Kazakhstan keeps its central record of businesses in the Национальный реестр бизнес-идентификационных номеров (National Register of Business Identification Numbers), maintained by the Министерство юстиции Республики Казахстан (Ministry of Justice). Registration itself is split: commercial legal entities are registered by the Государственная корпорация «Правительство для граждан» (State Corporation “Government for Citizens”), non-commercial ones by the justice bodies, and individual entrepreneurs not by either — they are placed on record with the tax authorities. On top of that, companies in the Astana International Financial Centre are registered by a separate common-law registrar with its own public register.

The official company register in Kazakhstan

Registration of legal entities is governed by the Закон Республики Казахстан «О государственной регистрации юридических лиц и учетной регистрации филиалов и представительств» (Law of the Republic of Kazakhstan “On State Registration of Legal Entities and Record Registration of Branches and Representative Offices”) of 17 April 1995 No. 2198. State registration consists of checking the documents against the law, issuing a справка о государственной регистрации (certificate of state registration) with the assignment of a бизнес-идентификационный номер, БИН (бизнес-сәйкестендіру нөмірі, БСН — business identification number), and entering the entity in the Национальный реестр бизнес-идентификационных номеров (National Register of Business Identification Numbers), which the Ministry of Justice maintains.

The division of competence set out in Article 4 of that Law is unusual and worth stating precisely:

  • Commercial legal entities and the record registration of their branches and representative offices are handled by the Государственная корпорация «Правительство для граждан» (State Corporation “Government for Citizens”), which acts as the registering body.
  • Non-commercial legal entities — foundations, public associations, institutions, religious associations and the like — and their branches are registered by the органы юстиции (justice bodies) of the Ministry of Justice.
  • Филиалы и представительства (branches and representative offices) undergo учетная регистрация (record registration) and receive their own business identification number, but do not acquire legal personality.

Kazakhstan therefore keeps separate registers for legal entities and for individual entrepreneurs. Under the Предпринимательский кодекс Республики Казахстан (Entrepreneurial Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan), state registration of an индивидуальный предприниматель (дара кәсіпкер — individual entrepreneur) consists of being placed on record with the орган государственных доходов (state revenue body) of the Комитет государственных доходов Министерства финансов (State Revenue Committee of the Ministry of Finance) at the declared location. Registration is compulsory only for individuals who employ workers on a permanent basis or whose annual income from private business exceeds the statutory threshold; others may trade without it. An individual entrepreneur is identified by an ИИН (individual identification number), not by a BIN, and does not appear in the register of legal entities.

A second, parallel track exists for the Международный финансовый центр «Астана», МФЦА (Astana International Financial Centre, AIFC). Companies established there are registered by the AIFC Registrar of Companies within the Astana Financial Services Authority under the AIFC Acts, a body of English-law-based regulation, and appear in the AIFC Public Register rather than in the ordinary national listings. Anyone checking a Kazakh counterparty has to know which of the two systems it belongs to.

Legal forms that can be registered in Kazakhstan

Article 34 of the Гражданский кодекс Республики Казахстан (Civil Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan) fixes a closed list of forms, and Article 58 subdivides the business partnerships.

Commercial legal entities:

  • Товарищество с ограниченной ответственностью, ТОО (жауапкершілігі шектеулі серіктестік, ЖШС — limited liability partnership) — the standard Kazakh company. The charter capital is divided into participatory interests, participants are liable only up to their contribution, and it may be formed by a single person. Governed by a dedicated law of 1998 on limited and additional liability partnerships.
  • Товарищество с дополнительной ответственностью, ТДО (қосымша жауапкершілігі бар серіктестік — additional liability partnership) — the same structure, but participants answer for the partnership’s debts with their own property up to a multiple of their contributions fixed in the charter. Rare, and used where counterparties want extra comfort.
  • Полное товарищество, ПТ (толық серіктестік — general partnership) — participants are liable for the partnership’s obligations with all their property; only individuals may be full participants.
  • Коммандитное товарищество, КТ (командиттік серіктестік — limited partnership) — combines full participants with unlimited liability and contributors (командитисты) who risk only their contribution and do not manage the business.
  • Акционерное общество, АО (акционерлік қоғам, АҚ — joint stock company) — capital divided into shares, shareholders liable only for their shares, governed by the law of 2003 on joint stock companies. Required for banks, insurers and other regulated businesses, and the form used to raise capital on the market.
  • Производственный кооператив, ПК (өндірістік кооператив — production cooperative) — a voluntary association of individuals joining their labour and property contributions, with subsidiary liability of the members.
  • Государственное предприятие, ГП (мемлекеттік кәсіпорын — state enterprise) — a commercial entity based on state property, existing either as a предприятие на праве хозяйственного ведения (enterprise with the right of economic management) or as a казенное предприятие (state-owned enterprise on the right of operative management).

