income and expenses in respect of that intangible are not allocated to that owner; they are allocated having regard to the involvement of the other related parties performing those functions, by way of appropriate compensation to them.

Paragraph 6 caps the return of a party that only provides funding. A legal owner that does not perform the functions in sub-paragraph 3) of paragraph 4 and provides funding alone may earn a return in two modes:

Situation	Maximum return
The funder does not control the financial risk associated with providing the funding and assumes no other risk	A risk-free rate of return onlyon its funding
The funder does control the financial risk but assumes no other risk	A risk-adjusted return

The practical consequence for holding structures: from 2026 a brand-owning company that merely pays for development and manages neither the development nor the risks cannot, as a matter of law, claim the residual profit from the brand — its ceiling is the risk-free rate. Neither the contract nor the trademark registration lifts that ceiling.

Conduct prevails over paper: paragraphs 7 and 8

Paragraph 7: where the parties’ actions and the circumstances of performance differ from the terms of the contract, the commercial and/or financial characteristics of the controlled transaction are determined according to the parties’ actual actions and the actual conditions of performance. The contract is not voided — it simply ceases to be the source of the transaction’s characteristics for transfer pricing purposes.

Paragraph 8: a transaction that was carried out but not documented is treated, for transfer pricing purposes, according to the parties’ actual conduct — the functions performed, the assets used, and the risks each party assumed and controlled. The absence of a contract neither removes the transaction from control nor deprives the authority of a methodological basis.

Risk analysis: paragraph 9

Paragraph 9 prescribes a four-step procedure for identifying economically significant risks:

Step	What is done
1	Identify the transaction’s risks in detail
2	Determine the allocation of risks on the basis of the contractual rela­tio­nship
3	Determine how the functions of controlling and mitigating risk are actually performed by the parties, how the outcomes of those risks affect them, and which party has the financial capacity to bear the effect of those risks
4	Determine whether the contractual allocation of risk matches the parties’ conduct

The rule at step 4 is stated firmly: “Where the party assuming risk under the contract differs from the party that performs all or most of the risk-control functions and has the financial capacity to assume the risk, the risk will be allocated to that party.” At the same time, parties on whom risk is not placed for the purposes of the analysis must still receive appropriate remuneration for the functions they perform — risk migrates, but functions are not devalued.

Non-recognition of the transaction: paragraph 10, the strongest provision of 2026

Article 10-2(10) empowers the authorised body to disregard a controlled transaction entirely or to replace it with an alternative. This is an instrument of a different order from a price adjustment: what is adjusted is not the price within the transaction but the transaction itself.

It applies where both of the following are satisfied:

1.        The conditions of the controlled transaction, as determined by the parties’ actions and its performance, differ from those applied between independent parties having an economic rationale in comparable economic circumstances;

2.        It is established that independent parties acting in comparable economic circumstances and carrying on activity directed at earning income, taking account of the alternatives available to each of them, would not have entered into such a controlled transaction.

Where both are met, the authority may, “in computing the taxpayer’s tax accounting, disregard (not recognise) such a controlled transaction”, or the transaction “may be replaced by an alternative” in order to determine the terms independent parties acting to earn income in comparable economic circumstances would have agreed.

Why this is the most consequential change of 2026. Before 1 January 2026 the authority’s toolkit amounted to comparing a price against a market range: the transaction was accepted and the dispute was about a figure. From 2026 the authority may assert that independent parties would not have entered into the transaction at all — and then there is nothing left to argue about, because the object of comparison disappears. Verifying the price level ceases to be a sufficient defence: the commercial rationale of the transaction has to be established first, and only then its price.

Three types of structure that paragraph 10 reaches directly: intra-group loans where the borrower had no commercial alternative; licence payments for an asset the licensee could have used differently or developed itself; and intra-group management services that would not have been bought from an independent supplier. From 2026 each of these calls for a documented analysis of the alternatives realistically available to the parties — the “alternatives” in the language of paragraph 10 itself.

This change should be worked through before the 2026 local file is filed: the Article 10-2 functional analysis and the Article 12(3) justification of the chosen method now form a single evidentiary block.

UPPERSETUP covers the taxation of royalties and services at source separately: withholding tax in Kazakhstan in 2026.

Sources of Information: Article 18 and a Hard Limit for Concessionary Jurisdictions

Information sources are used in the order of priority set out in Article 18 to determine the market price of goods, works and services.

Priority	Source
1)	Officially recognised sources of information on market prices
2)	Sources of information on exchange quotations
3)	Data of state bodies, authorised bodies of other states and organisations on prices, the differential, costs and conditions affecting the deviation of the transaction price from the market price
4)	Information programmes used for transfer pricing purposes, information provided by the parties to transactions, and other sources

To determine the range of market prices, the list of officially recognised sources must contain one or more sources of information on market prices.

The restriction that changes the whole methodology for transactions with concessionary jurisdictions sits in Article 18(3): where a party to the transaction is registered in a state with concessionary taxation, only the information sources listed in sub-paragraphs 1) and 2) of paragraph 1 may be used to determine the market price. Commercial databases and information supplied by the parties themselves are therefore inadmissible in such cases — only officially recognised sources and exchange quotations remain.

The practical consequence: a transaction with a counterparty in a concessionary jurisdiction, in a product that carries no exchange quotation and appears in no officially recognised source, is methodologically indefensible. That is an argument in itself against routing goods flows through such jurisdictions.

Article 18 was amended by Laws No. 288-IV of 9 June 2010 and No. 223-VII of 19 April 2023 — the latter is routinely omitted from published amendment chains even though it is in force.

States With Concessionary Taxation: Order No. 492 and What It Does

The list of states with concessionary taxation is approved by Order of the Minister of Finance No. 492 of 12 September 2025, registered with the Ministry of Justice on 16 September 2025 under No. 36853 and in force from 1 January 2026.

Order No. 492 repealed three predecessor lists — Order No. 142 of 8 February 2018, Order No. 920 of 25 September 2020 and Order No. 1215 of 30 November 2022.

