Astana, 16 October. From 1 January 2027 Kazakhstan will begin using a new methodology for assessing families' social welfare: households will be divided into five categories, and the two best-off categories will face restrictions on some republican-budget benefits, Labour and Social Protection Minister Askarbek Yertayev said at a briefing at the Central Communications Service (Tengrinews, The Tenge).
The methodology was approved on 4 October 2026, the minister said; the previous one, in force since 2023, will expire on 1 January 2027 (Tengrinews). The new one has two components: material welfare and a family's social resilience. The first covers 59 indicators in six areas; the assessment takes into account family members' income and employment, property, transport, business, land and agricultural assets, and credit obligations. The second reflects social burden: the presence of children, elderly people and people with disabilities (The Tenge, Tengrinews).
The unit assessed will be the household as a whole rather than an individual benefit recipient: family members registered at the same address, as well as relatives and other people living together, will be counted; single parents and cases of separate residence are handled separately (Tengrinews, The Tenge). The calculation runs automatically on data from state information systems through the Digital Family Card, and citizens do not need to collect certificates (Tengrinews).
There are five categories: A, a high level of welfare; B, well-off; C, satisfactory; D, economically vulnerable; E, economically and socially vulnerable. According to the ministry, category A includes about 329,000 households (5%), B about 1 million (16%), C 3.2 million (52%), D about 1.4 million (22%) and E about 120,000 (2%) (The Tenge).
Category A requires at least two indicators of material prosperity at once, including income of ₸356,000 or more per family member per month, several dwellings with more than 120 square metres per person, a large enterprise or two or more medium or three or more small ones, a luxury-class car, more than 300 hectares of agricultural land or more than 500 head of cattle (The Tenge). That sum equals seven subsistence minimums, as in the example the ministry gave (Informburo); the subsistence minimum in 2026 is ₸50,851 (Digital Business). For category B, income of ₸305,000 to ₸356,000 per person was named as a benchmark (The Tenge).
The restrictions will affect families in categories A and B, about 21% of households, when some republican-budget benefits are awarded; families in categories C, D and E will keep the right to payments provided the conditions are met (The Tenge, Kazinform). Of 36 types of social assistance, 22 republican-budget payments will remain as they are, including payments to Great Patriotic War participants and disabled veterans, victims of nuclear tests and political repression, people with disabilities and people in difficult life situations (Tengrinews). As Informburo reported, the list of affected payments includes, among others, childbirth benefits, childcare benefits up to the age of one and a half, and benefits for large families (Informburo).
A category will not be permanent: family composition and welfare level will be recalculated monthly from updated data (The Tenge, Kazinform). If data in state databases is outdated or wrong, it can be checked in a personal account on eGov or eGov Mobile and corrected through a correction service or through a department of the Committee for Social Protection; the ministry did not say how a correction would affect payments for past months (Tengrinews). An anonymous calculator for checking one's category will appear on eGov and eGov Mobile; the deputy minister said it has passed technical testing and is ready to be placed (Tengrinews).
Prime Minister Olzhas Bektenov said the shift to a needs-based principle will save ₸700 billion in 2027 and almost ₸2.5 trillion over three years (BES.media).
Background: The Digital Family Card has operated since 1 January 2023; it holds data on 20.6 million citizens grouped into 6.2 million families, and the methodology was developed jointly with the UN Development Programme (Finratings). According to the ministry's explanation published by El.kz on 9 October, the assessment is points-based: a score of 1,800 or more corresponds to category A, 730 to 1,799 to B, and minus 30 to 729 to C; how this scale relates to the methodology approved on 4 October is not explained in the publications (El.kz). The category shares named at the briefing add up to 97%, and the number of households is about 6.05 million against 6.2 million families in the system; the reports of the briefing do not name the reason for the gap. Two days earlier, National Economy Minister Serik Zhumangarin said of category A: “slightly more than 70,000”, adding that the analysis of categories continues (BES.media); publications give different numbers of affected payment types: 10 (BES.media), 14 of 39 (Digital Business), while the minister spoke of 22 of 36 remaining unchanged.
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Artificial intelligence was used in preparing this material.