Non-commercial legal entities:

  • Учреждение (мекеме — institution) — created and financed by its founder to carry out non-commercial functions; it may be state or private.
  • Общественное объединение (қоғамдық бірлестік — public association) — a membership organisation pursuing common non-commercial aims, including political parties and trade unions under their own statutes.
  • Потребительский кооператив (тұтыну кооперативі — consumer cooperative) — a voluntary association of members meeting their own material needs, including property-owners’ associations in housing.
  • Фонд (қор — foundation) — a non-membership organisation formed on property contributions for social, charitable, cultural, educational or other public purposes.
  • Религиозное объединение (діни бірлестік — religious association) — registered by the justice bodies under the religious activity legislation.
  • Ассоциация или союз (қауымдастық немесе одақ — association or union) — a voluntary grouping of legal entities coordinating their activity or representing common interests.
  • Акционерное общество as a non-commercial organisation — the Civil Code expressly permits the joint stock form to be used for non-commercial purposes, which is why some state-linked bodies are formally joint stock companies without profit distribution.

Forms that are not legal entities:

  • Индивидуальный предприниматель — личное предпринимательство (individual entrepreneur — personal entrepreneurship) — one individual trading on the basis of property he owns or is entitled to use; it may take the form of a фермерское хозяйство (farming enterprise).
  • Совместное предпринимательство (joint entrepreneurship) — a group of individual entrepreneurs acting on jointly owned property. Its statutory forms are предпринимательство супругов (entrepreneurship of spouses), семейное предпринимательство (family entrepreneurship, on the joint property of a peasant farm or a privatised dwelling) and простое товарищество (simple partnership, on shared ownership).
  • Филиал и представительство (branch and representative office) — subdivisions of a Kazakh or foreign legal entity, subject to record registration and given a business identification number, but without legal personality.

Forms available in the Astana International Financial Centre: Private Company, Public Company, Restricted Scope Company, Special Purpose Company, Protected Cell Company, Investment Company, General Partnership, Limited Partnership, Limited Liability Partnership, Foundation, Non-profit Incorporated Organisation, and the “Recognised” variants — Recognised Company, Recognised General Partnership, Recognised Limited Partnership and Recognised Limited Liability Partnership — through which a foreign entity establishes itself in the Centre.

Information available from the register

Register data is delivered through the digital government portal egov.kz as a set of discrete services rather than as one open search: Предоставление сведений о зарегистрированном юридическом лице, филиале или представительстве (information on a registered legal entity, branch or representative office), Предоставление сведений о зарегистрированном юридическом лице на заданную дату (information as at a given date, which is how the historical position is established), Предоставление сведений о наличии филиалов и представительств юридического лица (whether an entity has branches or representative offices) and Предоставление сведений из государственной базы данных «Юридические лица» (information from the state database of legal entities).

The data set covers the business identification number, the full and abbreviated name in Kazakh and Russian, the legal form, the date of state registration and of any re-registration, the registering body, the registered address, the activity code under the ОКЭД classification, the size of the charter capital, the head of the entity, the status of the entity, and the existence of branches and representative offices.

Ownership reaches the register through the re-registration mechanism rather than through a continuously updated shareholder list. Under Article 42 of the Civil Code a legal entity must undergo state re-registration when its charter capital is reduced, when its name changes, and when the composition of participants in a business partnership changes — the last exception being partnerships whose register of participants is kept by a licensed securities-market registrar. Changes made to the constitutive documents on those grounds without re-registration are invalid, so for a ТОО the register is the authoritative record of who the participants are.

Several free official databases sit alongside the register. The State Revenue Committee publishes at portal.kgd.gov.kz a Поиск налогоплательщика (taxpayer search) by identification number, a Поиск неблагонадежных налогоплательщиков (search for unreliable taxpayers, covering entities declared invalid, in bankruptcy, inactive or struck off) and a VAT payer search — the practical way to test whether a counterparty is in good standing. The open data portal publishes machine-readable government datasets, and the Депозитарий финансовой отчетности (Financial Reporting Depository), operated by the joint stock company “Information-Accounting Center”, publishes the audited annual financial statements of организации публичного интереса (organisations of public interest) — financial institutions, all joint stock companies, subsoil users, grain receiving enterprises, state enterprises and monopolies, and companies with state participation.

