Submission of notification on arrival for foreign nationals in Kazakhstan

All foreign citizens, regardless of age, nationality, citizenship, purpose of entry and other details, must submit a notice of stay to the migration services.

This does not depend on the availability of a visa or a temporary residence permit (RVP), since the submission of a notification is a procedure that complements the main document, visa or TRP, and not interchangeable.

The receiving party is always amenable for submitting the notification. The host party is an inviting company in Kazakhstan, a hotel or an individual providing housing to a foreign citizen, that is the owner of the apartment, if he rents an apartment.

IMPORTANT INFORMATION: The notification must always be submitted within three business days. If you arrived in Kazakhstan at 23.50 on Friday, this will be considered the first day of your stay in Kazakhstan. Accordingly, Monday is the second working day, and Tuesday is the third, that is, deadline.

And so, in which cases is the notification served?

The notification is served in three cases:

Every time a foreign citizen arrives in Kazakhstan from abroad;
When changing the residence address of a foreign citizen within the region;
When a foreign citizen leaves for other regions of Kazakhstan.

Within what period of time is it necessary to submit a notification?

The notification of arrival must be submitted within 3 working days from the date of crossing the border of the Republic of Kazakhstan by a foreign citizen, change of address, or departure on a business trip.

How is the arrival notification served?

ONLINE SUBMISSION. The notification is submitted online by the visa and migration portal gov.kz or eqonaq.kz . On the eqonaq.kz website notification submission is possible from hotels and homeowners. It is also possible for this category of persons to submit notifications by the E-Qonaq mobile application in the App Store and Play Market.

To submit a notification online, you must:

Log in to the visa and migration portal vmp.gov.kz or eqonaq.kz by means of an electronic digital signature (EDS) of a company/individual. In the case of submitting a notification for the first time, you must first register on the portal also by
Go to the “Services” section à Notification of a foreigner’s stay.
Fill in the information on the foreign citizen: citizenship, purpose of stay, full name according to the passport, gender, date of birth, passport number with expiration date, address of residence in Kazakhstan, date of entry and period of stay in Kazakhstan.
Sign the completed application using an EDS.
Go to the “Personal Account” section à Arrival notification, then download the result of the service from the “Help” link. The notification will be issued in an electronic document with a QR code.
OFFLINE SUBMISSION. The notification is submitted in paper form to the Department of the Migration Service for the area of residence of a foreign citizen. It is often not possible to submit a notification online due to technical problems or system updates. In this case, the notification can be submitted in paper form.

To submit a notification in an offline format, you must:

Prepare a free-form notification addressed to the Chief/The Head of the Migration Service Department. Fill in the registration data of the company/individual in the notification (BIN/IIN, location address, type of activity, contact phone number), as well as information on a foreign citizen: citizenship, purpose of stay, full name according to passport, gender, date of birth, passport number with expiration date, address of residence in Kazakhstan, date of entry and term stay in Kazakhstan.
A signed notification with the company’s seal (if any), a copy of the passport of a foreign citizen and a power of attorney (if the document is submitted by a representative or proxy) is then handed over to the Department of the Migration Service for the area of residence of a foreign citizen.
A specialist of the Migration Service Department puts down a mark on registration and sends a return copy of the notification back.

What law regulates the submission of a notice of arrival?

Notifications about foreign citizens staying in the Republic of Kazakhstan must be submitted in accordance with the requirements of several legislative documents:

Rules for the provision by receiving persons of information about immigrants staying with them, as well as transit travel of foreigners and stateless persons on the territory of the Republic of Kazakhstan: Chapter No. 2: “Receiving persons are obliged to inform the internal affairs bodies about immigrants staying with them within three working days from the date of their arrival”
The Law on Population Migration: paragraph 4, Article 6: “Registration of immigrants is carried out by internal affairs bodies on the basis of information from receiving persons, as well as the National Security Committee of the Republic of Kazakhstan, coming from checkpoints across the State Border of the Republic of Kazakhstan. The receiving persons are obliged to inform the internal affairs bodies about the immigrants staying with them within three working days from the date of their arrival”
Rules of entry and stay of immigrants in the Republic of Kazakhstan, as well as their departure from the Republic of Kazakhstan: paragraph 9, Chapter 2: “Registration of immigrants is carried out by internal affairs bodies on the basis of information from receiving persons, as well as the National Security Committee of the Republic of Kazakhstan, coming from checkpoints across the State Border of the Republic of Kazakhstan. The receiving persons inform the internal affairs bodies about the immigrants staying with them within three working days from the date of their arrival.”

What are the consequences of late submission of the arrival notification?

The responsibility for the absence of notification or its late submission is always borne by the receiving party.

According to Article 518, paragraph 1 of the Code of Administrative Offences of the Republic of Kazakhstan: in cases of violation of the filing deadlines, if the violation period is less than three days, the receiving party is issued only a warning, otherwise, if the violation period is more than three days, an administrative fine is issued. The size of the fine for small, medium and large businesses varies: the fine for small businesses comes from 10-40 MCI*, for medium from 15-50 MCI and for large from 25-75 MCI.

*MCI for 2023 – 3450 tenge.

In accordance with article 48 of the Migration Law, the inviting company is included in the “black list” (a ban on inviting foreign citizens for 1 year from the date of detection of the violation) due to late notifications: applications of receiving persons for inviting foreigners to the Republic of Kazakhstan are not considered if, within twelve consecutive calendar months prior to submitting such an application, receiving persons have been prosecuted two or more times for late informing the internal affairs bodies about immigrants staying with them, failure to take measures to issue documents for their right to stay in the Republic of Kazakhstan and ensure departure from the Republic of Kazakhstan after a certain period of stay.

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