How do people in Kazakhstan pay online?
Kaspi.kz dominates daily payments. Its super app combines a bank account, a marketplace, bill payments and peer-to-peer transfers, and its payments platform processed KZT 44.2 trillion in total payment value in 2025 according to the company’s own results. For many shoppers the natural checkout is a Kaspi QR scan or a Kaspi Pay request that opens straight in the app, with the payment confirmed in a few seconds and no card details typed.
Cards remain important outside the Kaspi ecosystem. The National Bank of Kazakhstan counted 84.0 million payment cards in circulation on 1 August 2026, issued by 18 banks and Kazpost. Visa accounted for 40.7 million of them, Mastercard for 14.1 million and local card systems for 28.4 million. Cards from Halyk Bank, Freedom, ForteBank, Jusan and other issuers matter most for cross-border shoppers, for subscriptions and for merchants that cannot connect to Kaspi directly. Halyk’s Homebank app is the second large banking ecosystem and has its own QR and card flows.
Payments have moved to the phone. In July 2026, internet and mobile banking carried 77.6% of non-cash card transactions by number and 89.6% by value, and online banking users reached 29.4 million on 1 July 2026, according to the National Bank.
Cash still has a role through payment terminals and cash-in networks such as Kassa24, and e-wallets like Wooppay serve smaller segments. For an online merchant, the practical mix in Kazakhstan is a Kaspi method first, a card form second, and a bank or terminal fallback for customers who prefer not to use either.
What rules shape online payments in Kazakhstan?
Foreign sellers pay VAT on sales to Kazakh consumers. Under the new Tax Code, in force since 1 January 2026, a 16% VAT rate applies to the taxable turnover of foreign companies that sell goods online or provide services to individuals in Kazakhstan, including through online stores and trading platforms. According to KPMG Kazakhstan, a foreign company becomes a taxpayer from its first payment from a Kazakh customer and must register with the State Revenue Committee’s register of foreign companies within one month of that payment. If it does not register or ignores notices from the tax authority, access to its websites can be restricted within three business days.
Consumer law gives shoppers a 14-day window. Under the Law on Consumer Rights Protection, a buyer can return or exchange unused non-food goods of proper quality within 14 calendar days of delivery, provided they keep their presentation, seals and tags. Medicines and medical devices, underwear and hosiery are among the exceptions. A seller must give a reasoned written answer to a claim within 10 calendar days, and a card payment is refunded to the card that was used.
Customer data has to stay in the country. The Law on Personal Data and Its Protection, No. 94-V of 21 May 2013, requires personal data to be stored in databases located in Kazakhstan. Transfers abroad are allowed to countries that protect personal data, and to other countries only in limited cases, such as with the person’s consent, according to DLA Piper’s summary of the law.
How does Omno route payments in Kazakhstan?
Omno treats Kazakhstan as a market where the method matters more than the acquirer. You connect once and set routing rules by method, currency and customer group:
- Kaspi pay-ins are routed to the provider that holds the Kaspi connection for your merchant account, with clear status handling for QR payments that a customer opens but does not confirm.
- Card pay-ins in KZT can be routed by BIN, so Halyk, Kaspi and foreign cards each go to the acquirer your rule sets for that issuer, with cascading to the next provider in the rule if one is unavailable or rejects the request.
- Webhooks carry the final status of every transaction, which is the record your back office should use to release orders.
Eligibility rules also let different businesses share one setup. An online retailer and a digital services business can run on the same Omno account with separate rules by method, currency and customer verification level, so each payment only reaches providers that accept that business and that method.
What should merchants plan for?
Plan for Kaspi from the start. A checkout without a Kaspi method will lose a large share of Kazakh shoppers, and Kaspi flows behave differently from cards: the customer confirms in the app, so timeouts and abandoned requests need their own handling.
Plan for VAT if you sell from abroad. A foreign company selling to Kazakh consumers has one month from the first customer payment to register with the State Revenue Committee, and its prices need to carry 16% VAT.
Plan for returns. The 14-day return window for unused goods means refunds are part of normal operations, so build a refund flow that sends money back to the card or account used for the original payment.
Plan for KZT reconciliation. Settlement timing and fees differ between Kaspi, card acquirers and cash networks, and the routing-decision log in Omno shows which provider handled each payment so finance teams can match settlements by route.