Foreign marketplaces told to register and pay VAT in Kazakhstan – or face blocking

Tengrinews.kz – Foreign online marketplaces will be required to register in Kazakhstan and pay value-added tax (VAT) on purchases made by Kazakh users, otherwise access to their websites may be suspended in the country, the State Revenue Committee (SRC) has announced.

Yedil Azimshaiky, head of the VAT administration department at the SRC, said the obligation applies to foreign companies providing e-commerce services to customers in Kazakhstan.

“This concerns foreign companies. They must register in Kazakhstan – this is a conditional registration, not through the justice bodies. We will introduce a special register, and those included in it will pay VAT to the budget from purchases made by our citizens. Foreign companies will pay tax once a month – by the 20th of the following month,” he said.

According to him, Kazakh buyers will not be the ones paying VAT at checkout – the obligation is placed on the platforms themselves.

The SRC will monitor such platforms on a regular basis.

“We will send notifications on the need to register. Blocking of banking operations will not apply, because they do not open accounts in Kazakhstan. A different measure is provided for them: if they fail to comply with the notification, access to their online resources will be suspended,” Azimshaiky noted.

In other words, if a foreign marketplace does not register in Kazakhstan and does not start paying VAT, Kazakh users may lose access to its website.

“They will not be able to continue operating in Kazakhstan without registration,” he said.

The SRC will identify violators jointly with the National Bank and second-tier banks by analysing payments made to foreign online companies. From 2026, the VAT rate for such platforms, along with other taxpayers, will rise from 12 to 16 percent.

As a reminder, Kazakhstan’s new Tax Code comes into force on January 1, 2026. The VAT registration threshold will be halved: from 20,000 MCI to 10,000. This means that instead of the current turnover threshold of about 78.6 million tenge per year, businesses with annual turnover from around 43.3 million tenge will have to register for VAT, bringing thousands of new payers into the system.