2026 turned out to be an unusual year for Kazakhstan's employment law: the Labour Code was rewritten twice in the space of a few months. The Kazakhstan Labour Code 2026 changes arrived through two separate laws with different effective dates, and that alone breeds confusion. Some employers are still convinced the new rules will "kick in at some point later," when in fact most of them are already in force. For any company that hires people, the price of that misunderstanding is measured not in abstract wording but in concrete fines, labour-inspection orders, and disputes lost in court.
On industrial projects, where headcount runs into the hundreds — rotational shifts, subcontracting, seasonal peaks — the amendments land especially hard. At FSSA, a staffing agency based in Atyrau that works with oil, gas, and oilfield-service companies, you can see plainly how the very same rule is met calmly by one employer and triggers a scramble of re-signing contracts and writing explanations to the inspector for another. The difference almost always comes down to who read the law in time. So it is worth calmly unpacking what actually changed and what to watch first.
The most sensitive shift for business is the blow struck against disguising employment relationships as civil-law (contractor) agreements. The old scheme was familiar: a person effectively shows up to work every day, follows the schedule, sits at the company's workstation, yet is engaged under a services contract, because it is cheaper and easier to part ways. Now, where the hallmarks of an employment relationship are present, the employer is obliged to sign an actual employment contract rather than a contractor agreement, and breaching this carries administrative liability. This rule is already in effect. For anyone relying on subcontracting, outstaffing, or mass hiring of line personnel through intermediaries, it is a prompt to re-examine where a genuine service ends and hidden employment begins. The wording in the contract no longer saves you if, in practice, the person is embedded in your staff.
The line between a service and employment is especially thin on oil and gas sites. A contractor who sends a welding crew for six months — with a schedule, site passes, and subordination to the client's foreman — increasingly looks, in legal terms, like the employer of those people rather than a provider of a one-off service. The labour inspectorate looks at the actual hallmarks, not the title of the document: the permanence of the functions, integration into the production process, and dependence on internal rules. For Atyrau's service companies, this means the usual subcontracting models will have to be carefully reassembled. Otherwise a single inspector's query turns the money saved on paperwork into back-charges, fines, and reputational damage in front of a major client, for whom the cleanliness of a contractor's labour relations has long been part of the tender requirements.
Kazakhstan Labour Code 2026 changes: two laws, two dates
To avoid getting lost, it helps to hold a simple picture in mind. The first package is Law No. 277-VIII of 7 April 2026, devoted to safe working conditions, the protection of labour rights, and social security. Its provisions took effect on 8 June 2026. This is where the ban on hiding employment behind services contracts came from. The second package is Law No. 295-VIII of 3 June 2026 on improving labour legislation. It was published on 4 June and brought into force sixty days after publication, that is, from 4 August 2026. Until that date the provisions of the two laws genuinely had to be told apart, and many commentators muddled them. Now that both waves are active, what matters to an employer is less the chronology than the substance: there are more rules, and almost all of them shift the balance toward the worker.
A good example is the fate of the fixed-term contract. Under the amended Article 30 of the Labour Code, if a contract's term expires and neither the worker nor the employer states on the final day that the relationship is ending, the contract is automatically extended. Moreover, if on that last day the worker is absent because of illness or on social leave, the employer can no longer terminate the contract as before. In practice this means the HR function must track the expiry calendar of fixed-term contracts far more carefully: a missed date now works against the company rather than for it.
The mechanics of notice have changed too. When an employer alters working conditions — during a reorganisation, say — it was already obliged to warn the worker at least fifteen working days in advance. Now the law expressly requires that warning to be in writing. A trifle at first glance, but in a labour dispute it is precisely the presence or absence of the paper that decides the outcome. A verbal understanding with the foreman on site has ceased to exist legally. The clarification on medical examinations follows the same logic: previously only time spent on scheduled check-ups was paid, while pre-shift examinations — for drivers, for instance — were left out. From 4 August they too are paid at the average earnings rate. For vehicle fleets and transport units this is a direct, if modest, addition to the payroll.
It is important to understand that these procedural requirements do not depend on the size of the business or the level of pay. The minimum wage in 2026 is 85,000 tenge and the monthly calculation index is 4,325 tenge; thresholds and penalties are counted from these figures, yet the duty to document, notify, and pay is the same for a large operator and a small service company alike. In parallel, the state is closing loopholes at the technological level: the record-keeping of employment contracts is moving into unified electronic systems, and the model contract forms were updated in August 2026, split into a single version and industry-specific ones. A company that keeps its HR the old way, on paper, risks not so much the content of its documents as the very fact that they no longer match the new format — a separate and entirely real ground for complaint.
