Dushanbe, 28 October. Tajikistan’s President Emomali Rahmon signed Decree No. 1237 on a moratorium on all kinds of inspections of small and medium-sized businesses until 1 January 2029, excluding only tax-authority inspections, and instructed the government to submit an act to implement it within a month, the presidential press service said.
Rahmon announced the decision on 14 October at a meeting with entrepreneurs and investors in Dushanbe: the moratorium is extended for another two years, and by 1 December 2026 draft acts must be ready that will change the inspection system itself, Interfax reported. The president ordered the introduction of a risk-based approach, the elimination of unjustified and repeat inspections, and the possibility of issuing a warning instead of a fine for a first violation that caused no damage. Inspections, requests for additional documents and summoning entrepreneurs to state bodies are permissible, he said, only in cases provided for by law and on clear legal grounds. For the other entrepreneurs not covered by the moratorium, from 1 January 2027 inspections must be based on law and risk assessment.
The previous moratorium ran from 1 January 2025 to 1 January 2027, CentralAsia.media recalled, and Asia-Plus adds that Tajikistan declared moratoriums on inspections of entrepreneurs earlier, in 2008, 2011, 2018, 2022 and 2025, Asia-Plus writes. The legal basis is the law “On a Moratorium on Inspections of Business Entities”: while it is in force, the norms regulating inspections of small and medium-sized businesses are suspended.
In Kazakhstan a similar step is so far only under discussion. On 28 October, in the Address, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev proposed that the Kurultai and the Government discuss a three-year moratorium on inspections of micro and small businesses from 1 January 2027, citing the experience of the 2020–2023 moratorium, Zakon.kz reports. According to him, in the first half of the year the number of violations by individual entrepreneurs fell by 34%, but the amount of fines rose by almost 11%, and unscheduled inspections grew many times over. There is no decision yet: on 30 October the Kurultai bureau ordered the issue to be worked out jointly with the Government.
What it means: For the sixth time since 2008 Tajikistan declares a pause in inspections and leaves the tax authorities free to inspect; Kazakhstan is only discussing a similar measure. The scope differs too: the Tajik moratorium covers small and medium-sized businesses, the Kazakh proposal micro and small ones.
Who benefits: Small and medium-sized businesses in Tajikistan get a reprieve from inspections, except tax ones, until 1 January 2029; the decree names support for entrepreneurship, strengthening industrial and export potential and attracting investment as its aims. The tax authorities keep the right to inspect. What the budget gains or loses from the pause is not stated in the reports. In Kazakhstan entrepreneurs so far have only the President’s proposal.
Background: In Kazakhstan the previous moratorium on inspections of micro and small businesses was introduced by a decree of 26 December 2019 until 1 January 2023 and then extended by another year, Exclusive.kz recalls.
We have also reported that the President’s Address ordered work on a moratorium on inspections and extra pay for district doctors.
