More Than 200,000 Kazakhstan Housing Applicants Could Lose Queue Status After Checks

Housing review puts more than 200,000 applicants at risk

More than 200,000 people in Kazakhstan could have their place in the state housing queue suspended or removed after checks of property ownership and citizenship, according to Azat Ashimov, director of Otbasy Bank's department responsible for providing first homes. The bank registered 1,089,634 people as needing housing on October 21, 2026.

Ashimov said the estimate was preliminary and the bank was still analysing records. It had not begun removing the group now under review. The possible action would affect roughly one in five people on the register, making the accuracy of government records important for a large number of households.

The review has already exposed problems ranging from outdated local authority lists to an applicant with ownership shares in 400 apartments. Bank officials say tighter checks and revised rules on partial ownership are intended to direct assistance toward people who meet the housing need criteria.

By October 21, 64,000 people had already been removed from the register, 227,000 applications for registration had been rejected and 239,000 applicants had their status suspended. Those figures describe different administrative outcomes and should be considered separately from the preliminary estimate of people who could face further action.

Who can lose their place?

Owning housing or losing Kazakhstan citizenship can lead to removal, Ashimov said. An applicant's income does not determine whether they are removed from the housing need register.

The programme's central ownership requirement is that applicants must not have owned housing during the previous five years, with a specific allowance for certain people holding a limited share in one property. Officials have tightened that allowance after finding applicants with shares in several homes.

Ashimov said people must receive notice 10 days before removal. When a government database contains inaccurate information, the person concerned can ask the responsible state body to correct it. For applicants, the immediate issue is therefore both eligibility and whether official records accurately describe their circumstances.

Suspension and removal have different consequences

Since March 2, 2026, Otbasy Bank has allocated housing only to applicants who have completed an inventory check. This is a review of official information used to confirm that a person still qualifies for assistance.

An applicant who has not completed that check can remain on the register but cannot take part in housing allocation, even after waiting for many years. Keeping a queue entry and being eligible to receive an offer are therefore two separate stages of the process.

The distinction matters for the 239,000 people whose status had been suspended by October 21. Suspension pauses participation, while removal ends registration. The bank has not announced a final number of people who will be removed following the current review.

Rejected applications are another category: the 227,000 refusals concern people who were denied entry to the register. They are different from applicants who joined the queue and later lost their place.

Why a share in one home matters

Partial ownership became a difficult issue because many Kazakhstan residents acquired shares in family apartments during privatisation in the 1990s and 2000s. Parents included their children in ownership documents, leaving those children with legal shares after they became adults.

A share might be one third, one fifth or one seventh of an apartment. It gives someone a legal interest in the property, while the home itself may still be shared with parents or other relatives.

Authorities initially allowed people to register when their share did not exceed 50%. Ashimov said that approach also allowed people holding one third of each of three apartments to enter the queue.

Otbasy Bank and the Ministry of Industry subsequently worked on a legislative amendment limiting the allowance to a share of no more than 50% in a single dwelling, according to Ashimov. The number of properties now matters alongside the size of the share: the allowance applies to one home rather than a collection of smaller interests in several homes.

The applicant with shares in 400 apartments

Ashimov described the most striking discovery at a conference on affordable housing. A person who remained on the housing register held ownership shares in 400 apartments and had previously withheld consent for an inventory check.

Ashimov, explaining what the bank found after gaining authority to check records without that consent, said:

As soon as we received the right to conduct an inventory without consent, we saw a citizen who had shares in 400 apartments and who had previously not given consent to an inventory.

The bank gained the right to verify applicants' information without their consent to personal data processing from September 14, 2026. Previously, some applicants had declined that consent, preventing the checks from going ahead.

The case illustrates why the revised ownership rule focuses on a single property. A percentage ceiling applied separately to each apartment allowed applicants with numerous property interests to remain eligible under the earlier approach. The new restriction narrows that route into housing support.

