Employer of Record in Kazakhstan: 12 Providers Compared (2026)

Employing someone in Kazakhstan: key facts

Kazakhstan sets one national minimum wage and four employer contributions, three of them capped. Working time, leave and dismissal follow the Labour Code. Everything below is statutory unless marked otherwise; amounts are in tenge (KZT).

Minimum wage

One national rate, the MZP, set each year by the republican budget law. It excludes bonuses and allowances (Labour Code art. 104) and is also the base for the contribution caps below (zakon.uchet.kz, checked 2026-10-10).

KZT 85,000 is about USD 187 at the National Bank rate of 2026-10-10. The 2026 figure comes from budget Law No 239-VIII of 2025-12-08, which we read through a search excerpt and a KPMG listing, not the law text. The calculation index MRP, used for income tax limits, is KZT 4,325 from 2026-01-01 (KZT 3,932 in 2025).

Employer contributions

The employer pays four charges; the employee’s pension and medical contributions are withheld from gross and are not employer cost (zakon.uchet.kz, checked 2026-10-10).

• OPVR is scheduled at 4.5% from 2027-01-01 and 5% from 2028-01-01, and is not due for employees born before 1975-01-01.
• Total employer cost for an office employee above the caps is about 12-14% of gross; at the minimum wage about 16.8%.
• SO, OSMS and OPVR apply to citizens, foreigners with a residence permit and EAEU citizens; the social tax also applies to expatriates (PwC, checked 2026-10-10).
• Not included: the accident-insurance premium and the 5% compulsory professional pension contribution, which applies to hazardous jobs only (Social Code art. 250).
• Employee income tax is 10% up to 8,500 MRP of annual income (KZT 36,762,500) and 15% above, after a basic deduction of 30 MRP a month.
• Social tax, contributions and withheld income tax are due by the 25th of the following month.

Working hours and overtime

• Normal working time: at most 40 hours a week (Labour Code art. 68(1)) (zakon.uchet.kz, checked 2026-10-10).
• Overtime needs the employee’s written consent (art. 77), at most 2 hours a day and 12 hours a month on a 4-, 5- or 6-day week (art. 78).
• Overtime is paid at no less than 1.5 times the day or hour rate, or replaced by time off of one hour per overtime hour by agreement (art. 108). Work on rest days and public holidays is also paid at no less than 1.5 times (arts. 85, 109).

Annual leave and public holidays

• Annual leave: 24 calendar days of main paid leave, more if the code, contract or other acts give more (art. 88); unused days are paid out on termination at average pay (art. 96(2)) (zakon.uchet.kz, checked 2026-10-10).
• Public holidays: the Law on Holidays lists 12 days (1-2 Jan, 8 Mar, 15 Mar, 21-23 Mar for Nauryz, 1 May, 7 May, 9 May, 6 Jul, 25 Oct, 16 Dec); Labour Code art. 84(5) adds 7 Jan and the first day of Kurban Ait, making 14 a year by our count. A holiday on a weekend moves the day off to the next working day, and the Government may set extra dates (zakon.uchet.kz, checked 2026-10-10).

Probation

• Up to 3 months; up to 6 months for heads of organisations and their deputies, chief accountants and their deputies, and heads of branches and representative offices (art. 36(2)) (zakon.uchet.kz, checked 2026-10-10).
• Probation is suspended while the employee is absent (art. 36(3)). The employer may end it for a negative result on notice stating reasons (art. 37).

Notice and severance

Dismissal is possible only on the closed list of grounds in art. 52; there is no at-will termination (zakon.uchet.kz, checked 2026-10-10).

• Contract or employer act may set a higher amount (art. 131(3)) and longer notice. The employee is also owed one month’s average pay if they terminate because the employer breached the contract.
• We found no separate statutory severance for other grounds. Unused leave is paid out on termination.

13th salary and bonuses

Not mandatory. The Labour Code has no 13th-salary or statutory bonus provision; a search of the full text for the term found no match (zakon.uchet.kz, checked 2026-10-10).