The concept is defined through a cascade: Article 2 of Law No. 67-IV refers to tax legislation; tax legislation elaborates it in Article 20 of Tax Code No. 214-VIII (“A state with concessionary taxation is a foreign state or territory that meets one of the following conditions…”); and the list itself is approved by Order No. 492.

The list plays three roles in the transfer pricing regime, and all three must be kept apart:

Role 1 — restricting the sources of information under Article 18(3), as set out above. This is a direct methodological constraint.

Role 2 — a different mechanics of the adjustment itself, under Article 10(12). Where a party to the transaction is registered in a state with concessionary taxation, the adjustment is made: under the comparable uncontrolled price method, disregarding Article 13(5) — that is, with no differential at all; and under the cost-plus, resale-price and net-profit methods, disregarding the profitability of the party registered in the concessionary state. This is a freestanding and severe restriction: delivery costs, discounts, product quality and reputation drop out of the calculation, and the counterparty’s own profitability does not enter the range.

Role 3 — the special regime in Article 10-1, “Determination of the market price and adjustment of objects of taxation and/or objects related to taxation in particular cases”. The Article concerns prices formed under the procedure (methodology) for determining the market price of goods sold under production sharing agreements, including transactions with parties from concessionary jurisdictions. The date 30 June 2012 attaches to the Government’s approval of that procedure (methodology), not to approval of the agreements — the common reading “under agreements approved before 30 June 2012” is wrong. The methods in Law No. 67-IV do not apply to such prices at all; the adjustment is made to the price produced by that methodology.

What the list still does not do: it does not create relatedness. Registration of a counterparty in a listed state does not make it a related party under Article 11 and does not, of itself, trigger a local file obligation. A transaction with such a counterparty falls within control because it is a cross-border business transaction, not because the counterparty is listed.

The same list of concessionary jurisdictions drives a second regime that often catches the same structures: controlled foreign company rules in Kazakhstan. The registration of currency contracts, which accompanies the same cross-border flows, is covered separately: currency control in Kazakhstan in 2026.

Monitoring of Transactions: a Separate Regime Frequently Confused With Transfer Pricing Reporting

Monitoring of transactions is a distinct form of control under Article 3(2), and monitoring reporting is not part of three-tier transfer pricing reporting. These are different documents with different deadlines and different sanctions.

The distinction has direct consequences for liability: failure to file monitoring reporting is penalised under Article 273(1) of the Code of Administrative Offences, while failure to file transfer pricing reporting or the group participation notification falls under Part 4 of the same Article, at materially different amounts.

Feature	Monitoring reporting	Three-tier transfer pricing reporting
Legal basis	Article 3(2) of Law No. 67-IV and the Monitoring Rules	Articles 7-1, 7-2 and 7-3 of Law No. 67-IV
Forms	Monitoring forms	013 МО, 014 ОО, 012 МО
Penalty for non-filing	Article 273(1): 100 / 200 / 350 MCI	Article 273(4): 250 / 500 MCI
Penalty for discrepancy against audit data	Article 273(2) where the discrepancy exceeds 2,000 MCI: 100 / 200 / 300 MCI	No equivalent provision

The Rules on monitoring of transactions were approved by Order of the Minister of Finance No. 176 of 16 March 2015 approving the Rules on the monitoring of transactions, registered with the Ministry of Justice on 17 April 2015 under No. 10760. Order No. 176 itself remains in force and has not been repealed — only the Rules it approved were restated.

The new redaction of the Rules was introduced by Order of the Minister of Finance No. 782 of 17 December 2025 amending certain orders of the Minister of Finance, registered with the Ministry of Justice on 18 December 2025 under No. 37601 and in force from 1 January 2026. Its paragraph 1 directs that the Rules on the monitoring of transactions be restated “in a new redaction in accordance with the annex to this Order”; its paragraph 2 excludes paragraph 1 of Order No. 419 of 4 August 2025. The enabling provisions are Article 6(4) of Law No. 67-IV, “Monitoring of transactions”, and sub-paragraph 2) of Article 16(3) of the Law “On State Statistics” — these are the provisions named in the preamble to Order No. 176.

This is the only instrument in the transfer pricing regime other than the August 2025 orders to change the subordinate layer from 1 January 2026, and it concerns monitoring rather than three-tier reporting.

Adjustment: Article 10 and Voluntary Correction Without a Penalty

Where a deviation of the conditions of a transaction from market conditions, or of the price from market prices, is established — having regard to the price range and/or to the deviation of the party’s profitability from the profitability range — the authorised body adjusts the objects of taxation and/or the objects connected with taxation. Article 10(1) carries one further limitation that is usually omitted: the adjustment is made “in the course of audits”. Outside an audit the authority makes no adjustment; monitoring of transactions does not, of itself, lead to one.

Note the formulation: what is adjusted is not the base of a particular tax but the objects of taxation and objects connected with taxation. A single pricing adjustment can therefore reach corporate income tax, withholding tax, subsoil use payments, excise duties and export customs duties simultaneously, depending on the nature of the transaction.

Article 10(6): an adjustment entails payment of taxes and other obligatory budget payments with the application of penalties and interest under the legislation of the Republic of Kazakhstan.

Voluntary correction: a provision worth using

Article 10(11) provides that where a taxpayer corrects the position itself before an audit begins, the amounts of taxes and other obligatory payments are computed using the price range and/or the profitability range and are paid without the imposition of penalties, reflected in the relevant tax return.

The window closes more precisely than is usually assumed. The statute names two kinds of audit: a comprehensive tax audit — but only where transfer pricing questions are included in it — and a thematic audit on transfer pricing questions. The start of a comprehensive audit that does not cover transfer pricing does not close the voluntary-correction window.

This is a working risk-management tool, and its economics are simple: the penalty under Article 278(1) of the Code of Administrative Offences for a large enterprise is 80 per cent of the assessed tax. A voluntary correction removes precisely that 80 per cent. Interest continues to accrue — the relief covers penalties, not interest.