Outdated lists kept some recipients in the queue

Property ownership checks also found people who had already received assistance but were still listed as waiting. Ashimov said about 30,000 people were removed after officials established that local administrations had provided them with housing without updating the lists.

Another approximately 20,000 people had already received mortgage loans while remaining on the register. The figures show how administrative delays can leave the queue containing households whose housing circumstances have changed.

The review therefore covers more than new applications. It also checks whether existing entries still reflect a person's current position. Local administrations, known as akimats, and the bank need accurate information about assistance already provided to keep those records current.

For someone facing removal because of an incorrect entry, Ashimov identified the responsible government body as the place to seek a correction. The requirement to give notice 10 days before removal provides a defined warning period before registration ends.

How large is the demand for support?

Otbasy Bank's October 21 figures placed 484,900 registered applicants in socially vulnerable groups and about 604,000 in other categories. Socially vulnerable applicants accounted for roughly 45% of the total queue.

Another 325,800 people had priority rights to housing, equivalent to about 30% of all registered applicants. Priority status concerns the order in which support is allocated; the socially vulnerable classification describes an applicant's category. The two figures should be read as different features of the register rather than added together.

The scale of demand remains substantial even as the bank checks eligibility. More than one million people were registered, while housing delivery and lending figures were measured in tens of thousands over the periods disclosed.

Some applicants also decline homes offered to them. Ashimov said certain people in Almaty had received as many as 11 offers but were willing to accept an apartment only in a particular district. Their experience shows that an available apartment does not always match the location an applicant is prepared to accept.

Homes, loans and savings show different parts of the programme

Between October 2025 and October 20, 2026, local administrations handed over 41,900 apartments for people in the queue. Of those, 35,000 had been allocated and another 6,800 were still being processed.

During the first ten months of 2026, the programme issued 15,400 loans worth 320.6 billion tenge. Across 2019 to 2025, it issued 105,400 loans totalling 1.4 trillion tenge. The earlier figures cover seven years, while the latest lending figures cover ten months.

Applicants were also building savings. By October 21, 344,300 people had accumulated 184 billion tenge in savings accounts at Otbasy Bank. That is about 535,000 tenge per saver on average, although individual balances can vary widely.

The figures describe several routes toward housing: an apartment allocated through local authorities, a loan to finance a purchase, and savings accumulated at the bank. Each measures a different stage or form of support.

What happens next, and when?

The bank plans to provide nearly 300,000 housing loans to people in the queue over the next five years. A broader target is to help 292,000 families improve their housing conditions by 2033, including through loans and rental housing.

The two targets use different measures. One counts planned loans over five years; the other counts families receiving housing support through several routes by 2033. They describe the scale of planned activity alongside the current review of who qualifies.

The main dates affecting applicants are:

• March 2, 2026: Housing allocation became limited to applicants who had completed an inventory check.
• September 14, 2026: Otbasy Bank gained authority to check applicants' information without their consent to personal data processing.
• October 21, 2026: The register contained 1,089,634 people, with more than 200,000 potentially facing suspension or removal after review.
• October 31, 2026: The method for calculating the maximum arrangement commission on preliminary and intermediate loans is due to change, increasing commissions on larger loans.
• By 2033: Authorities plan to help 292,000 families improve their housing conditions.

The immediate task for the bank is to finish analysing eligibility records. For applicants, the practical consequences depend on their status: completing verification is necessary to participate in allocation, while inaccurate government information needs correction through the responsible agency.

Key Points

• More than 200,000 applicants could face suspension or removal, but the bank says its assessment is preliminary.
• Kazakhstan's housing need register contained 1,089,634 people on October 21, 2026.
• Ownership of housing and loss of citizenship can lead to removal; income does not determine removal from the register.
• The partial ownership allowance is limited to a share of no more than 50% in one dwelling.
• Applicants must complete an inventory check to take part in housing allocation.
• People must receive notice 10 days before removal and can seek correction of inaccurate government records.
• Authorities plan housing support for 292,000 families by 2033.