Kazakh VAT on Stripe Digital Services in QuickBooks

A software company in Austin sells a $30 monthly plan. A designer in Almaty subscribes. From the moment that first payment arrives, Kazakhstan treats the company as a VAT payer, and the company has one month to register. Since 1 January 2026 the rate is 16 percent, up from 12. Two details trip people up more than the rate does. The tax is fixed in tenge only on the day you pay it, at the official exchange rate for the day before. And payment for a quarter is due on the 25th of the second month after it, not the first.

Stripe's Kazakhstan entry gives the short version: "Remote sellers providing digital goods or electronically supplied services (digital products) to consumers in Kazakhstan have no registration threshold. They must register for VAT purposes from the first sale." It lists the threshold as "1 transaction" and the transactions it monitors as "B2C sales of digital products." It does not print a rate.

This guide works from the Tax Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan of 18 July 2025 No. 214-VIII, which replaced the 2017 Code on 1 January 2026, in the copy on the Justice Ministry's legal database (old.adilet.zan.kz) current as of 29 October 2026. It also uses the Finance Ministry's registration rules (Order No. 636 of 28 October 2025), the State Revenue Committee's register of foreign companies, and Stripe's documentation. The Code is in Kazakh and Russian, and the quotes below are our translations from the Russian. It is bookkeeping guidance, not tax advice.

Acodei brings Stripe Tax amounts into QuickBooks, so the Kazakh VAT you collect sits in a liability account when each quarter closes. Start a free trial.

What changed on 1 January 2026

If you read about Kazakhstan's "Google tax" before this year, three things you learned are now out of date:

• The rate. Article 503(1) of the new Code: "the value added tax rate is 16 percent." The 2017 Code's rate was 12 percent. Article 827(1) applies the Article 503(1) rate to electronic services, so foreign digital sellers moved to 16 percent with everyone else.
• The exchange rate. The 2017 Code converted foreign-currency sales at the market rate on the last working day before payment. Article 827(1) now uses "the official exchange rate set for the last calendar day preceding the date the tax is paid." Calendar day, official rate.
• The law itself. Guidance, blog posts and even official links that cite article numbers in the 770s and 780s point at the repealed Code. The regime now sits in Section 21 (Articles 826 and 827), with registration in Article 102 and enforcement in Article 89.

Who is caught

Article 826(1) makes a foreign company registered under Article 102 a VAT payer. Article 826(2) says it calculates VAT on electronic sales of goods and on "services in electronic form to individuals" when at least one of these is true:

• the buyer lives in Kazakhstan
• the bank holding the account used to pay, or the electronic money operator used to pay, is in Kazakhstan
• the network address the buyer used to buy the service is registered in Kazakhstan
• the international country code of the phone number used to buy or pay was assigned by Kazakhstan

One indicator is enough. A customer living in Tashkent who pays with a card issued by a bank in Almaty is, on the text, a Kazakh supply.

Stripe Tax works from one address. For invoices and subscriptions it uses one location per customer: the shipping address if there is one, then the billing address, then the payment method's billing details, then the IP address. Most of the time the law and Stripe agree. Where they don't, the law's test is the one that counts, so keep the card country and IP evidence your checkout collects.

What counts as an electronic service

The new Code is short on this. Article 8 defines services in electronic form as "services provided through an internet platform," and defines an internet platform as an online store or marketplace for selling goods or providing services over public telecom networks and the internet. There is no list of covered services like Armenia's or Georgia's.

So the test is how you deliver, not what you sell. SaaS, apps, games, streaming, online courses, paid newsletters and downloads sold through a website all fit. Stripe narrows it from its side: "Stripe doesn't calculate tax for products that don't use a digital product tax code," and you must be "a remote seller without a physical presence in the country." Check the tax codes on your products before you switch Kazakhstan on.

Registering: within one month of the first payment

Kazakhstan calls this "conditional registration." Instead of setting up a local entity, you are entered on a register of foreign-company taxpayers. Two parts of Article 102 set the clock:

• Article 102(3): the confirmation letter is filed "no later than one month from the date of the first payment by the buyer of goods and (or) services."
• Article 102(4): "A foreign company is recognized as a taxpayer from the date of the first payment by the buyer."

That is the reverse of Kyrgyzstan next door, which wants registration before you start. In Kazakhstan you can sell first and register within the month. But the liability starts with that first payment, so the VAT on it is owed whether or not you have registered yet.