The practical conclusion: where preparing the local file surfaces a deviation, it is economically rational to correct it voluntarily before an audit begins rather than await the audit’s outcome. For a large company the difference is 80 per cent of the additional tax.

Article 19 of Law No. 67-IV reads: “A breach of the transfer pricing legislation of the Republic of Kazakhstan entails the liability established by the laws of the Republic of Kazakhstan.” It is a pure referring provision — the sanctions themselves sit in the Code of Administrative Offences.

Article 10(12) deserves separate attention — a special mechanics of adjustment for transactions with concessionary jurisdictions. Where a party to the transaction is registered in a state with concessionary taxation, the adjustment is made: under the comparable uncontrolled price method, disregarding Article 13(5), that is, with no differential; and under the cost-plus, resale-price and net-profit methods, disregarding the profitability of the party registered in the concessionary state. In economic terms, delivery costs, discounts, quality and reputation are not admitted in defence of such transactions.

Article 10 was amended by Law No. 215-VIII with effect from 1 January 2026.

How profit is distributed after an adjustment — including through dividends — is covered separately: dividends and profit repatriation from a Kazakh LLP in 2026.

The Transfer Pricing Agreement: Kazakhstan’s Equivalent of an APA

Kazakhstan does have an advance pricing mechanism, even though it is not called an advance pricing agreement.The power sits in sub-paragraph 6) of Article 4 of Law No. 67-IV: the authorised body may “conclude an agreement on the application of transfer pricing in the manner determined by the authorised body”.

The procedure is set by Order of the Deputy Prime Minister–Minister of Finance No. 414 of 15 April 2022 approving the Rules on concluding a transfer pricing agreement, registered with the Ministry of Justice on 19 April 2022 under No. 27623.

Parameter	Value
Legal basis	Article 4, sub-paragraph 6) of Law No. 67-IV
Procedure	Order No. 414 of 15 April 2022, MoJ No. 27623
Status of the order	In force
Term of the agreement	no more than 3 years from the date of signature
Time to process an application	90 working days
Body	The State Revenue Committee

There is no dedicated article on the agreement in Law No. 67-IV — the mechanism exists as a power of the authority in Article 4 plus a subordinate procedure. That is why a substantial body of commentary asserts that Kazakhstan has no advance pricing agreement regime. The assertion is wrong.

A practical limitation worth weighing before applying: a three-year term and a 90-working-day processing period mean the agreement makes sense for stable, recurring flows — commodity supplies, intra-group financing, regular services — rather than for one-off transactions.

Liability: Article 273 of the Code of Administrative Offences and Its Five Parts

Sanctions for transfer pricing breaches are set by Article 273 of the Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan on Administrative Offences No. 235-V of 5 July 2014. The Article’s full heading is “Failure to submit, or refusal to submit, monitoring reporting, transfer pricing reporting, the notification of participation in a multinational group, or documents required for transfer pricing control”.

The note to the Article records two changes, and precision matters here: it was the heading of the Article that was restated by Law No. 122-VI of 25 December 2017 (in force from 1 January 2019), while the Article itself was amended by that law and by Law No. 155-VIII of 10 January 2025, in force 60 calendar days after first official publication. Article 273 was not amended in 2026; the Law No. 215-VIII tax package did not touch it.

Part	Conduct	Small business and NPOs	Medium business	Large business
1	Failure to file monitoring reporting on time; failure to file on time, or refusal to file, documents required for transfer pricing control	100 MCI	200 MCI	350 MCI
2	A discrepancy exceeding 2,000 MCI between monitoring reporting and audit data	100 MCI	200 MCI	300 MCI
3	Repetition of Part 1 conduct within one year	125 MCI	250 MCI	750 MCI
4	Failure to submit, inaccurate or incomplete submission, or refusal to submit transfer pricing reporting and the notification of participation in a multinational group	none prescribed	250 MCI	500 MCI
5	Repetition of Part 4 conduct within one year	none prescribed	500 MCI	1,000 MCI

The key feature of Part 4, almost never noted: no sanction at all is prescribed for small business entities and non-commercial organisations in respect of three-tier reporting and the notification. Liability begins at medium enterprise. The “up to 500 MCI” figure circulating in commentary is the large-enterprise rate for a first offence.

The second feature: Part 4 penalises not only failure to file but also inaccurate or incomplete filing. A local file that is filed but incomplete attracts the same sanction as one not filed at all.

The sanctions in tenge at the 2026 MCI

The monthly calculation index for 2026 is KZT 4,325 — Article 7 of Law No. 239-VIII of 8 December 2025 “On the republican budget for 2026–2028”, in force from 1 January 2026.

Breach	Medium business	Large business
Failure to file transfer pricing reporting or the notification (Part 4)	KZT 1,081,250	KZT 2,162,500
The same repeated within one year (Part 5)	KZT 2,162,500	KZT 4,325,000
Failure to file monitoring reporting or documents (Part 1)	KZT 865,000	KZT 1,513,750
The same repeated (Part 3)	KZT 1,081,250	KZT 3,243,750

The sanction for the adjustment itself: Article 278

Understating taxes and other obligatory budget payments in a declaration, a calculation or an application on the import of goods and payment of indirect taxes, where the conduct does not amount to a criminal offence, attracts a penalty under Article 278(1).

Person	Penalty
Individuals	10 MCI
Private notaries, private bailiffs, advocates, small business entities and non-co­mme­rcial organisations	20%
Medium business entities	50%
Large business entities	80%

The base of the penalty is wider than is usually written. The Code says “of the assessed amount of taxes and other obligatory payments to the budget”, not “of the assessed amount of tax”. For transfer pricing that matters: a single pricing adjustment under Article 10 reaches objects of taxation and objects connected with taxation, and can produce assessments simultaneously in corporate income tax, withholding tax and subsoil use payments — the percentage runs on their total, not on one tax.

