Kazakhstan's New Tax Regime Covers Nearly 520,000 Taxi Drivers as Business Registrations Shift

Taxi drivers account for more than half of participants

Kazakhstan's special tax regime for people who work for themselves covered 519,683 taxi drivers as of October 1, 2026, accounting for 53% of its 981,200 participants. Another 292,509 people provided courier services, bringing the two occupations together to about 83% of everyone using the regime.

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of National Economy Serik Zhumangarin gave the figures in a response to a parliamentary inquiry about the effects of the new Tax Code on small businesses and individual entrepreneurs. His response also recorded 16.1 billion tenge in social contributions for people working through internet platforms.

The figures show how strongly taxi and delivery work shape participation in the regime. They also help explain a wider change in Kazakhstan's business register: some people who ended their registration as individual entrepreneurs continued working under the new arrangement.

During the first nine months of 2026, 356,200 individual entrepreneurs were deregistered. Of those, about 73,900 moved to the regime for people working for themselves. Zhumangarin also identified 30,100 entrepreneurs who stopped operating after moving to the general tax regime because of new requirements, or because they could not continue under the new conditions.

Most participants work through internet platforms

Internet platforms accounted for 866,900 participants, or about 88% of the regime's users. Another 114,200 people, approximately 12%, worked independently. In practical terms, nearly nine out of every 10 participants operated through a platform rather than independently.

Taxi drivers represented roughly 53% of participants and couriers about 30%. Together, their exact counts total 812,192 people. Around 17% of participants were engaged in other activities.

Zhumangarin described 807,300 individuals as new participants in the regime. That amounts to approximately 82% of the 981,200 total. The response did not give their previous employment or tax status, leaving the extent of movement from other arrangements unspecified.

Where the social contributions went

Zhumangarin reported that 16.1 billion tenge in social contributions had been transferred for the 866,900 people working through internet platforms. The money was divided among pension contributions, social contributions and compulsory health insurance.

The stated breakdown was:

• 4.4 billion tenge in mandatory pension contributions.
• 3.8 billion tenge in mandatory employer pension contributions.
• 3.9 billion tenge in social contributions.
• 4.1 billion tenge in compulsory social health insurance contributions.

Pension contributions put money toward retirement. Social contributions support the social insurance system, while health insurance contributions fund the compulsory medical insurance system. For drivers and couriers, these payments connect income earned through platforms with formal social protection arrangements.

The four published amounts add up to 16.2 billion tenge, compared with the stated total of 16.1 billion tenge. The response gave no explanation for that difference.

The contribution figures matter alongside the participation count because they show money entering the social protection system. The response did not specify individual payment histories or the benefits received by particular workers.

What happened to deregistered entrepreneurs?

Kazakhstan recorded 356,200 individual entrepreneur deregistrations in January through September 2026. Zhumangarin's response divided those entrepreneurs into groups that help explain what was happening behind the headline number.

About 73,900 switched to the special regime for people working for themselves. Another 151,800 had reported no income in 2025. Together, those two groups accounted for 225,700 people, or approximately 63.4% of all deregistrations.

The response also identified 102,400 entrepreneurs whose annual income was up to 10 million tenge and about 28,000 whose income exceeded that amount. These figures describe the income scale of the other groups listed in the response.

For a person moving into the new regime, the administrative change means leaving the individual entrepreneur register while continuing to earn money under a different tax status. For someone who reported no income in 2025, deregistration may instead remove an inactive business registration.

Closures rose while new registrations fell

Entrepreneur deregistrations reached 356,200 in the first nine months of 2026, up 59.3% from 223,600 during the same period in 2025. The comparable figure in 2024 was 277,000.

New business registrations moved in the opposite direction. The response recorded 242,300 new business entities in 2026, compared with 346,100 a year earlier, a decline of about 30%.

The resulting gap was 113,900 more deregistrations than new registrations. In 2025, new registrations had exceeded closures by 122,500. The figures therefore describe both a rise in exits from the register and a reduction in new entries.

Zhumangarin identified 30,100 entrepreneurs whose cessation of activity was connected to the new tax requirements or an inability to operate under the new conditions. That group represented about 8.5% of the 356,200 deregistrations, providing a specific count of closures linked in his response to the tax changes.

The dates covered by the figures are:

• January through September 2024: 277,000 individual entrepreneurs ceased activity.
• January through September 2025: 223,600 ceased activity, while new registrations reached 346,100.
• January through June 2026: simplified declaration figures recorded fewer taxpayers filing, alongside higher declared income and employment.
• January through September 2026: 356,200 individual entrepreneurs were deregistered.
• October 1, 2026: participation in the regime for people working for themselves stood at 981,200.

