Almatyculture & etiquette

The Individual Identification Number is Kazakhstan's tax and identity number, and since February 2024 it is issued only in person at a Public Service Centre (ЦОН / Halyk Qyzmet). Without it you cannot open a Kaspi or Halyk account, sign a registered lease, get a post-paid SIM, or be put on payroll. Bring your passport and a notarised Kazakh translation of it. Do this before you do anything else, because the queue for every other errand starts here.

Almaty sits in a bowl at the foot of the Trans-Ili Alatau, and from roughly October to April cold air sinks and traps vehicle exhaust and coal-heating smoke against the mountains. The city has repeatedly appeared in global top-ten most-polluted rankings during winter mornings, with PM2.5 several times WHO guideline levels. It matters where you live: the higher southern districts near the mountains sit above the worst of the inversion layer, the lower northern ones sit inside it. Budget for an air purifier and check AQI before running outdoors.

Kazakhstan moved its capital north in 1997. Ministries, embassies and the Astana International Financial Centre are all in Astana; banks, startups, universities and the actual cultural life stayed in Almaty. That split has a hard consequence: the AIFC's exemption from individual income tax for foreign employees, running to 1 January 2066, attaches to AIFC participants and bodies, not to Kazakhstan generally. An Almaty job pays ordinary Kazakh tax.

Kazakhstan's long-running flat 10% individual income tax was replaced when the Tax Code adopted in July 2025 commenced on 1 January 2026: 10% on annual income up to KZT 35,258,000 and 15% above it, with a 9% rate for certain private practice. VAT rose to 16% at the same time, with reduced rates for medicines and periodicals. Any comparison of Kazakhstan that still quotes a flat 10% is working from a dead number — including a lot of relocation content written in 2024.

Kaspi.kz is a bank, a marketplace and a payments network, and in practice it is how Kazakhstan pays for things. Market traders, taxi drivers and neighbourhood cafés take a Kaspi QR before they take a card. You need an IIN and a Kazakh mobile number to open Kaspi Gold, and non-residents must do it in a branch — remote onboarding was closed across the major banks. Without a residence permit the card is typically issued for twelve months, though the account itself does not expire.

Shymbulak's base is about a 25-minute drive up the Medeu gorge from the city centre, with a season that usually runs December to March and a gondola from the Medeu ice rink. The same tectonics that built that view flattened the city in 1887 and again in 1911. Modern buildings are designed for it; some Soviet-era stock is less reassuring. Ask about the construction year and the seismic rating when you view a flat — locals do.