The comparison this section exists to make: for a large business the penalty for failing to file transfer pricing reporting is a fixed KZT 2,162,500 for a first offence and KZT 4,325,000 on repetition (for a medium business, KZT 1,081,250 and KZT 2,162,500), while the penalty on an adjustment is 80 per cent of the additional tax with no ceiling. For a group with material intra-group flows the adjustment risk exceeds the reporting-penalty risk by orders of magnitude. That is why voluntary correction under Article 10(11) matters more economically than formal compliance with filing deadlines.

And at the same time: meeting the filing deadlines costs incomparably less than any of these sanctions.

Kazakhstan Against the UAE and Hong Kong: What Actually Differs

Transfer pricing regimes are properly compared on four parameters, each of which changes the volume of work: the trigger for control, the documentation thresholds, the filing deadlines, and whether an advance mechanism exists.

Parameter	Kazakhstan	UAE	Hong Kong
Legal basis	A standalone Law No. 67-IV	Federal Decree-Law No. 47 of 2022 and subordinate instruments	Part 8AA of Cap. 112
Trigger for control	A cross-border business transaction; relatedness not required	Transactions with related parties and connected persons	Transactions between associated persons
What is adjusted	Objects of taxation and objects connected with taxation	Taxable income	Profits
Local file threshold	The taxpayer’s own revenue — 5,000,000 MCI, on a two-step lag	Tied to revenue and status	Thresholds by transaction category
Master file threshold	EUR 750 millionfor a Kazakh parent; the foreign state’s thresholdfor a foreign parent	Tied to group consolidated revenue	Tied to group consolidated revenue
Country­-by­-country threshold	Equivalent of EUR 750 million, recomputed annually	Equivalent of EUR 750 million	Equivalent of EUR 750 million
Local file deadline	12 months after the reporting year, automatic	On request within a set period	On request
Master file deadline	30 calendar dayson demand, and no demand before 12 months after the year end	On request	On request
Advance agreement	Yes — Order No. 414, term no more than 3 yearsfrom signature, 90 working days to consider	Yes — the APA programme opened in December 2025(FTA guide CTGAPA1, Article 59 of the CT Law): unilateral domestic APAs accepted from December 2025, threshold AED 100 million of aggregate controlled transactions per tax period, term 3 to 5 tax periods	Yes — Division 4 of Part 8AA and Schedule 17H to Cap. 112, practice in DIPN 48 (Revised), typical term 3 to 5 years

Four conclusions follow.

First, Kazakhstan’s control perimeter is wider than in either comparator, because it does not require the parties to be related. A company with no related parties at all sits outside the transfer pricing regime in the UAE and Hong Kong, and inside it in Kazakhstan on any cross-border transaction.

Second, Kazakhstan’s local file threshold is the only one measured by the taxpayer’s own revenue on a two-step MCI lag, rather than by the value of controlled transactions. That makes planning simpler but also harder: whether the perimeter catches you in the reporting year cannot be influenced during that year.

Third, the thirty-day master file deadline is the tightest of the three jurisdictions, offset only by the prohibition on demanding it earlier than twelve months after the year end.

Fourth, the Kazakh transfer pricing agreement buys the shortest certainty of the three. Three years from signature, against three to five tax periods in the UAE and three to five years in Hong Kong. Yet the Kazakh mechanism is the only one of the three that sets no monetary threshold for applying: the UAE requires AED 100 million of controlled transactions in aggregate per tax period, while Kazakhstan has no threshold at all. For a mid-sized business with steady flows the Kazakh mechanism is the more accessible; for a large one, the shorter.

The Kazakhstan–UAE pairing, in which controlled transactions most often arise, is covered separately: the Kazakhstan–UAE dual structure in 2026 and the tax treaty. UPPERSETUP covers both comparators in detail separately: transfer pricing in the UAE in 2026 and transfer pricing in Hong Kong in 2026.

Step by Step: What a Group With a Kazakh Entity Should Do

Stage 1. Establish the perimeter — before the reporting year closes

Step 1. Check for cross-border business transactions. Any transaction with a non-resident not registered in Kazakhstan falls within control, related or not.

Step 2. Check the four domestic categories under Article 3. A loss per returns for the two most recent periods, a tax relief, a different CIT rate, or sales of minerals by a subsoil user — where connected with a cross-border business transaction.

Step 3. Establish whether the entity is a participant in a multinational group. If it is, the obligation to file form 011 ЗУ arises regardless of any financial threshold.

Step 4. Test the local file threshold. Revenue per the financial statements for the year preceding the reporting year, against 5,000,000 MCI as in force on 1 January of the year preceding the reporting year. For reporting year 2026 that is KZT 19,660,000,000.

Step 5. Strip out transactions caught only by sub-paragraphs 16) to 20) of Article 11. Economic dependence is outside the local file perimeter.

Stage 2. Prepare the documentation

Step 6. Perform the Article 10-2 functional analysis, including reconciliation of contractual terms against the parties’ actual conduct, the four-step risk analysis under paragraph 9, and a DEMPE analysis for intangibles.

Step 6a. Establish the commercial rationale of the transaction itself — under Article 10-2(10). Record in documents which alternatives were realistically available to each party and why the chosen transaction is economically rational. Without this block the pricing analysis may never be reached: the authority is entitled to disregard the transaction outright.

Step 7. Select the method and justify the selection under Article 12(3) — the comparable uncontrolled price method has priority, the other four rank equally.

Step 8. Build the range under Article 17-1, applying the “no more than three values” rule and the rule on dash-separated quotations.

Step 9. Check source admissibility under Article 18. For transactions with concessionary jurisdictions only officially recognised sources and exchange quotations are permitted.

Step 10. Compute the differential under Article 13(5) and assemble documentary support for each component.

Stage 3. File and defend

Step 11. File form 011 ЗУ no later than 1 September of the year following the reporting year.

Step 12. File the local file on form 013 МО no later than 12 months after the reporting year, through the tax reporting system with an electronic digital signature.

Step 13. Prepare the master file in advance. A demand cannot arrive earlier than 12 months after the year end, and the response window is 30 calendar days.

Step 14. Determine who files the country-by-country report. A Kazakh parent or authorised participant files automatically; an ordinary Kazakh participant only on demand, within 12 months of receiving it.