The Finance Ministry's rules (Order No. 636) fill in the mechanics:

• How you file. Paragraph 4: the confirmation letter goes in "via the integrated tax administration system," on the form in the rules' appendix.
• What you attach. Notarized copies of your charter, proof of registration in your home country, proof of tax registration there, and the order or power of attorney for whoever files for you. "The attached documents are translated into Kazakh or Russian with notarization." Start this early. A one-month deadline is tight for notarized translations.
• What the register holds. Paragraph 3 lists the data, which includes your MCC code, merchant ID, merchant name, website name, "bank details for paying VAT," and "bank details for receiving payments for goods and services sold." If you sell through Stripe, have your Stripe account's merchant details to hand.
• Your BIN. The Committee passes the letter to the Justice Ministry, which assigns your company a business identification number (BIN). It then shows on your confirmation letter in the system.
• Changes. Any change to the registered data has to be notified within ten working days.

The register is public. The State Revenue Committee's list of foreign companies providing electronic services to individuals ran to 143 entries when we checked, with the tenge each one paid for each quarter of 2026. Apple, Google and OpenAI are on it.

Stripe's "Domestic VAT registration" link under Official resources points to an old kgd.gov.kz address that now redirects to the State Revenue Committee portal's home page. Use the register and the integrated system instead. Once registered, add the registration in Stripe Tax so it starts charging Kazakh customers.

What happens if you don't register

Article 89(2) lets the tax authority order access to your internet platform restricted when a foreign company fails to comply with a registration notice, or with a notice of discrepancies found in a desk audit, within one working day after the deadline. Under Article 89(3) and (4), the decision goes to the media regulator within three working days, which then has three working days to restrict access. Kazakh customers stop reaching your site.

The rate and what it applies to

Article 827(1) calculates the tax by applying the 16 percent rate "to the value of the goods and services sold in electronic form." Stripe adds it on top of a tax-exclusive price: a $30 plan carries $4.80 of VAT. If you price tax-inclusive, the VAT is 16/116 of the total: $4.14 of a $30.00 price.

Stripe's Kazakhstan entry doesn't state the rate it applies. Run a test-mode invoice for a Kazakh address and confirm it shows 16 percent before your first live sale, especially if you configured Kazakhstan before January 2026.

Article 826(3) adds that issuing VAT invoices for these sales "is not required." Stripe's invoices and receipts are your record.

The tax point is the payment date

Article 827(2): "the date of turnover ... is the date of payment by the buyer." Article 827(1) then sets the payment due "for each quarter no later than the 25th day of the second month following the quarter in which the sale took place."

Three things follow:

• Payment decides the quarter, not the invoice. An invoice issued on 31 March and paid on 2 April is a second-quarter sale.
• The deadlines are later than most. The first quarter is due by 25 May, the second by 25 August, the third by 25 November and the fourth by 25 February.
• Stripe counts the other way. Its tax reports documentation says: "Stripe Tax records tax when the invoice finalizes, before payment. A failed or canceled payment doesn't decrease the total tax reported." For a one-off Checkout payment the two dates fall together. For a subscription renewal that finalizes in one quarter and is collected on a retry in the next, they don't. Our glossary entry on the tax point covers the general idea.

Paying: tenge, fixed on the day you pay

Article 827(1): "The value of goods sold and services provided to individuals in electronic form in foreign currency is converted into tenge at the official exchange rate set for the last calendar day preceding the date of payment of the tax."

So the tenge amount of a quarter's VAT isn't fixed when you make the sales, or when the quarter ends. It is fixed by the rate for the day before you pay. Pay on 20 May and you use the rate set for 19 May. Your liability account in QuickBooks holds dollars from the day of each sale, so the dollar cost of the payment will almost never match it to the cent.

Where to pay. The State Revenue Committee's register page tells foreign companies to check the Treasury Committee's bank details for foreign currency before paying. The Code's general rule in Article 62(4) is payment in tenge unless the law expressly allows foreign currency, and Section 21 doesn't say. We couldn't read which currencies the Treasury accounts accept, so confirm the currency and account in the integrated system before your first payment.

No refunds. Article 827(3): "Amounts of value added tax paid in accordance with this article are not subject to refund." Overpay and the money stays paid. Customer refunds after you have paid a quarter are worth raising with the State Revenue Committee before they happen, because Section 21 has no adjustment mechanism.

