In the first half of 2025, Kazakhstan has welcomed more than 7.5 million international visitors. With an increase of 600,000 compared to the same period last year, it is proof that the efforts to promote the local tourism industry are working.
It is during a government meeting on July 22 that Baurzhan Alenov, first deputy minister of Internal Affairs of Kazakhstan, shared the tourist numbers for the first six months of 2025. Of the 7.5 million international visitors, 90% were citizens of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) countries. Uzbekistan led the ranking with 2.8 million entries, while the Kyrgyz Republic followed with 1.7 million visitors and Russia completed the top three with 1.5 million.
According to the Kazakh Ministry of Health, part of those tourists are visiting Kazakhstan for medical reasons. Over recent years, a growing number of citizens from countries including Uzbekistan, Russia, Mongolia, Türkiye, and the United Arab Emirates have chosen the country as a destination for medical care. Neurosurgery, cardiac surgery, oncology, traumatology, and orthopedics in particular have proven to be popular among foreigners. Over 10,000 patients from 45 countries are said to visit Kazakhstan for those reasons each year.
In order to support the growing number of tourists, the government has launched the QazETA mobile app on the Google Play Store app on 15 July 2025, allowing tourists to access a large range of services. Aside from digital government services, such as visa applications and residence registration, it also includes broader tourism-related information. Details about attractions, hotel bookings, ticket purchases, and transportation can be found though the app. Moreover, foreign visitors can even purchase SIM cards, rent a car, and inform themselves about business and investment activities by using QazETA. A release on the App Store is scheduled for the end of July 2025.
Overall, Kazakhstan shares a visa-free regime with 87 countries. An electronic visa can be obtained by citizens from another 107 countries. A Digital Nomad Residency and Digital Nomad Visa have been launched recently in order to make Kazakhstan more attractive, especially to IT specialists.
Permanent residents
As far as permanent residents are concerned, 212,000 foreign nationals currently have a permanent registration in Kazakhstan. Over the past three years, that number has increased by 42%. Almaty (42,000), the Almaty Region (32,500), Astana, and the Karagandy Region (17,500 each) have the highest number of foreign permanent residents.
“Taking into account the instructions of the head of state, a strictly regulated migration policy must be developed. It is necessary to conduct an audit of the regulatory framework and analyse the functions of state bodies in the field of migration. All problematic issues related to illegal migration, interregional disparities, and the lack of a unified system for recording migration flows must be addressed with systematic and comprehensive solutions,” Kazakh Prime Minister Olzhas Bektenov said during the government meeting.