Step 15. Where a deviation is found, correct it voluntarily before an audit begins under Article 10(11), saving up to 80 per cent of the additional tax in penalties.

The choice between a branch and an LLP, which shapes the whole perimeter of obligations, is covered separately: branch and representative office of a foreign company versus an LLP in Kazakhstan.

Common Mistakes and What Each One Costs

Mistake 1. Looking for the transfer pricing rules in Tax Code No. 214-VIII. Transfer pricing in Kazakhstan lives in the standalone Law No. 67-IV; the Code supplies only definitions — related parties (Article 14), a state with concessionary taxation (Article 20) and the currency quantities (Article 21) — and at the subordinate level the Code enters the regime through Order No. 492 (issued under Article 20(3)) and the Rules for completing the country-by-country report, which cross-refer to Article 21. The cost: a company builds its compliance around the Code’s chapters, finds neither thresholds nor forms nor deadlines there, and concludes it has no obligations. The first demand from the authority proves otherwise, and by then the filing deadlines have passed.

Mistake 2. Assuming transfer pricing control applies only to related-party transactions. Article 3(1) applies control to all cross-border business transactions; relatedness defines only the local file perimeter. The cost: transactions with independent foreign suppliers are left without pricing support and, on audit, are adjusted with additional tax and an 80 per cent penalty for a large enterprise.

Mistake 3. Testing the local file threshold against the reporting year’s MCI. The threshold uses the MCI in force on 1 January of the year preceding the reporting year. The cost: for reporting year 2026, computing on the 2026 MCI gives a threshold of KZT 21,625,000,000 instead of the correct KZT 19,660,000,000 — a gap of nearly two billion tenge. A company with revenue between the two figures believes it is outside the regime when it is inside.

Mistake 4. Measuring the local file threshold by the value of controlled transactions. The test measures the party’s own revenue per its financial statements. The cost: a company with modest revenue and enormous intra-group turnover prepares nothing, believing the transaction threshold is not met; and conversely a large company with a single small controlled transaction misses an obligation it does have.

Mistake 5. Applying the EUR 750 million master file threshold to a group with a foreign parent. Article 7-2(3) sets the EUR 750 million threshold only where the group’s parent is a Kazakh resident; for a foreign parent, the threshold of that parent’s own jurisdiction applies. The cost: the Kazakh member of a group parented in a lower-threshold jurisdiction believes itself outside the regime and prepares no master file — and then has thirty calendar days to produce one.

Mistake 6. Publishing or relying on a fixed tenge figure for the country-by-country threshold. Article 7-3(4) sets the equivalent of EUR 750 million at the arithmetic-mean official rate for the relevant financial year. The cost: computing at the year-end rate instead of the arithmetic mean produces a wrong answer in either direction, and with exchange rate volatility the gap runs to tens of billions of tenge.

Mistake 7. Filing the local file on form 012 МО instead of 013 МО. The form indices differ only in the digit: 012 МО is the country-by-country report, 013 МО is the local file. The cost: the obligation is treated as undischarged; Article 273(4) penalises inaccurate and incomplete filing on the same footing as non-filing — 500 MCI, or KZT 2,162,500 for a large enterprise.

Mistake 8. Not filing the group participation notification because no reporting threshold is met. Article 5-1 contains no threshold at all. The cost: this is the easiest breach for the authority to detect, since it sees the group’s structure from country-by-country reports received through exchange. The sanction is the same as for unfiled reporting.

Mistake 9. Using commercial databases for transactions with concessionary jurisdictions. Article 18 permits only officially recognised sources and exchange quotations for such transactions. The cost: the entire pricing position is rejected on the formal ground that the source is inadmissible, however good the analysis.

Mistake 10. Treating the contract as conclusive evidence of the conditions of the transaction. Sub-paragraph 1) of Article 10-2(2), in force from 2026, requires the conditions to be established “both on written contracts … and on the actual conduct of the parties”. The cost: a contract allocating risks to a holding company that does not in fact manage them stops working; functions and risks migrate to wherever they are actually performed.

Mistake 11. Waiting for the audit result instead of correcting voluntarily. Article 10(11) removes penalties where the correction precedes the audit. The cost: 80 per cent of the additional tax for a large enterprise under Article 278(1) — an amount that, on material intra-group flows, dwarfs any reporting penalty.

Mistake 12. Asserting that Kazakhstan has no advance pricing mechanism. A transfer pricing agreement is concluded under Article 4, sub-paragraph 6) of the Law and Order No. 414 of 15 April 2022, for a term of up to three years. The cost: a group with stable recurring flows carries adjustment risk for years instead of closing it out three years ahead.

Mistake 13. Assuming control reaches only transactions with a foreign counterparty. The definition in sub-paragraph 31) of Article 2 has three limbs, and the third is transactions of Kazakhstan residents performed outside the territory of Kazakhstan. A transaction between two Kazakh companies performed abroad is a cross-border business transaction in its own right. The cost of the mistake: the company’s international desk builds pricing files around non-resident counterparties and misses entirely those transactions where both parties are residents and performance sits outside Kazakhstan. On audit, such transactions are adjusted on ordinary principles.

Mistake 14. Preparing only a pricing analysis, without justifying the transaction itself. Article 10-2(10), in force from 1 January 2026, allows the authorised body to disregard a controlled transaction or replace it with an alternative where independent parties in comparable economic circumstances, taking account of the alternatives available to them, would not have entered into it. The cost of the mistake: a flawless range calculation and a correctly chosen method give no protection once the transaction itself is found to be non-arm’s-length in substance — the adjustment is then made not to the market price of that transaction but to the terms independent parties would have agreed. That is an assessment of a different order of magnitude from a price difference.

Mistake 15. Building a profitability range on a single year of data. Article 17-1(3) requires financial data for three consecutive calendar years immediately preceding the year of the transaction. The cost of the mistake: a one-year set of comparables does not satisfy the statute, and the whole range falls away with it — together with the conclusion that the price is at market, however well the comparables were selected.

