Kazakhstan: local rules

Kazakhstan's transfer pricing rules are in the Law on Transfer Pricing No. 67-IV of 5 July 2008. The new Tax Code (Law No. 214-VIII of 18 July 2025, in force from 1 January 2026) did not take the rules in. It only points to the Law (art. 176). The Law controls international business operations, meaning deals where one side is a non-resident and the other a Kazakh resident or permanent establishment. It also controls some domestic deals tied to them: sales of minerals, deals where a party has tax benefits or a loss in the two prior years, and deals between parties with different CIT rates (art. 3). The arm's length principle is defined in art. 2(12). Related parties are defined in art. 11 (affiliates, holders of 10% or more, and others). Law No. 215-VIII of 18 July 2025 changed arts. 6, 7-2 and 7-3 from 1 January 2026.

There are three kinds of reports. The local file is filed with the tax authority within 12 months after the reporting financial year (31 December for a calendar year). It applies to a company with related party deals that are under control and prior year revenue of at least 5,000,000 times the monthly calculation index (MCI) in force on 1 January of the year before the reporting year (art. 7-1). The master file is given only on request, within 30 calendar days, and cannot be requested earlier than 12 months after the group's year end (art. 7-2). It applies when group revenue is at least EUR 750m, or the threshold set by the parent's country. The CbC report is filed by a Kazakh parent or authorised member within 12 months after the group's year end. Other Kazakh members file it on request in certain cases (art. 7-3). Every member of an international group, of any size, files a statement of participation by 1 September of the year after the reporting year (art. 5-1). Separately, taxpayers with listed international deals (certain goods, services and loans) above 250,000 MCI file a TP monitoring report by 15 May (Monitoring Rules, Order No. 176). Any deal participant must give price support documents within 30 days of a request (art. 5(3)).

Art. 12 lists five methods: comparable uncontrolled price, cost plus, resale price, profit split and net profit. The comparable price method comes first. If it cannot be used, the method that gives the best reasoned result is chosen, based on a functional analysis, data quality and comparability. The authority works with ranges of prices, margins or profitability (arts. 17-1 and 17-2). For related party deals, an adjustment is made to the median of the range after a tax audit (art. 10(5-1)). Some deals (tax haven parties, barter, loss makers, tax benefit holders) are adjusted to the median without waiting for a range test. Exchange traded goods follow quoted prices.

Under Administrative Offences Code art. 273, a late or missing TP monitoring report or refusal to give requested documents brings a fine of 100 MCI for small businesses, 200 MCI for medium and 350 MCI for large businesses. A repeat offence within a year costs 125, 250 or 750 MCI. A late, missing, wrong or incomplete TP report (local, master, CbC) or participation statement brings a fine of 250 MCI for medium and 500 MCI for large businesses, doubled on repeat within a year (500 and 1,000 MCI). A gap of over 2,000 MCI between the monitoring report and audit results brings 100, 200 or 300 MCI. After an adjustment, tax, fines and late payment interest apply (art. 10(6)). Corrected reports can be filed at any time and are not tied to the deadlines (art. 7(3)).

Kazakhstan has not enacted Pillar Two. The Tax Code in force from 1 January 2026 (text on adilet.zan.kz as of 22 October 2026) has no global minimum tax, domestic top-up tax, income inclusion rule or undertaxed profits rule, so no Kazakh Pillar Two return or payment is due and no deadline is shown. Kazakh entities of large groups can still be covered by the income inclusion or undertaxed profits rules of other countries. Advisers report that the government has looked at the subject to tax rule first (a draft resolution on signing the related multilateral convention was put out for comment in July 2024).

The corporate income tax (CIT) tax year is the calendar year (Tax Code art. 358). The CIT return is due by 31 March of the next year and the balance of tax by 10 April (arts. 359(1) and 347(2)). The Tax Code says a last day that falls on a non-working day moves to the next working day (art. 64(2)), and the Monitoring Rules say the same (rule 6). The TP Law has no such rule, so the local file, master file, CbC report and group statement dates are shown as set. The Law and the Rules are published in Kazakh and Russian.