Mandatory benefits

• The employer pays OSMS (3%) and withholds the employee’s VOSMS (2%) for state medical insurance, pays SO (5%) for sickness, maternity and other social insurance payments, and pays OPVR (3.5%) into the pension fund (zakon.uchet.kz, checked 2026-10-10).
• Art. 133 obliges the employer to pay temporary-incapacity benefit from its own funds; we did not analyse how it interacts with SO.
• Compulsory insurance of the employee against workplace accidents is required. We found no private health or life insurance duty.

Work permits

• A foreign citizen temporarily in Kazakhstan may not be hired until the employer holds the permit of the local executive body (akimat) to attract foreign labour, or the worker holds a qualification certificate for self-employment or a labour-immigrant permit (art. 26(1)(4)) (zakon.uchet.kz, checked 2026-10-10).
• The applicant is the employing legal entity in Kazakhstan, within a yearly quota; intra-corporate transfers are outside the quota. Since 2025-09-01 the employer must first post the vacancy on enbek.kz and wait 15 days. These procedure points come from a secondary summary, not the order texts (uppersetup.com, 2026-07-29, checked 2026-10-10).
• A foreign client without a Kazakh entity cannot be the applicant. Whether an outstaffing entity may bring in foreigners is not confirmed. Citizens of EAEU states have a separate regime we did not collect.

Currency and payroll

KZT. Wages are paid in tenge at least once a month, not later than the first ten days of the following month; the date is fixed in the employment contract (art. 113) (zakon.uchet.kz, checked 2026-10-10). Payroll contributions must be paid in tenge (Social Code art. 248(7)). National Bank rate on 2026-10-10: 1 USD = 453.93 KZT (nationalbank.kz, checked 2026-10-10).

Is Employer of Record legal in Kazakhstan?

Allowed with limits. Kazakhstan regulates an EOR-like model expressly. Since the 2020 outstaffing law, in force from 2021, Labour Code art. 137-1 lets a Kazakh-registered legal entity employ people and send them to a “receiving party” that directs their work (kodeksy-kz.com, checked 2026-10-10). Whether a Kazakh entity that employs a remote worker for a foreign client with no Kazakh presence falls under art. 137-1 or is just an ordinary employer is not addressed by the law, a regulator or any commentary we found. The permanent-hire EOR case sits in an open question inside a regulated regime. We found no commentary on art. 137-1 or on EOR from Kinstellar, Dentons, KPMG Law, Deloitte, EY or PwC; sanctions and licensing were checked only by keyword search of the codes. See also the Employer of Record glossary entry.

The rules that matter to a client:

• Who can send. The “sending party” is a legal entity registered under Kazakh law that provides staff-provision services, including a branch of a foreign company. It is the employer and keeps all employer rights and duties (art. 137-1(1)). A foreign company with no Kazakh entity cannot itself be the sending party. The “receiving party” is any natural or legal person or sole proprietor; nothing we read limits it to Kazakh residents (zakon.uchet.kz, checked 2026-10-10).
• Four allowed cases. Dispatch is allowed only (1) for work in a private household, (2) for the time of a defined job, (3) to replace a temporarily absent employee and (4) for seasonal work (art. 137-1(3)). It is forbidden to replace strikers or employees who lawfully refused work, and during downtime, bankruptcy or short-time working used to save jobs (art. 137-1(5)).
• Form and pay. Dispatch happens only after the employee signs a contract or addendum naming the place of work at the receiving party. The staff-provision contract is a civil-law contract, and any term worse for the employees than labour law is void. Base pay may not be below that of the receiving party’s employees in a comparable position, and the sending party must insure the employee against workplace accidents (arts. 137-1(2), (6), (8), 103(1-1)).
• Receiving-party duties. Keep working-time records including overtime and weekend work, provide workplace conditions, equipment and tools at its own cost, brief the employee on internal rules, and notify the sending party within 5 working days of a discipline breach so that it decides the penalty (art. 137-1(7), (10)-(12)).
• Licence. We found no licence or permit for staff provision in art. 137-1, in the definitions or in the Social Code, and the 2020 law added no registration step. That is a keyword scan of the Labour and Social Codes, not a full legal reading; the Law on Permits and Notifications was not checked.
• Law-firm positions. GRATA International welcomed the regulation in 2021 but warned that the receiving party’s new duties and liability “may reduce the number of companies using leased staff” (gratanet.com, checked 2026-10-10). An Unicase review of the August 2026 Labour Code amendments does not mention art. 137-1 (mondaq.com, checked 2026-10-10).