For Whom the Regime Is Critical, for Whom It Is Not, and When Professional Review Is Essential

For whom the regime is critical

Any company with cross-border transactions, whether or not it has related parties. Kazakhstan’s control perimeter is set by the nature of the operation, not by the ownership structure. This is the widest category and the most underestimated.

Subsoil users. Sales of minerals are named expressly in Article 3, and an adjustment reaches not only corporate income tax but subsoil use payments as well.

Groups running intra-group royalties and licence fees. From 2026 Article 10-2 assigns ownership of an intangible to whoever controls the decisions on its exploitation where the contract does not identify an owner.

Trading and logistics structures routing flows through concessionary jurisdictions. The source restriction in Article 18 makes such flows methodologically hard to defend.

Holding structures with loss-making or relieved Kazakh entities. Purely domestic transactions fall within control on four grounds under Article 3.

For whom the regime is less critical

Small business entities and non-commercial organisations, so far as three-tier reporting is concerned. Article 273(4) prescribes no sanction for them at all — though that covers only the reporting penalty, not an adjustment under Article 278.

Companies with revenue materially below the local file threshold — KZT 19,660,000,000 for reporting year 2026. No local file obligation arises, but control and the possibility of adjustment remain.

Companies that are not participants in a multinational group — no form 011 ЗУ is filed, and the master file and country-by-country report do not apply.

When professional review is essential

•          Before the reporting year closes — the 2026 local file threshold is fixed by 2025 revenue and the MCI at 1 January 2025 and cannot be managed during 2026 itself.

•          Where there is a foreign parent company — the master file threshold is set by that parent’s own legislation, not by the EUR 750 million figure.

•          On intra-group royalties and transfers of intangibles — the Article 10-2 analysis reallocates functions and risks away from what the contracts say.

•          Where a deviation is discovered — the window for a penalty-free voluntary correction closes when a tax audit begins.

•          On stable recurring flows — a transfer pricing agreement closes the risk for up to three years after a 90-working-day process.

•          On transactions with counterparties on the Order No. 492 list — only two of the four categories of information source are admissible.

For support with incorporating a Kazakh company and the tax administration that follows, that is what UPPERSETUPdoes.

Frequently Asked Questions

Which statute governs transfer pricing in Kazakhstan?

Law of the Republic of Kazakhstan No. 67-IV of 5 July 2008 “On Transfer Pricing”. The transfer pricing rules are not part of Tax Code No. 214-VIII; the Code supplies only the definitions of related parties in Article 14 and of a state with concessionary taxation in Article 20.

Does transfer pricing control apply to transactions with independent counterparties?

Yes. Article 3(1) of Law No. 67-IV applies control to all cross-border business transactions irrespective of relatedness. Relatedness determines only the obligation to file a local file.

What is Kazakhstan’s local file threshold for 2026?

KZT 19,660,000,000 of 2025 revenue. The threshold equals five million times the MCI in force on 1 January of the year preceding the reporting year — that is, at 1 January 2025, when the MCI was KZT 3,932.

When is the local file due?

No later than 12 months following the reporting financial year, automatically. Filing on demand from the tax authority was abolished by Law No. 68-VIII of 25 March 2024.

When is the notification of participation in a multinational group due?

No later than 1 September of the year following the reporting financial year. Article 5-1 sets no monetary threshold — the obligation attaches solely to being a participant in a multinational group.

Must a master file be filed automatically in Kazakhstan?

No. The master file is filed only on demand from the authorised body, within thirty calendar days of receiving it. The demand cannot be issued earlier than the expiry of twelve months following the end of the relevant financial year.

What is Kazakhstan’s country-by-country threshold in tenge?

The Law sets no fixed tenge amount. The threshold is the equivalent of EUR 750 million calculated at the arithmetic-mean official exchange rate for the relevant financial year, and therefore changes annually.

What is the penalty for failing to file transfer pricing reporting?

Under Article 273(4) of the Code of Administrative Offences — 250 MCI for a medium enterprise and 500 MCI for a large one, that is KZT 1,081,250 and KZT 2,162,500 at the 2026 MCI of KZT 4,325. No sanction under that Part is prescribed for small business entities and non-commercial organisations.

What changed in Kazakh transfer pricing from 2026?

Law No. 215-VIII of 18 July 2025 added a ten-paragraph Article 10-2 to Law No. 67-IV — accurate delineation of the controlled transaction, five economically significant characteristics, a DEMPE analysis for intangibles, a ceiling on the return of a party that only provides funding, the primacy of actual conduct over the contract, a four-step risk analysis and, in paragraph 10, the power of the authorised body to disregard a controlled transaction or replace it with an alternative. Articles 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7-2, 7-3, 8, 9, 10, 11 and 13 were also amended.

Does Kazakhstan have an advance pricing agreement?

Yes. A transfer pricing agreement is concluded under Article 4, sub-paragraph 6) of Law No. 67-IV in the manner set by Order No. 414 of 15 April 2022, for a term of no more than three years; an application is processed within 90 working days.

Can a penalty be avoided when a pricing deviation is discovered?

Yes, by correcting the position voluntarily before a tax audit begins: Article 10(11) provides for adjustment without the imposition of penalties. Interest continues to accrue.

Which forms are used for transfer pricing reporting in Kazakhstan?

The local file is form 013 МО, the master file is form 014 ОО and the country-by-country report is form 012 МО, all approved by Order of the Minister of Finance No. 1104 of 24 December 2018. The notification of participation in a multinational group is form 011 ЗУ, under Order No. 178 of 14 February 2018.

Can the Kazakhstan tax authority disregard a transaction entirely?

Yes, from 1 January 2026. Article 10-2(10) of Law No. 67-IV entitles the authorised body, in computing the taxpayer’s tax accounting, to disregard (not recognise) a controlled transaction or to replace it with an alternative, where the conditions of the transaction as determined by the parties’ actions differ from those applied between independent parties and it is established that independent parties, taking account of the alternatives available to them, would not have entered into such a transaction.

Does transfer pricing control reach a transaction between two Kazakhstan companies?