A return? Sections 21 and 102 set a payment, not a return. Article 505's VAT declaration applies to taxpayers registered under the general rules, and foreign e-service companies fall under Article 447(3) instead. We found no form a foreign company files with its payment. The Code does refer to notices of discrepancies from desk audits, so expect the authority to compare what you paid with what it can see, such as card payments from Kazakh banks.

No input VAT. Section 21 calculates the tax as the rate times the value of sales, with no deduction. A foreign company is only conditionally registered, so don't plan on offsetting VAT on your own costs.

Business customers: Stripe stops charging

Stripe's customer tax ID table lists kz_bin, the Kazakhstani Business Identification Number, with "Yes" in the column for impact on the tax calculation, and the footnote: "Stripe Tax won't apply tax if this tax ID is provided, in line with the relevant laws." Stripe's Kazakhstan entry says why: "Sales to business customers in Kazakhstan don't trigger any tax registration obligations because non-resident businesses aren't required to collect tax on these sales."

The Code lines up with that, with one gap:

• Section 21 covers individuals only. Articles 826 and 827 speak of services "to individuals."
• The business buyer accounts for it. Article 454(1) makes services from a non-resident, where Kazakhstan is the place of supply, turnover of the buyer "when acquired by a value added tax payer." The Kazakh business issues the invoice to itself under Article 454(2).
• The gap. A Kazakh business that isn't VAT-registered still has a BIN. Stripe will drop the tax for it, and Article 454 won't make it self-account, so nobody charges VAT on that sale. That follows the law as written, but it is worth knowing when a "business" customer's BIN comes from a small sole proprietorship.
• No double tax. Article 454(3)(6) relieves the business buyer if the price already includes VAT "paid by the foreign company in accordance with Section 21." If a Kazakh business buys without entering its BIN and you charge 16 percent, it doesn't self-account on top.

Our entries on the Stripe customer tax ID and the reverse charge cover collecting tax IDs and how self-accounting works.

A worked example: one quarter

An Austin company sells a $30 monthly plan, priced exclusive of tax. The exchange rate figures are illustrative.

1. First sale. On 6 January a consumer in Almaty pays. The company is a VAT payer from that day under Article 102(4).
2. Registration. It files the confirmation letter, with notarized Russian translations, on 2 February, inside the one-month window. It adds the Kazakh registration in Stripe Tax the same day, and is assigned a BIN.
3. What Stripe charged. Stripe charged no Kazakh tax before the registration was added. So the January renewals for 25 consumers, $750 of sales, carry no VAT on Stripe's side. The company still owes 16 percent on them: $120.00, which comes out of its own pocket.
4. February and March. 40 consumers renew each month with $4.80 of VAT each: $192.00 a month. In March, 39 pay on 1 March and one card fails; Stripe's retry collects it on 2 April.
5. What Stripe reports for the quarter. Tax recorded at finalization: 80 invoices × $4.80 = $384.00.
6. What Kazakhstan taxes for the quarter. Payments received: $120.00 owed on January, plus 79 × $4.80 = $379.20. Total $499.20. The April payment belongs to the second quarter.
7. A business customer. An Almaty studio buys 5 seats and enters its kz_bin. Stripe charges no VAT on the $150.00, and the studio accounts for it under Article 454.
8. Payment. On 20 May the company pays. The official rate for 19 May is, say, 520 tenge to the dollar, so the liability is 259,584 tenge. After confirming the account, the company's bank converts and wires it. $531.10 leaves the dollar account: a $25.00 wire fee and $506.10 for the tenge, $6.90 more than the $499.20 in the liability account.

What reaches QuickBooks, and what you book yourself

Acodei syncs the tax Stripe Tax calculated, so Stripe Tax has to be active in your Stripe account, and your Kazakh registration has to be set up there first.

For a US QuickBooks company, Acodei's method is the Tax Product: a non-inventory "Sales Tax" product mapped to a liability account, with all Stripe Tax amounts on a sale rolled into one line on the QuickBooks invoice or sales receipt. QuickBooks' Sales Tax Center doesn't let third parties create official tax rates for US companies, which is why the product approach is the one that works there. It needs Stripe Tax used with Stripe Invoicing or Stripe Checkout. Each $30 renewal in the example arrives with one $4.80 tax line, and the VAT builds up in the liability account. You then use Stripe's tax reports to file and pay from that account.

For a QuickBooks company outside the US, Acodei can map individual Stripe tax rates to QuickBooks tax codes you set up. One code at 16 percent covers Kazakh sales and shows on its own line in QuickBooks' tax reporting.

