REGULATORY LICENSING · KAZAKHSTAN

Construction Licensing in Kazakhstan

Construction licensing requirements, licence categories, and start-of-works procedures under Kazakhstan law.

Construction activity in Kazakhstan is governed by a licensing and permitting framework that applies to all contractors — domestic and foreign. A foreign company awarded a construction contract in Kazakhstan, whether through a public tender, a state infrastructure programme, or a private development mandate, must satisfy licensing, design approval, and expert examination requirements under the Construction Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan before works commence. Foreign companies may hold a Kazakhstan construction licence in their own name or through a locally established legal entity. This guide sets out the regulatory pathway from project planning through licence issuance, notification of the start of works, and acceptance.

Legal Framework for Construction Activity

Since 1 July 2026 the primary statute governing construction in Kazakhstan has been the Construction Code (No. 253-VIII of 9 January 2026). It replaced the Law on Architectural, Urban Planning and Construction Activities (No. 242 of 16 July 2001) and the Law on Individual Housing Construction of 3 November 1994; a few provisions of the 2001 Law on attestation and accreditation continue until 1 July 2028. The Code is complemented by the Civil Code, the Law on Permits and Notifications (No. 202-V of 16 May 2014), and a body of Government Decrees and Ministerial Orders setting technical standards, local content thresholds, and mandatory examination procedures. The Ministry of Industry and Construction, whose sector committee is the Committee for Construction and Housing and Communal Services, is the central authority: it approves the qualification requirements and keeps the licence register. Licences themselves are issued by the local executive bodies of the capital, the regions and the cities of republican significance that carry out state architectural and construction control and supervision (Article 55 of the Code).

Construction of buildings and structures is a licensed activity under the Construction Code and the Law on Permits and Notifications. Performing construction works without a valid licence exposes the contractor to administrative liability, project suspension, and contract termination by the customer. Licences may be held by Kazakhstani legal entities and by foreign legal entities; the category of licence obtained must correspond to the category of works the contractor intends to perform.

Licence applications are submitted electronically through the government egov.kz portal, with supporting documentation uploaded in PDF format and a qualified electronic signature required for all legally significant submissions. Separate licences govern architectural design activity and engineering survey activity — each administered by the licensing authority and requiring its own qualification base.

Three Categories of Construction Licence

Article 55 of the Construction Code divides construction licences into three categories determined by the responsibility level of the intended facility. The responsibility level — first, second, or third — is set by the applicable technical regulations and reflects the structural complexity, occupancy, and risk profile of the building or structure. The category of licence must correspond to the responsibility level of the intended project; performing works outside the authorised category constitutes an administrative offence.

Foreign contractors engaged on infrastructure programmes — including energy, mining, transport, and logistics projects — usually require a Category I licence. The category determination is made at the project documentation stage and should be confirmed with the licensing authority before entity formation or licence application to ensure the correct staffing and technical capability commitments are in place from the outset.

Licensing Authority and Application Procedure

Construction licence applications are submitted to the licensing authority, the local executive body responsible for state architectural and construction control, via the egov.kz electronic portal. The licence or a reasoned refusal must be issued within 15 working days (Article 30 of the Law on Permits and Notifications). Where a licence is issued as a state service and the file is incomplete or defective, the application is placed on a digital waiting list and the applicant is given a reasonable period to cure it. That period is not counted in the service period, the period resumes once the defects are cured, and the date of the first filing stands; if the defects are not cured in time, the application is refused (Law on State Services No. 88-V of 15 April 2013, Art. 19(3), as amended by Law No. 291-VIII from 12 July 2026). Checking personnel qualifications, registration documents and the electronic signature before filing avoids that delay.

The qualification requirements are set by Order No. 197 of the Acting Minister of Industry and Construction of 22 April 2026, in force since 1 July 2026. Every category requires: (a) at least one attested engineering and technical worker in the relevant specialisation, employed on a permanent basis (certified, rather than attested, from 1 July 2028); (b) a production base; and (c) the prescribed minimum equipment, instruments and machinery, owned or leased. A Category II or III production base may be owned or leased for at least one year with the lease registered in the legal cadastre; a Category I base may not be leased. Category II also requires at least five years of licensed experience and at least five completed second or third-level projects as general contractor, or ten first or second-level projects as subcontractor; the Category I thresholds are set out above. We found no rule in the Law on Permits and Notifications or Order No. 197 requiring a site inspection before the licence is issued; compliance is checked afterwards, including through the automated register of market participants (Construction Code, Arts. 51, 52).

Licences are issued indefinitely (without an expiry date under current law) but are subject to suspension or revocation if the licence holder ceases to meet the qualifying criteria, commits material violations of construction legislation, or provides false information at the licensing stage. A licence holder must keep meeting the qualification requirements, so a loss of key attested staff should be dealt with at once. Under Article 55 of the Construction Code, a change of founders of the licensee requires the licence to be re-issued, and the licensing authority then re-checks compliance with the qualification requirements. The re-issue application is due within 30 calendar days of the change (Article 33 of the Law on Permits and Notifications).

