Residence permit in Kazakhstan

The status has to be backed by presence: keeping it requires at least 183 days a year in the country, and documents are filed at your place of registration and residence. Arranging the status 'just in case' while living elsewhere does not work — the partner names this as the main reason enquiries from abroad never reach a contract. If you need a company or a bank account without relocating, look at Georgia, Armenia or the UAE.

'Getting a residence permit' in practice means going through two consecutive stages: first the Ministry of Internal Affairs approves permanent residence permission (RPP, official review period up to 45 calendar days), and only then is the plastic residence permit card itself issued — the foreigner's identity document confirming that permission (7 working days on the expedited route, 17 on the standard one, according to the service description on gov.kz). The 60–90 days shown on the site is the combined time for both stages.

Since 13 February 2026 a joint pilot project of the Ministry of Labour, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Ministry of Information and Digital Development of Kazakhstan has been running (order, adilet.zan.kz, G26G0000041): first-time applicants for a residence permit or an RPP and for kandas status complete a questionnaire and an online KAZTEST Kazakh language test on the migration.enbek.kz platform, and must also reach a pass mark under the 'immigration potential' assessment system — the starting threshold of 400 points was raised to 600 points by an order at the end of April 2026. The officially required language level is A1 (a KAZTEST certificate; this is confirmed by the video instructions on migration.enbek.kz and by the National Testing Centre), but in April 2026 media outlets (Meduza, The Moscow Times, Azattyq, The Insider) widely reported, citing the Ministry of Internal Affairs, a requirement for the higher B2 level — the discrepancy is real and is confirmed independently by several publications, so the exact level is worth re-checking at the time of filing. Participants in the Digital Nomad Residency, minors, investors and people in shortage occupations are exempt from testing. The pilot runs until 31.12.2026 and may become a permanent rule; the new requirements do not apply to the extension of statuses already granted.