Retail and major cities recorded the most exits

Retail accounted for 128,400 entrepreneur closures, the largest sector total listed in the response. That was up from 74,500 a year earlier, an increase of 72.4%. Retail alone represented about 36% of the 356,200 deregistrations.

Other services recorded 59,800 closures, compared with 37,700 previously. Transport rose from 19,600 to 34,500, while real estate activities increased from 10,200 to 23,000.

Construction recorded 11,200 closures, up from 7,000. Catering businesses recorded 8,500, compared with 4,800 a year earlier. The increases spread across several activities, extending beyond the taxi and courier work that dominates the new regime.

Almaty had the highest regional total, with 62,500 individual entrepreneurs ceasing activity, more than twice the approximately 30,000 recorded a year earlier. Astana followed with 41,900, up from 31,400.

Turkistan Region recorded 33,000 closures, Almaty Region 26,900 and Shymkent 24,700. Almaty city and Astana together accounted for 104,400 closures, or about 29% of the national total.

Businesses also moved between tax arrangements

By October 1, 2026, the number of small businesses using the general tax regime had increased from 114,100 to 384,200. The number of legal entities using that regime rose from 415,800 to 519,600.

A general tax regime is the standard set of tax rules, rather than a special arrangement available to qualifying taxpayers. Moving between regimes changes how a business reports and pays its taxes, even when the underlying activity continues.

The number registered to pay value added tax, or VAT, increased by 28%, from 134,400 to 172,000. VAT is a tax applied to sales of goods and services, with registered businesses generally accounting for tax charged on sales and eligible tax paid on purchases.

More than 1.17 million business entities were using the special regime based on a simplified declaration. Alongside them were the 981,200 individuals in the regime for people working for themselves. These figures show why the reform needs to be examined across several tax categories: entrepreneurs can leave one category and enter another.

Fewer simplified declarations, higher reported income

During the first half of 2026, the number of taxpayers filing under the simplified declaration arrangement fell by 28.2%, from 1.512 million to 1.086 million. Their combined declared income nevertheless increased by 18.9%, from 7.89 trillion to 9.38 trillion tenge.

Zhumangarin also reported a 14.2% increase in the number of hired workers recorded in those declarations, to 508,600. The wage bill rose by 7.3% to approximately 448 billion tenge.

The income and employment figures add another dimension to the decline in registrations and filings. A smaller group of taxpayers submitted simplified declarations, while that group reported more income and more employees in total.

Declared income is the amount taxpayers report in their returns. It differs from profit, which is what remains after relevant costs. The rise from 7.89 trillion to 9.38 trillion tenge therefore describes reported income rather than the money businesses kept after expenses.

Tax receipts rose as the government awaits a full year

Kazakhstan's consolidated budget had received 22.69 trillion tenge by October 1, 2026. That was 3.55 trillion tenge, or 18.5%, more than a year earlier.

Tax receipts from small and medium businesses increased by 17.5%, or 1.13 trillion tenge. Within that category, receipts from small businesses rose by 27.1%, equivalent to 750.7 billion tenge.

Zhumangarin said the reform should be assessed using business income, employment and tax payments as well as registration numbers. His response placed the final assessment after completion of the full 2026 tax period, without giving a publication date.

The minister also said decisions would be taken if lasting negative effects were identified that were directly connected to provisions of the new Tax Code or how they were applied. No specific amendments or timetable were announced.

For taxi drivers and couriers, the immediate change is already visible in the scale of participation and the contributions paid through platforms. For the wider small business sector, the figures describe several developments at once: movement between tax categories, more deregistrations, fewer new registrations, and higher reported income and tax receipts in the measures cited by the minister.

Key Points

• The special tax regime covered 981,200 people as of October 1, 2026, including 519,683 taxi drivers and 292,509 couriers.
• About 88% of participants worked through internet platforms, with 16.1 billion tenge in social contributions reported for that group.
• Of 356,200 individual entrepreneurs deregistered in the first nine months of 2026, about 73,900 switched to the new regime.
• Zhumangarin linked 30,100 cessations of activity to new tax requirements or an inability to continue under the new conditions.
• New business registrations totaled 242,300, leaving 113,900 more deregistrations than new registrations.
• The government plans to assess the reform after the full 2026 tax period, considering income, employment and tax receipts alongside registration figures.