Risks the client carries:

• Receiving-party duties. If the arrangement is treated as staff provision, the foreign client becomes a receiving party: working-time records, workplace and equipment, pay parity with its own staff and accident procedures. Service-contract terms that worsen the employee’s position are void.
• Outside the four cases. A permanent seat for an indefinite period can be challenged as unlawful staff provision. We did not find the sanction; the administrative-offence code was not read, so this is a risk of challenge, not a confirmed penalty.
• Contractor relabelling. Paying a Kazakh individual directly as a “contractor” while directing the work as for an employee is treated as an employment contract from 2026-06-08, with fines on the payer and recovery of unpaid contributions (see “What changed in 2026”).
• Foreign employee. Employment of a foreigner is void in practice until the akimat permit exists (art. 26(1)(4)).

See also co-employment.

Who actually employs your hire in Kazakhstan

We compared the 12 providers that operate in Kazakhstan with their own Kazakhstan pages. We could not search the Kazakh company registers by name: the stat.gov.kz search takes a company ID, kompra.kz and adata.kz need a key and statsnet.co blocked search. No licence register was searched. A company not found is a limit of our search, not a finding about the vendor.

All checked 2026-10-10. “Not disclosed” means the vendor doesn’t name a Kazakh employing entity. Eleven more providers are not in the table because no source confirms an EOR offer in Kazakhstan: Papaya Global, Rippling (a contractor page only), Native Teams, RemotePass, Rise, Kleos, Remozo, Boundless, Borderless AI and Justworks (no Kazakhstan EOR content found), and Remote, whose Kazakhstan page lists only Contractor Management; it is not counted.

All 12 don’t name their Kazakh employer. That matters because art. 137-1 puts the sending-party duties on the Kazakh entity that employs your hire, and a client can’t see which entity that is. Before signing, ask: “Which Kazakh company signs my employee’s contract, and do you treat this hire as staff provision under Labour Code art. 137-1, or as ordinary employment?”

How to choose an EOR in Kazakhstan

Is the hire a foreign citizen? The akimat permit must be applied for by a Kazakh employing entity, within a quota, after a 15-day vacancy posting on enbek.kz. A client with no Kazakh entity cannot apply itself. Ask the provider in writing which company would be the applicant; whether an outstaffing entity may bring in foreigners is not confirmed. Multiplier has separate Kazakhstan work-permit and visa pages.

Is the role permanent? Art. 137-1 allows dispatch in four cases, none of which is an open-ended seat. We found no ruling on how it applies to a remote hire for a foreign client. Ask each provider whether it treats the hire as staff provision, which duties it expects from you as the receiving party, and who bears them under the contract.

Price against completeness? Three providers show a price on a Kazakhstan page: Remote People from $199 a month, Playroll from $399 and Deel from $599. Global starting prices run from $199 (Skuad, RemoFirst) to $599 (Oyster); Rivermate gives $319-$639, and Safeguard Global, G-P and Pebl publish none. Price tells you nothing about who the employer is; compare it after you have that answer.

How fast? Deel says a hire can start in as little as 7 days, Playroll 10 to 15 business days, Safeguard Global one to two weeks and Remote People 2-4 weeks to a registered employee. These are vendor claims, and they exclude the permit for a foreign hire.