Dismissals and dignity: a finer-grained process
Most of the attention in the new amendments goes to parting with an employee. The legislator's logic is simple: a manager always has more leverage than a subordinate, so the procedure needs to be formalised. It starts with protecting the person who leaves of their own accord. Under Article 56, if a worker terminates the contract because the employer is not meeting its obligations, they may stop work three days after giving notice. Previously the law did not guarantee that during those three days they would be paid what they were owed and handed the documents connected with their work. Now such a guarantee exists, and dragging out the settlement has become risky. In an HR officer's language this means one thing: any departure must be run as a procedure with papers and deadlines, not as an emotional episode. The application, the notice, the order, the final settlement, and the handover of documents form a chain, each link of which can now become evidence in court.
The disciplinary part has changed even more seriously. The Code still allows four types of penalty — a remark, a reprimand, a severe reprimand, and termination at the employer's initiative. But Article 65(2) has been supplemented with an important rule: when choosing a penalty, the employer must take into account the substance, nature, and gravity of the misconduct, the circumstances in which it was committed, and the worker's prior and subsequent conduct and attitude to work. Behind the dry wording hides a very practical shift. Dismissing someone "in a single day" for a first offence is now much harder: as a general rule the penalties must escalate — first a remark, then a reprimand, a severe reprimand, and only then parting ways. Employers used to holding dismissal as a universal threat will find the court asking why milder measures were not applied. Separately, the law requires written explanations and additional liability where vulnerable categories are not taken onto the staff — pregnant women, those raising children, and people with disabilities; this provision took effect on 4 August.
The most elegant amendment is short but far-reaching. The principles of labour legislation now include ensuring the worker's right to respect and protection of their dignity in the sphere of work, and the list of workers' rights has been supplemented with the right to respect for honour and dignity and to the inviolability of private life. Honour and dignity would seem to be protected already — by the Constitution and other codes. But now this is part of labour law specifically, which means a manager who publicly humiliates a subordinate without any grounds is risking more than reputation. A breach of labour legislation that causes substantial harm to a citizen's rights falls under Article 152 of the Criminal Code. The legislator's aim is less to punish than to force companies to build a normal culture of communication, because management is now obliged to respond to such conflicts. There is a forward-looking provision as well: from 1 January 2027 the employer must not only grant leave for screening examinations but also take steps to refer the worker for such screening.
Where employers slip up
The most common mistake is to assume that because the law is "about workers," it barely concerns the business. It does concern it, and above all through procedure. The first trap is the old faith in services contracts. Companies keep engaging couriers, installers, and operators under civil-law agreements while they work like staff, and are genuinely surprised by the inspector's order. The second is verbal decisions. A transfer, a schedule change, a disciplinary remark made "by word of mouth" simply do not exist in the new reality: no document, no fact. The third is the habit of dismissing abruptly, without a built-up chain of penalties; it is precisely such cases that now most often fall apart in court in the worker's favour.
A separate risk zone is the digital contour. The record-keeping of employment contracts is moving ever more tightly into electronic systems, model contract forms are being updated, and companies that run HR "in a notebook" risk not the content but the non-conformity of format. Add to that a purely managerial trap — underestimating deadlines. Fifteen working days for a written notice of changed conditions, three days for settlement when a worker leaves, the expiry calendar of fixed-term contracts: each of these dates lives its own life, and tracking them manually is all but impossible when a company has hundreds of people and constant rotation. That is why large employers move to regulations and automatic reminders, while mid-sized businesses increasingly hand HR administration to outsourcing — not for fashion's sake, but to lift from themselves the risk of a missed deadline, which in the new edition costs more than it used to. The general conclusion from all these details is the same: Kazakhstan's labour legislation in 2026 has become markedly stricter on procedure and gentler on the worker, and the winner is the employer who moves that strictness inside its own rules in advance, rather than waiting for an inspection to bring it.
Frequently asked questions
From what date is it prohibited to use a services contract instead of an employment contract?
The ban is already in force: it belongs to the package that took effect on 8 June 2026. If the relationship shows the hallmarks of employment — a permanent workstation, subordination to the schedule, regular functions — an employment contract is required, and substitution carries administrative liability. The additional rule on written explanations when vulnerable categories are refused a staff position took effect on 4 August.
Can an employee now be dismissed for a single offence?
In most cases, no. Under the amended Article 65 the employer must take the gravity of the misconduct and the worker's prior conduct into account, which in effect builds a ladder of penalties: a remark, a reprimand, a severe reprimand, and only then termination. Dismissal on a first breach survives only for certain serious grounds and will require convincing justification.
Is written notice of a change in working conditions mandatory?
Yes. The previous notice period — at least fifteen working days — has been retained, but the law now expressly requires the written form. A verbal warning will not protect the employer in a dispute, so any change to working conditions should be fixed in a document signed by the worker.
What is the risk of humiliating a worker's dignity?
The right to respect for honour and dignity is now enshrined in labour legislation, so management is obliged to respond to such conflicts. If management's action or inaction has caused substantial harm to a worker's rights, the matter can reach liability under Article 152 of the Criminal Code, up to a ban on holding certain positions.