Status: draft amendments; not adopted as at 21 September 2026.
A draft package of amendments to the Tax Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan, published on the Open NPA portal, contains dozens of proposed changes, covering areas ranging from e-commerce and the taxation of self-employed individuals to cryptocurrency transactions.
According to tax expert Aidar Masatbayev, the proposals do not amount to a new tax reform, but rather represent further adjustments to the Tax Code following the first months of its application.
For businesses, the most significant changes may concern the approach to tax control, the regulation of marketplaces and foreign sellers, the automation of tax calculations for self-employed individuals, as well as certain changes affecting individuals.
1. Moving towards tax control based on primary data
The approach to tax administration is changing. Previously, the tax authorities largely relied on information reported by taxpayers themselves in their tax returns for the relevant period.
Under the proposed changes, the state would gain direct access to financial and infrastructure data on the market in near real time. Tax returns, in turn, would need to correspond with transaction data already available to the tax authorities.
Banks
The threshold of tax arrears at which the tax authorities may request bank statements for legal entities and individual entrepreneurs would be reduced by more than 55 times — from 2,500 MCI to 45 MCI (from approximately EUR 21,106 to approximately EUR 380 at an EUR/KZT exchange rate of 512.34).
Banks would also be required to notify the authorities when accounts held by self-employed individuals are opened or closed and to provide semi-annual data on revenue processed through POS terminals.
Payment organisations and marketplaces
Payment organisations and marketplaces would be required to regularly provide detailed registers of transactions involving individuals, including payments to unregistered foreign online retailers.
Digital services and navigation platforms
From 2028, digital services and navigation platforms, including 2GIS and Yandex, would be required to provide data on business locations — including coordinates, customer routes, order density and search activity — to help identify illegal trading locations without an on-site tax inspection.
POS terminals as cash registers
Banks’ POS terminals would be recognised as full-fledged cash registers (KKMs), meaning that businesses would no longer need separate cash registers. This could result in savings of up to KZT 148,000 per year.
What this means for businesses
Risk: discrepancies between information contained in contracts, payment records, electronic invoices (ESFs) and tax reporting would become significantly easier to identify automatically, without an on-site tax inspection.
2. Marketplaces and non-residents: VAT and seller controls
At present, foreign sellers shipping orders to customers in Kazakhstan through online platforms do not pay VAT either in the country of dispatch or when the parcel is delivered to the customer in Kazakhstan. As a result, domestic sellers of comparable goods may be placed at a price disadvantage equivalent to the amount of the tax.
The proposed amendments would change this approach: the obligation to pay VAT would be imposed directly on Kazakhstani platforms, which would, in certain cases, act as tax agents for foreign sellers.
At the same time, a mechanism would be introduced for the prompt blocking of sellers where undeclared turnover is identified.
According to the state revenue authorities, out of the more than KZT 2 trillion in aggregate turnover generated by Kazakhstani marketplaces, goods worth more than KZT 200 billion were sold without documents confirming the legality of their import and origin.
Where a seller fails to comply with a desk tax control notification, the tax authority would issue an order to the platform’s administration, following which the seller’s listing would be forcibly frozen within three working days.
What this means for businesses
Risk: for Kazakhstani marketplaces and sellers operating through them, the platform’s role as a tax agent would become more significant. At the same time, there would be a risk of a rapid — within three working days — suspension of a seller’s listing where the desk tax control procedure is not successfully completed.
3. Self-employed individuals: automated calculation of taxes and social payments
Second-tier banks and platform aggregators, including Yandex, Glovo and others, would be granted the status of official tax agents.
The platforms would calculate, withhold and pay personal income tax and social contributions — including OPV, VOSMS and SO — to the budget on each order. Banks would perform the same function in respect of incoming cashless payments, without the involvement of the self-employed individual.
A pilot project by the State Revenue Committee (SRC) has already been implemented: the participation of 45 online platforms made it possible to administer 597,000 self-employed individuals and generate KZT 9.9 billion in social payments without requiring tax returns to be filed.
Practical implications
For self-employed individuals, the changes would significantly reduce the administrative burden, while at the same time limiting opportunities for informal income reporting through platforms.
4. Changes affecting individuals
Article 437 — greater flexibility in social deductions
Individuals would be entitled to allocate social deductions between several tax agents if they work for more than one employer.
Where supporting documents are submitted late, the employer would be required to recalculate the relevant amounts for the entire current calendar year and the preceding calendar year.
Article 404 — protection in cases of disability
If an individual’s disability group changes during the year, for example from Group II to Group III or vice versa, the maximum deduction of 5,000 MCI would remain available for the entire tax period (approximately EUR 42,213 at an EUR/KZT exchange rate of 512.34).
Article 440 — loan write-offs without a tax burden on the borrower
If a bank or microfinance organisation writes off a distressed loan or mortgage owed by an individual, the obligation to pay personal income tax at source would fall on the financial institution itself, at its own expense, rather than on the borrower.
What this means for businesses
These are still draft amendments rather than legislation in force. Businesses should therefore not restructure their processes at this stage on the assumption that the provisions will be adopted in their current form. However, the further development of the draft should be closely monitored.
The overall direction of the proposed changes is clear: intermediaries — including banks, marketplaces and platform aggregators — are becoming increasingly integrated into the tax control framework, while discrepancies between amounts stated in contracts, invoices, ESFs and tax returns are becoming easier to identify without an on-site tax inspection.
For businesses, this means assessing in advance what data relating to the company and its transactions is already accessible to the tax authorities through financial infrastructure and digital platforms, and which processes could be affected by further regulatory changes.
REVERA Kazakhstan monitors developments in Kazakhstan’s tax legislation and helps businesses assess the potential impact of regulatory changes on their operations.
If you would like to understand which provisions of the draft may be relevant to your business, please contact the REVERA Kazakhstan team.