Foreign Contractors: Entry Structure and Mutual Recognition

Foreign construction companies have two principal routes to construction licensing in Kazakhstan: holding the licence in the foreign company's own name, or establishing a local entity to obtain it. The optimal route depends on the contractor's home jurisdiction, the project timeline, and the intended scope of Kazakhstan operations.

Direct licence — Foreign legal entities obtain permits on equal terms with Kazakhstani entities unless a law or treaty provides otherwise (Article 20 of the Law on Permits and Notifications). A foreign company with no branch or representative office in Kazakhstan applies at the place where it will operate (Article 29). Order No. 197 counts an equivalent foreign licence towards the experience requirement and accepts equivalent foreign documents as proof of completed projects; the staffing, production base and equipment requirements still apply.

Mutual recognition agreements — Agreements on mutual recognition of construction licences were signed in the 1990s. Those usually cited are: the Agreement on Mutual Recognition of Construction Licences Issued by CIS Member States (Moscow, 27 March 1997); the bilateral Agreement between Kazakhstan and Russia on mutual recognition of state construction licences (Moscow, 1 August 1995); and the Agreement between Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan on mutual recognition of state construction licences (Almaty, 19 May 1995). We could not confirm the current status of these agreements: Order No. 197 contains no mutual recognition rule, and Russia was reported in 2009 to have decided not to become a party to the CIS agreement. Do not rely on this route without written confirmation from the licensing authority.

Local entity route — Many foreign companies establish a Kazakhstan presence, either to hold the licence locally or to support a licence held by the parent, and to contract locally. The two usual structures are an LLP and a branch. An LLP is a separate legal entity with its own business identification number, tax registration, and corporate governance; it may hold a construction licence of any category and enter contracts in its own name. A branch is not a separate legal entity — it is an extension of the foreign parent, and the licence must be held by the parent (not the branch). Branches are typically used for shorter-duration project mandates where the overhead of a full LLP establishment is not warranted, and where the parent holds or can obtain a Kazakhstan licence in its own name. A representative office is not a route to licensed work: it is not a legal entity, cannot be a licensee, and its function under Article 43 of the Civil Code is limited to representing and protecting the parent's interests.

Entity formation, tax registration, and qualified electronic signature procurement for the responsible officer are prerequisites to submitting a licence application through the local entity route. The overall timetable depends on how quickly the entity, its staff and its production base are in place; the licensing authority's own period is 15 working days from a complete application. Parallel engagement with the project developer to confirm the construction contract timeline against the licensing timetable is essential to avoid project mobilisation delays.

For Chinese EPC contractors specifically, additional issues arise at the entity formation stage: director residency and work permit requirements; compliance with Kazakhstan's currency control rules on repatriation of profits from the Kazakhstani LLP to the Chinese parent; and the interaction between the LLP's local content reporting obligations and the parent group's procurement and supply chain structure. See also: EPC Contracts & FIDIC in Kazakhstan.

Architectural Design and Engineering Survey Licences

Separate licences are required for architectural design activity and engineering survey activity, each administered by the licensing authority. A construction licence does not authorise the holder to perform design or survey functions; a foreign contractor group wishing to perform all three functions through Kazakhstani entities must obtain three separate licences through entities with the relevant qualification bases.

Design licences require attested engineering and technical staff in the relevant specialisation; attestation is carried out by accredited attestation centres until certification replaces it on 1 July 2028. Engineering survey licences require at least one engineering and technical worker with relevant higher education and three years of experience, a production base, and the prescribed instruments and equipment. We found no procedure for converting foreign qualifications in the Construction Code or Order No. 197, so a foreign firm should check with an accredited attestation centre how its personnel can qualify. The position on foreign design documentation is set out in the next section.

Mandatory State Expert Examination

A project's design documentation must pass comprehensive non-departmental expert examination, still commonly called state expert examination, before the project can be approved and built (Article 105 of the Construction Code). Floor area is not the test. Who conducts the examination depends on the responsibility level of the facility and the source of financing. The state expert organisation, run by the Ministry of Industry and Construction, has a state monopoly over new construction, reconstruction, expansion, modernisation and technical re-equipment at first and second responsibility levels whatever the funding, capital repairs at first level, new third-level buildings financed by state investment, classified projects, and standard designs (Article 104). Accredited expert organisations examine the remaining projects, including privately financed third-level facilities and capital repairs at second level (Article 109). The only exemptions are the simple third-level facilities listed in Article 98(4), such as individual houses of up to two storeys outside higher seismic-risk areas, and feasibility studies. Where a project has no state investment, the customer may choose not to have the cost estimate examined.