What it costs to employ someone in Kazakhstan through an EOR

The EOR is a large-payroll employer employing an office or IT worker who is a Kazakh citizen or permanent resident born after 1975, paid in 12 equal monthly payments under the 2026 rules. Gross pay is KZT 22,704,000 and KZT 45,408,000 a year, about USD 50,000 and USD 100,000 at the National Bank rate of 1 USD = 453.93 KZT on 2026-10-10 (nationalbank.kz, checked 2026-10-10). Both monthly gross figures (KZT 1,892,000 and KZT 3,784,000) are above the KZT 595,000 social contributions cap, and the larger one is also above the KZT 3,400,000 employer medical cap.

The employee’s OPV (10%) and VOSMS (2%, capped) are withheld from gross and are not employer cost, but they reduce the social tax base. The basis assumes a Kazakh citizen or permanent resident, no size-based or salary-based relief and no Astana Hub exemption.

Employer cost has moved with each year’s rules. On the same KZT 22,704,000 salary it rose from KZT 2,033,502 in 2021 to KZT 3,098,856 in 2025, up 52.4% (our arithmetic), then fell 2.1% to KZT 3,034,296 in 2026. Social tax was cut from 11% to 6% and lost its offset against social contributions, while the pension rate and the medical cap went up.

Not included: the accident-insurance premium, employer-paid sick pay, leave and severance accruals, work-permit fees and the EOR fee. We found no 13th salary to add.

The EOR’s own fee comes on top, in USD per employee per month. Three vendors show a price on a Kazakhstan page: Remote People from $199, Playroll from $399 and Deel from $599 as a management fee. Atlas HXM gives from $599 in a Kazakhstan article, platform fee only, with contributions extra. Starting prices elsewhere in the table are global and run from $199 (Skuad, RemoFirst) to $599 (Oyster, on a global table); Multiplier’s Core plan is $459 and Rivermate gives $319-$639. Safeguard Global, G-P and Pebl publish none we could find. Per-vendor figures are in the table above.

Hidden costs, where published: setup fee, deposit, minimum term and termination fee are not published for Kazakhstan by any provider. Treat a blank as unpublished, not zero.

When you don’t need an EOR

• A genuinely independent contractor. See how to pay contractors in Kazakhstan and our hiring guide. Since 2026-06-08 this route is narrower: Labour Code art. 26(1-1) forbids a civil-law contract with an individual that shows at least one sign of an employment contract listed in art. 27, and treats it as an employment contract. Work done on the client’s schedule and under its direction is the case it closes. See contractor misclassification.
• A sole proprietor (IP) on the simplified regime. The usual route for an individual invoicing a foreign client: 4% of gross income with no expense deduction, which local councils may move by up to 50% (2% to 6%); no social tax and no VAT registration for special-regime payers (Tax Code arts. 723, 726, 727, 555(2), 99(3)(4)). The IP also pays for itself each month: OPV 10%, OPVR 3.5% and SO 5% of declared income, plus VOSMS of KZT 5,950. At the minimum declared income that is KZT 21,675 a month, KZT 260,100 a year. After 4% tax and those minimum contributions, a KZT 22,704,000 invoice leaves KZT 21,535,740. The IP’s own OPVR and the declared-income rules rest on practitioner pages (zakon.uchet.kz, itsheff.kz, checked 2026-10-10). Whether an IP with a foreign client is hit by the 2026 ban is not confirmed, so an IP with employment signs is still a risk.
• The self-employed regime. Income tax 0% plus 4% social payments, but only for citizens who are not sole proprietors, have no employees, work in activities on a Government list and earn up to 300 MRP a month, KZT 1,297,500. That is below both example monthly invoices (KZT 1,892,000 and KZT 3,784,000). Whether software work for a foreign client is on the list was not checked.
• Your own Kazakh entity. The route when the hire will be permanent or needs a work permit, since the permit is applied for by the Kazakh employing entity. Playroll estimates USD 15,000-30,000 plus USD 2,000-4,000 a month and 3 to 6 months to set up; Oyster says 4-6 months to open, both vendor estimates, not ours (playroll.com, oysterhr.com, checked 2026-10-10).
• Direct employment without an entity. The sources we read describe no such route: the sending party under art. 137-1 must be a Kazakh legal entity, and the permit for a foreigner is applied for by a Kazakh employer.

