Kazakhstan halves the VAT registration threshold to 10,000 MCI

What changed in detail

Under Article 99(4)(2) of Kazakhstan’s new Tax Code (No. 214-VIII ЗРК, in force 1 January 2026), the mandatory VAT registration threshold is turnover equal to 10,000 times the Monthly Calculation Index (MCI) in force on 1 January of the relevant financial year.

With the 2026 MCI at KZT 4,325, the threshold is KZT 43,250,000. The superseded Tax Code set the same test at 20,000 times the index, so the threshold has been halved in index terms as well as falling in absolute terms.

Article 99(4)(1) defines the turnover measured against it as the sum of the turnovers in Article 449(1)(1) and (2), accumulated from the date set by Article 101.

What it means

The halved multiplier pulls in taxpayers who sat comfortably below the old line, and it lands in the same reform as the 12%-to-16% rate rise — so a newly registered business absorbs both at once.

The trap is the shape of the rule rather than the number. Because the threshold is expressed as a multiple of an index that is itself reset every 1 January, the KZT figure changes annually even when the rule does not. Hard-coding KZT 43,250,000 into a monitoring rule will be wrong in January 2027; store the multiple and the index separately.