What the register does not disclose

Most companies’ accounts are not public. A ТОО has no obligation to publish financial statements, so the Financial Reporting Depository covers joint stock companies and other organisations of public interest only. For an ordinary limited liability partnership no financial data can be obtained from official sources.

There is no publicly searchable beneficial ownership register. Ultimate ownership is collected by banks and reported to the financial monitoring authorities under the anti-money-laundering legislation, but it is not published. Where a ТОО’s participants are held on a registrar-maintained register of participants, even the direct ownership is outside the state register, and a chain of foreign holding companies cannot be resolved from Kazakh public data.

The register also does not operate as a free open search. Extracts are delivered as individual e-government services, usually requiring authentication with an electronic digital signature, and the constitutive documents themselves — the charter and the founding decision — are not published: they are held by the entity and by the registering body. Individual entrepreneurs are outside the register of legal entities entirely, and can be verified only through the taxpayer search services. AIFC participants must be looked up in the separate AIFC public register.

Documents that can be obtained from the register

  • Справка о государственной регистрации (перерегистрации) юридического лица (Certificate of state registration or re-registration of a legal entity) — the document confirming that the entity exists, with its name, business identification number and date of registration. It replaced the former paper certificate of incorporation and is the basic proof of legal existence.
  • Справка об учетной регистрации филиала (представительства) (Certificate of record registration of a branch or representative office) — the equivalent document for a subdivision, showing its own business identification number and the legal entity it belongs to.
  • Справка о зарегистрированном юридическом лице, филиале или представительстве (Information statement on a registered legal entity, branch or representative office) — the standard extract used for due diligence: identity, legal form, registration dates, address, activity code, charter capital, head and status.
  • Сведения о зарегистрированном юридическом лице на заданную дату (Information on a registered legal entity as at a given date) — the historical extract, used to prove who represented a company or what its details were at the time of a past transaction.
  • Сведения о наличии филиалов и представительств (Information on branches and representative offices) — confirms the subdivisions of an entity, which matters when a contract was signed by a branch.
  • Устав (Charter) — the constitutive document setting out objects, the size and distribution of charter capital, the powers of the general meeting and of the executive body, and transfer rules for participatory interests. Obtained from the entity or, in the statutory cases, from the registering body rather than from an open register.
  • Выписка из Национального реестра бизнес-идентификационных номеров (Extract from the National Register of Business Identification Numbers) — confirmation of the entity’s entry and of the identification number assigned to it, used in banking, customs and procurement procedures.
  • Годовая финансовая отчетность и аудиторский отчет (Annual financial statements and auditor’s report) — for organisations of public interest, published through the Financial Reporting Depository together with quarterly reports, information on affiliated persons and corporate events.
  • Сведения об отсутствии (наличии) налоговой задолженности (Statement on the absence or existence of tax arrears) — issued by the state revenue bodies and routinely required in tenders and by counterparties.
  • Данные о неблагонадежности налогоплательщика (Unreliable taxpayer records) — the free published records showing that an entity has been declared invalid by a court, is bankrupt, inactive, or has been struck off, which is often the decisive check.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the official business register in Kazakhstan?

It is the National Register of Business Identification Numbers, maintained by the Ministry of Justice. Every legal entity, branch and representative office is entered in it and receives a twelve-digit business identification number, and register data is delivered through the egov.kz digital government portal.

Who registers a company in Kazakhstan?

Commercial legal entities are registered by the State Corporation “Government for Citizens”; non-commercial legal entities and their branches are registered by the justice bodies of the Ministry of Justice. Both routes result in an entry in the same national register.

What is a BIN?

The бизнес-идентификационный номер is the twelve-digit business identification number assigned to a legal entity, branch or representative office on registration. It is the key by which the entity is identified in the register, in tax, customs and banking systems, and in public procurement.

Are Kazakh companies’ financial statements public?

Only for organisations of public interest — joint stock companies, financial institutions, subsoil users, grain receiving enterprises, state enterprises and companies with state participation — which publish audited annual statements in the Financial Reporting Depository. A limited liability partnership publishes nothing.

Are individual entrepreneurs in the business register?

No. An individual entrepreneur is placed on record with the state revenue body at the declared location under the Entrepreneurial Code, is identified by an individual identification number, and does not appear in the register of legal entities. Registration is compulsory only above a statutory income threshold or where employees are engaged.

How are AIFC companies registered?

By the AIFC Registrar of Companies within the Astana Financial Services Authority, under the AIFC Acts rather than Kazakh civil legislation, using common-law forms such as private and public companies, limited liability partnerships and protected cell companies. They are listed in the separate AIFC Public Register.

Sources

Keywords

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