Refunds. Acodei's documentation says a refund issued through a credit note carries the line-level tax breakdown. A refund made on the payment alone may not show how much was tax, and that case can need a manual adjustment in QuickBooks. Use credit notes for Kazakh refunds so the tax side stays clear.

The rest is yours to book, because none of it passes through Stripe:

• The January tax nobody charged, item 3. Debit a VAT expense account and credit the tax liability $120.00, dated in the quarter. The customers paid $750, and the $120.00 is a cost of having sold before registering.
• The quarter-end figure, item 6. The liability account holds $384.00 from Stripe plus the $120.00 you booked. The Kazakh payment covers what was paid in the quarter, $499.20, so the $4.80 on the April collection stays in the liability account for the second quarter. Build the payment-basis figure from Stripe's data: an invoice's status_transitions.paid_at timestamp is its payment date.
• The payment, item 8. Debit the tax liability $499.20, debit bank charges $25.00, debit exchange loss $6.90, and credit the bank $531.10. Our entry on QuickBooks exchange gain or loss covers the account.

The same liability account holds US sales tax and every other country Stripe Tax collects for, so note the Kazakh slice each quarter. Our guide to reconciling the Stripe Tax report in QuickBooks covers the liability side, and the itemized export lets you filter on country_code KZ.

Common mistakes with Kazakh VAT on Stripe sales

• Still charging 12 percent. The rate has been 16 percent since 1 January 2026. Check a test invoice.
• Waiting to register before counting tax. You are a taxpayer from the first payment. Registering within the month is the deadline for the paperwork, not the start of the liability.
• Leaving the translations to the last week. Notarized Kazakh or Russian copies of your company documents take time.
• Paying on the 25th of the following month. It's the 25th of the second month after the quarter: 25 May for the first quarter.
• Converting at the quarter-end rate. The rate is the official one for the day before you pay.
• Filing Stripe's quarterly total as is. Stripe records tax at finalization. Kazakhstan counts payments, so renewals that straddle a quarter end move.
• Overpaying to be safe. Article 827(3) says VAT paid under this regime isn't refunded.
• Citing the old Code. Articles 422, 777 and 780 are from the 2017 Code, repealed on 1 January 2026.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do foreign SaaS companies have to register for VAT in Kazakhstan?

Yes, if they sell electronic services to individuals there. There is no threshold. Under Article 102 of the 2025 Tax Code, the company is a VAT payer from the date of the first payment and files a confirmation letter through the integrated tax administration system within one month of it. Stripe's Kazakhstan entry lists the threshold as one transaction.

What is the VAT rate on digital services in Kazakhstan in 2026?

16 percent, under Article 503(1) of the Tax Code that took effect on 1 January 2026. The previous rate was 12 percent. A $30 subscription priced exclusive of tax carries $4.80 of VAT.

When do foreign digital sellers pay Kazakh VAT?

Quarterly, by the 25th of the second month after the quarter: 25 May, 25 August, 25 November and 25 February. A sale belongs to the quarter in which the customer paid. Foreign-currency sales are converted to tenge at the official rate for the last calendar day before you pay, and VAT paid under this regime isn't refunded.

Does Stripe Tax charge Kazakh business customers?

No, once the customer's Business Identification Number is stored. Stripe lists kz_bin as affecting the calculation and says it won't apply tax when it's provided. Under Article 454 of the Tax Code, a Kazakh VAT payer accounts for the tax itself on services bought from a non-resident.

Why doesn't my Stripe Tax report match my Kazakh VAT payment?

Because the two count at different moments, and in different currencies. Stripe records tax when an invoice finalizes. Kazakhstan taxes on the payment date and converts to tenge at the rate for the day before you pay. Sales made before you added the registration in Stripe are owed too, though Stripe charged nothing on them.

The short version

Sixteen percent from the first payment, with a month to register and notarized translations to prepare. The quarter holds what was paid in it, and the money is due by the 25th of the second month after. The tenge figure is set by the rate for the day before you pay, so the payment lands in QuickBooks with an exchange difference. Business customers with a BIN aren't charged. Our guides to the countries that register you from the first sale, Armenian VAT and Georgian VAT cover how nearby countries handle the same sales.

Acodei syncs Stripe Tax into QuickBooks, so each Kazakh quarter starts from the liability account instead of a spreadsheet. Start a free trial.