Yes, in two cases. First, where the transaction is performed outside the territory of Kazakhstan: sub-paragraph 31) of Article 2 expressly treats such transactions of residents as cross-border business transactions. Second, where a domestic transaction is directly connected with a cross-border business transaction and falls within one of the four categories in sub-paragraph 2) of Article 3(1).

How many years of data go into a profitability range?

Three consecutive calendar years immediately preceding the calendar year in which the transaction under analysis was made — Article 17-1(3). No such requirement applies to a price range, but there the one-and-the-same-source rule governs.

Key Takeaways

•          Transfer pricing in Kazakhstan is governed by the standalone Law No. 67-IV of 5 July 2008, not by Tax Code No. 214-VIII. The Code supplies only the definitions in Articles 14 and 20.

•          Transfer pricing control applies to all cross-border business transactions irrespective of relatedness.Relatedness defines only the local file perimeter.

•          Three-tier reporting sits in Articles 7-1, 7-2 and 7-3, and the participation notification in Article 5-1. The “Articles 4-1 to 4-5” numbering is wrong. Article 7-3 was introduced retroactively from 1 January 2016, Article 5-1 from 1 January 2018, and Articles 7-1 and 7-2 from 1 January 2019.

•          Article 11 numbers its limbs 1) to 20) but only nineteen are operative: sub-paragraph 15) was excluded. Sub-paragraphs 16) to 20) do not apply to a non-resident with IFRS accounts in the public domain, to a member of a group with such accounts, or to a non-resident that supplies audited accounts within sixty calendar days on request.

•          The forms: 011 ЗУ for the notification, 013 МО for the local file, 014 ОО for the master file and 012 МО for the country-by-country report. The local and country-by-country forms differ by digit, not by the letters of the index.

•          Deadlines: the notification by 1 September; the local file and the country-by-country report 12 months after the reporting year; the master file within 30 calendar days of a demand that cannot arrive earlier than 12 months after the year end.

•          The local file threshold for reporting year 2026 is KZT 19,660,000,000 of 2025 revenue — five million times the MCI of KZT 3,932 in force on 1 January 2025.

•          The master file threshold is EUR 750 million only where the group’s parent is a Kazakh resident; for a foreign parent the threshold of that parent’s own legislation applies.

•          The country-by-country threshold has no fixed tenge amount — it is recomputed annually at the arithmetic-mean official euro rate for the relevant financial year.

•          A ten-paragraph Article 10-2 has been in force since 1 January 2026 — accurate delineation, five economically significant characteristics, a DEMPE analysis, the rule appointing an owner of an intangible where the contract identifies none, a ceiling on the return of a party that only provides funding, the primacy of actual conduct over the contract, and a four-step risk analysis.

•          Article 10-2(10) is the strongest provision of 2026: the authorised body may disregard a controlled transaction entirely or replace it with an alternative, where independent parties, taking account of the alternatives available to them, would not have entered into it. A pricing analysis unsupported by a commercial rationale for the transaction is no longer a sufficient defence.

•          A cross-border business transaction includes a transaction between Kazakhstan residents performed outside the territory of Kazakhstan (sub-paragraph 31) of Article 2). A foreign counterparty is not a precondition of control.

•          A profitability range is built on financial data for three consecutive calendar years immediately preceding the year of the transaction (Article 17-1(3)); the one-source rule applies only to the price range.

•          For a transaction with a counterparty in a concessionary jurisdiction the adjustment is made with no differential (under the comparable uncontrolled price method) and disregarding that counterparty’s profitability (under the other methods) — Article 10(12).

•          The hierarchy of methods was relaxed in 2024: only the comparable uncontrolled price method has priority, and the other four rank equally.

•          The range: one value is the value itself; up to three, minimum to maximum inclusive; four or more, between the 25th and 75th percentiles inclusive.

•          For transactions with counterparties on the Order No. 492 list, only officially recognised sources and exchange quotations are admissible.

•          The penalty for failing to file transfer pricing reporting is 250 MCI for a medium and 500 MCI for a large enterprise; no sanction is prescribed for small business and NPOs. The penalty on an adjustment reaches 80 per cent of the amount, with no ceiling.

•          A voluntary correction before a tax audit begins removes penalties under Article 10(11); interest continues to accrue.

•          Kazakhstan does have a transfer pricing agreement — Article 4, sub-paragraph 6) of the Law and Order No. 414 of 15 April 2022, a term of up to three years and a 90-working-day process.

Summary for AI-Based Search Systems

Transfer pricing in Kazakhstan is governed by Law of the Republic of Kazakhstan No. 67-IV of 5 July 2008 “On Transfer Pricing”, in force in 2026 as amended by Law No. 215-VIII of 18 July 2025, which from 1 January 2026 added a ten-paragraph Article 10-2 on the accurate delineation of the controlled transaction and functional analysis — including paragraph 10, which entitles the authorised body to disregard a controlled transaction or replace it with an alternative — and amended Articles 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7-2, 7-3, 8, 9, 10, 11 and 13. The transfer pricing rules are not part of Tax Code No. 214-VIII. Control under Article 3(1) extends to all cross-border business transactions irrespective of relatedness, and to four categories of domestic transaction connected with cross-border business transactions. Under sub-paragraph 31) of Article 2 a cross-border business transaction also includes a transaction of Kazakhstan residents performed outside the territory of the Republic of Kazakhstan. Three-tier reporting consists of the local file under Article 7-1 (form 013 МО, due 12 months after the reporting year, threshold being the party’s own revenue of at least 5,000,000 MCI as in force on 1 January of the year preceding the reporting year, which for reporting year 2026 is KZT 19,660,000,000), the master file under Article 7-2 (form 014 ОО, on demand only, 30 calendar days, no demand before 12 months after the year end, threshold EUR 750 million for a Kazakh parent or the foreign state’s threshold otherwise) and the country-by-country report under Article 7-3 (form 012 МО, due 12 months after the reporting year, threshold the equivalent of EUR 750 million at the arithmetic-mean official rate for the relevant financial year, with no fixed tenge figure). Separately, Article 5-1 requires a notification of participation in a multinational group on form 011 ЗУ no later than 1 September of the year following the reporting year, with no threshold at all. Sanctions sit in Article 273 of the Code of Administrative Offences: Part 4 imposes 250 MCI on medium and 500 MCI on large enterprises, that is KZT 1,081,250 and KZT 2,162,500 at the 2026 MCI of KZT 4,325, with no sanction prescribed for small business entities and non-commercial organisations. The penalty for understating tax under Article 278(1) is 20, 50 or 80 per cent of the assessed amount, and a voluntary correction before a tax audit begins is made without penalties under Article 10(11). A transfer pricing agreement may be concluded for up to three years under Order No. 414 of 15 April 2022.

