The share of remittances in Kazakhstan's GDP is approximately 0.08%—one of the lowest in the world. Compared to this, countries of the former Soviet Union rely on them tenfold more heavily. Zakon.kz investigated the reasons behind this gap.
A Hundredfold Difference
According to the World Bank and Trading Economics, migrant remittances to Kazakhstan account for approximately 0.08% of GDP (1% in 2024).
For comparison:
- Tajikistan – 47.89% of GDP
- Kyrgyzstan – 17.74%
- Uzbekistan – 14.42%
- Georgia – 11.87%
- Ukraine – 6.29%
- Armenia – 4.92%
- Azerbaijan – 1.82%
- Belarus – 1.81%
- Russia – 0.09%.
The global average is approximately 0.82%.
This indicator reflects the share of money that citizens working abroad send home.
Why Kazakhstan ranks at the bottom of the rankings
The low share is explained by the structure of the economy. Kazakhstan is not a country of mass labor emigration. On the contrary, it attracts labor from neighboring countries. People come to the country to work, not to leave.
As a result, incoming remittances remain minimal, and households' dependence on remittances from abroad is virtually nonexistent. Importantly, rating agencies often conflate different indicators in such discussions. Remittances into the country are a share of GDP. Remittances out of the country are a separate flow of money.
For example, in February 2026, 42.2 billion tenge were sent abroad from Kazakhstan. This has nothing to do with the 0.08% GDP figure.
What do these figures actually show, and is there a risk involved?
A high share of remittances in GDP usually means that a significant portion of income is generated outside the country. For example, in Tajikistan, remittances effectively support the economy at a level of almost half of GDP. This creates dependence on external factors.
Kazakhstan operates in a different model – the economy is formed domestically. Low dependence on remittances reduces external risks. From a macroeconomic perspective, there are no risks. Even tens of billions of tenge transferred abroad represent only a small fraction of a percent of GDP. They do not affect the tenge exchange rate, inflation, or the stability of the financial system.
It is also important that this money does not constitute "capital flight" in the classic sense. These are earnings generated domestically that are then transferred abroad, with the Kazakh economy compensating for them in the form of labor or services.
The only noticeable effect lies not at the level of the economy as a whole, but at the level of individual segments of the labor market where foreign labor is used. But here, too, we are not talking about risk, but rather about structural peculiarities.
We previously reported on which countries send the most remittances to Kazakhstan.
CentralasianLIGHT.org
April 6, 2026