What changed in 2026

• 2026-01-01: the new Tax Code No 214-VIII of 2025-07-18 came into force. Income tax on individuals became progressive: 10% up to 8,500 MRP (KZT 36,762,500) of annual taxable income and 15% above, with a basic deduction of 30 MRP a month. Social tax fell from 11% to 6% and is no longer reduced by social contributions. VAT is 16%, up from 12%, and the sole-proprietor simplified regime is 4% of income (zakon.uchet.kz, checked 2026-10-10).
• 2026-01-01: employer pension contribution OPVR rose from 2.5% to 3.5%, with 4.5% scheduled from 2027-01-01 and 5% from 2028-01-01. Social contributions SO stay at 5% (zakon.uchet.kz, checked 2026-10-10).
• 2026-01-01: the medical insurance bases widened. The employer OSMS cap went from 10 to 40 times the minimum wage (KZT 3,400,000, at most KZT 102,000 a month); the employee VOSMS cap from 10 to 20 times (KZT 1,700,000, at most KZT 34,000). The old 10-times caps come from secondary sources (PwC, checked 2026-10-10).
• 2026-01-01: the MRP rose to KZT 4,325 from KZT 3,932; the minimum wage stayed at KZT 85,000 (prg.kz, checked 2026-10-10).
• 2026-01-01: foreign-labour permit rules changed again by Order No 302 of 2025-09-30, which makes intra-corporate transfer permits free for several regions; an earlier order added the enbek.kz vacancy test from 2025-09-01. Both come from a secondary source, the order texts were not read (uppersetup.com, checked 2026-10-10).
• 2026-06-08: Law No 277-VIII of 2026-04-07 forbids civil-law contracts with individuals that show an employment sign and treats them as employment (Labour Code art. 26(1-1)), with administrative liability for employers. We read the article text; the entry-into-force date, the exclusion of sole proprietors and the fines (30 MRP for officials, 60 for small business, 80-100 medium, 150 large) come from practitioner blogs, not the law (trustme.kz, pbo.kz, checked 2026-10-10). Those sources name outstaffing as the lawful alternative.
• 2026-08-04: Law No 295-VIII of 2026-06-03 amended the Labour Code: rules on refusals to hire, disciplinary sanctions, notice of changed conditions and pre-shift medical checks. It does not touch art. 137-1 (mondaq.com, checked 2026-10-10).
• 2026-09-01: the Law on Personal Data was amended by Law No 326-VIII of 2026-06-24, effective 60 days after publication, so the date is approximate. We did not read the content (zakon.uchet.kz, checked 2026-10-10).

Numbers vendors haven’t updated

• Minimum wage. The rate in force is KZT 85,000 a month since 2024-01-01. Multiplier’s Kazakhstan page and G-P’s page give KZT 70,000, the 2023 rate (usemultiplier.com, globalization-partners.com, checked 2026-10-10).
• Employer cost and income tax. Deel’s Kazakhstan page estimates employer costs at 22.60% and lists social tax at 11%, pension at 2.5% and a flat 10% income tax, plus a 0.49% liability-insurance item and a 0.60% administrative fee. The 2026 rates are social tax 6%, pension 3.5% and progressive income tax of 10% and 15% (deel.com, checked 2026-10-10). Our 12.3-13.4% covers statutory contributions only and is not like for like with that estimate.
• Reference section. Atlas HXM’s Kazakhstan reference page is marked “Last updated on March, 22nd, 2023” (atlashxm.com, checked 2026-10-10).

How we built this page

Data was collected and checked on 2026-10-10. The statutes were read as full-text copies on zakon.uchet.kz and kodeksy-kz.com, because the official adilet.zan.kz portal returned no text, so article numbers should be re-checked there. The Kazakh company registers could not be searched by name, so no vendor’s entity is confirmed by a register; we rely on vendors’ own pages and found no vendor that states a Kazakh entity. Vendors are ordered by published Kazakhstan price first, then global price, then no price; no vendor pays for placement.