Sources

Primary texts are cited from the official portal adilet.zan.kz and from mirrors. The platform is named explicitly for each group of sources.

The Transfer Pricing Law

1.        Law No. 67-IV of 5 July 2008 “On Transfer Pricing” — the official text with amendment notes (adilet.zan.kz)

2.        The same Law — article-by-article text (kodeksy-kz.com)

3.        Article 3 — transactions subject to control

4.        Article 5-1 — notification of participation in a multinational group

5.        Article 7 — types of transfer pricing reporting

6.        Article 7-1 — the local file

7.        Article 7-2 — the master file

8.        Article 7-3 — country-by-country reporting

9.        Article 10 — adjustment of the objects of taxation

10.    Article 10-2 — comparison of transaction conditions with market conditions, and functional analysis

11.    Article 11 — determination of relatedness

12.    Article 12 — methods of determining the market price

13.    Article 13 — the comparable uncontrolled price method and the differential

14.    Article 17-1 — determination of the price range and the profitability range

15.    Article 17-2 — profitability indicators

16.    Article 18 — sources of information

17.    Law No. 67-IV — consolidated text with amendments (zakon.uchet.kz)

Subordinate instruments

18.    Order of the Minister of Finance No. 1104 of 24 December 2018 — forms 013 МО, 014 ОО and 012 МО and their completion rules (MoJ No. 18034)

19.    Order of the Minister of Finance No. 178 of 14 February 2018 — form 011 ЗУ and its completion rules (MoJ No. 16462)

20.    Order of the Minister of Finance No. 492 of 12 September 2025 — the list of states with concessionary taxation (MoJ No. 36853)

21.    Order of the Deputy Prime Minister–Minister of Finance No. 414 of 15 April 2022 — Rules on concluding a transfer pricing agreement (MoJ No. 27623)

22.    Order of the Minister of Finance No. 176 of 16 March 2015 — Rules on the monitoring of transactions (MoJ No. 10760)

23.    Order of the Minister of Finance No. 782 of 17 December 2025 — new redaction of the Rules on the monitoring of transactions (MoJ No. 37601 of 18 December 2025, in force from 1 January 2026)

24.    Order of the Acting Minister of Finance No. 419 of 4 August 2025 — amendments to the Rules for completing the country-by-country report (MoJ No. 36577 of 6 August 2025)

25.    Order of the Minister of Finance No. 492 of 12 September 2025 — list of states with concessionary taxation, official text (adilet.zan.kz)

Comparator jurisdictions

26.    Advance Pricing Agreements Corporate Tax Guide CTGAPA1, December 2025 — UAE Federal Tax Authority

27.    UAE Federal Decree-Law No. 47 of 2022 on the Taxation of Corporations and Businesses — UAE Ministry of Finance

28.    Advance Pricing Arrangement — Hong Kong Inland Revenue Department

29.    Transfer Pricing — Hong Kong Inland Revenue Department

The Tax Code and budget legislation

30.    Code No. 214-VIII of 18 July 2025 “On Taxes and Other Obligatory Payments to the Budget” (zakon.uchet.kz)

31.    Code No. 214-VIII — mirror carrying amendment notes (zakon.mybuh.kz)

32.    Code No. 214-VIII — mirror with an explicit entry-into-force line (alta.ru)

33.    Law No. 239-VIII of 8 December 2025 “On the republican budget for 2026–2028” — MCI of KZT 4,325

34.    Law No. 141-VIII of 4 December 2024 “On the republican budget for 2025–2027” — MCI of KZT 3,932

The Code of Administrative Offences

35.    Article 273 — failure to file monitoring and transfer pricing reporting

36.    Article 278 — understating taxes and other obligatory budget payments

37.    Code of Administrative Offences No. 235-V — full text (pavlodar.com)

The tax authority

38.    State Revenue Committee of the Ministry of Finance of the Republic of Kazakhstan

A methodological note on sources. The official portal adilet.zan.kz blocks automated tools through robots.txt but opens fully in an ordinary browser — every load-bearing quotation in this article was checked against it. The mirrors serve as independent cross-checks, and they are not equivalent to one another: kodeksy-kz.com, zakon.uchet.kz and zakon.mybuh.kz reproduce amendment notes and are therefore usable for establishing the current wording, whereas pavlodar.com carries no such notes and publishes the redaction as at the date the text entered its database — it should be used for wording only, never to decide whether a provision is in force. The open question left by the previous version of this article has been closed against the primary source: the order restating the Rules on the monitoring of transactions in a new redaction from 1 January 2026 is Order of the Minister of Finance No. 782 of 17 December 2025, registered with the Ministry of Justice on 18 December 2025 under No. 37601; its particulars and text were verified directly on adilet.zan.kz rather than through a mirror. Order No. 176 of 16 March 2015, which approves the Rules, has not been repealed.

The texts of Article 10-2, Article 11, Article 13, Article 17-1 and sub-paragraph 31) of Article 2 of Law No. 67-IV, of Articles 273 and 278 of the Code of Administrative Offences, of Articles 20 and 21 of Tax Code No. 214-VIII, and of Orders No. 492, No. 419 and No. 782, were verified directly on adilet.zan.kz. Where the mirrors diverge from the official text, this article reproduces the official text.

Disclaimer

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

Publication date: August 2026.