The examination reviews the design documentation for compliance with: technical regulations and building norms; environmental, fire safety, and seismic requirements; and the approved architectural planning task issued by the local department of architecture. Design documentation prepared by foreign persons must follow the Code's stages, composition and state standards, with limited exceptions, including for special economic zones (Construction Code, Art. 98(14)). We found no express rule in the Code or Order No. 240 on translation or local certification of foreign documentation, so confirm the expert organisation's requirements on language and format before submission.

Maximum examination periods are set by the rules approved by Order No. 240 of the Minister of Industry and Construction of 15 May 2026: 30 working days for third-level projects; 45 working days for first and second-level projects; 60 working days for unique facilities and facilities of national or interstate significance; and 15 working days for certain corrections of cost estimates. A 45-day examination of a unique or nationally significant facility can be extended by 15 working days on the customer's application, so that the customer can address the experts' comments. The periods run from the start of the examination work and include the customer's time to answer comments. Examination must be repeated where design changes result from a defective approved design or from unjustified deviations found during construction (Article 105(14) of the Construction Code).

Notification of the Start of Works

Kazakhstan does not operate a general construction permit. Before construction and installation work begins, the customer must notify the state architectural and construction control authority in the manner set by the Law on Permits and Notifications, and may file a site visit schedule with the notification (Articles 117 and 120 of the Construction Code). The earlier stages must be complete first: a land right held by the customer, the source materials including the architectural planning task, the sketch design, and the design documentation with its positive expert conclusion where examination is required. The rules on these stages are in Order No. 265 of the Minister of Industry and Construction of 29 May 2026. The appointed contractor must hold a valid construction licence of the appropriate category.

Carrying out construction and installation work without notification is a violation that attracts liability under Article 146 of the Construction Code. Under Articles 51 and 52 of the Code, compliance with qualification and permit requirements is also checked digitally through an automated register of market participants.

On completion, the structure must go through acceptance before it may be used or transferred. Acceptance is carried out by the customer, together with the contractor and the persons performing technical and author's supervision, on the basis of a declaration of conformity and conclusions on works quality, conformity with the design, and fire safety; the conclusion on works quality must be agreed with the local construction control authority (Articles 132 and 134 of the Construction Code). The approved acceptance act is the basis for entering the completed building in the legal cadastre as a new immovable property object and registering rights to it, from which point title transfer and mortgage registration may proceed.

Local Content Obligations

The clearest statutory local content rules for construction work are in the Subsoil Code (No. 125-VI of 27 December 2017), where the term is now in-country value. A subsoil user must give preference to Kazakhstani personnel; executives, managers and specialists working in Kazakhstan on intra-corporate transfer may not exceed 50% of each category; and the in-country value of works and services bought for subsoil operations, set in the contract or the solid minerals production licence, must be at least 70% of the works and services bought in a calendar year, calculated under a single methodology (Subsoil Code, Art. 28(1), (2)). The 70% rule does not apply to complex hydrocarbon projects in the Kazakhstani sector of the Caspian Sea. A construction contractor working for a subsoil user should expect these obligations to be passed down in its contract. Procurement by the state and by state-owned groups follows its own procurement legislation and rules, which should be checked for the specific tender. For privately funded projects outside these regimes, local content obligations arise only if the contract includes them.

Failure to meet contractually committed local content levels can trigger penalty clauses and may be a ground for contract termination, so the reporting and remedy provisions of the construction contract matter as much as the statutory percentages.

The practical challenge for foreign EPC contractors — particularly Chinese groups bringing their own supply chains and workforce — is reconciling the local content framework with standard procurement and labour deployment models. Structuring the supply chain to meet local content thresholds without disrupting quality and cost benchmarks, documenting compliance through the prescribed reporting forms, and allocating local content risk between contractor and customer in the construction contract are tasks best addressed at the pre-contractual stage, not after works have commenced.

Construction Control and Technical Supervision

Kazakhstan law requires that construction works be subject to both technical supervision by the developer and author's supervision by the design organisation throughout the construction period. Technical supervision monitors compliance with the approved design documentation and building norms; author's supervision monitors fidelity to the design architect's intent and the approved planning permissions. Technical supervision is carried out by the customer itself or through an accredited legal entity or certified specialist; author's supervision is carried out by the project's author, who may delegate it to a certified specialist or to the customer, who then selects a certified provider (Articles 53 and 54 of the Construction Code). The local executive body responsible for state architectural and construction control and supervision inspects works whatever the funding. Its response measures include suspending or prohibiting construction and suspending or revoking a permit (Articles 46 and 50 of the Code).

Construction work journals must be maintained on site and made available to inspectors. Concealment of defects, falsification of work-completion acts, or failure to maintain site journals are grounds for administrative liability of both the contractor and the responsible technical supervisor. For foreign EPC contractors, the journal and act-signing regime — which directly affects the customer's right to accept and pay for completed stages of work — requires careful management alongside the engineering function.

Frequently Asked Questions — Construction Licensing in Kazakhstan

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