The first question a finance director asks when someone suggests moving part of the workforce off the payroll is simple: how much will it cost? And the answer they expect is usually a single number — a percentage, a rate, a price per head. But outstaffing cost in Kazakhstan never comes down to one figure in a commercial proposal. It is a stack of layers: the worker's salary, mandatory employer contributions, reserves and insurance, the provider's fee, and value added tax on top. Anyone who looks only at the last layer is almost guaranteed to compare things that are not comparable.
At FSSA we build these budgets every day for oil and gas and industrial projects in the Atyrau region, from a crew of general labourers for a single season to engineering teams on multi-year contracts. And we keep seeing the same story. A client receives two quotes a few percentage points apart, picks the cheaper one, and three months later discovers that the "expensive" quote included vacation pay, medical checks and protective gear, while the "cheap" one did not. Below we break down what the price of the service is really made of, and how to check it before you sign.
What actually drives outstaffing cost in Kazakhstan
Start with the foundation that people tend to forget. Outstaffing in Kazakhstan is not a grey-zone arrangement. It is a personnel provision service written directly into law: Article 687-1 of the Civil Code and Article 137-1 of the Labour Code. The provider remains the formal employer — it signs the employment contract, runs payroll, pays taxes and keeps HR records. The client directs the people's work on its own site. That explains the pricing logic: the provider re-invoices everything it spends as an employer and adds its own fee. If you want the legal distinction in more detail, we have a separate piece on staff outsourcing vs outstaffing.
The first and largest layer is the payroll itself. That means the gross salary plus allowances, bonuses, rotation premiums, night hours and overtime. On a rotation schedule this matters a great deal: overtime and work on days off are paid at no less than one and a half times the normal rate, and if the budget is built on base salary alone, it will drift from the very first month.
The second layer is mandatory employer payments, which rose noticeably in 2026 after the new Tax Code came into force. On top of the salary, the provider pays social contributions of 5% of income net of the employee's pension contributions, employer health insurance contributions of 3%, employer pension contributions of 3.5%, and social tax of 6%. From this year social tax and social contributions are no longer offset against each other, so the burden on payroll is visibly higher than a year ago. If a role is classified as hazardous — and many oilfield roles are — a further 5% in occupational pension contributions is added. The full mechanics of withholdings and contributions are covered in our article on salary taxes in Kazakhstan.
The third layer is everything that does not show up on a payslip but will definitely happen: a reserve for paid annual leave, sick leave, mandatory accident insurance for employees, pre-shift and periodic medical checks, workwear and personal protective equipment, and safety training. On an industrial site none of this is optional. These are requirements, and somebody has to pay for them.
Only the fourth layer is the provider's fee. VAT is charged on top of the whole amount: in 2026 the rate is 16%, and for a VAT-registered provider it applies to the entire invoice, not just the service margin. If your company is VAT-registered too, you can recover it, and for your budget it is largely neutral. If not, it is a direct cost that you need to see in advance.
Pricing models: percentage, per-head rate or hourly
There are three main approaches on the market, and each has its own logic.
The most common is a percentage of payroll or of total employer costs. The provider transparently re-invoices salaries and contributions and adds an agreed percentage on top. The advantage is that it is easy to audit: you see every line. The drawback is that the fee grows together with salaries, so when wages are indexed the service portion grows too, even though the provider is not doing any more work.
The second option is a fixed monthly rate per person. It works well when headcount is stable and salaries are uniform. For large groups of blue-collar workers on the same pay, it is often the simplest way to agree. But when crew composition changes and salaries differ, a flat rate turns into a negotiation over every single position.
The third is an hourly or per-shift rate with everything already built in. It is popular on short projects, loading and unloading work and seasonal peaks. Clients find it intuitive: 160 hours worked, 160 hours paid. But it is hard to look inside such a rate, and this is exactly where skipped medical checks or unpaid overtime tend to hide — only to surface later as worker complaints directed at you, on your site.
In practice the size of the fee depends less on the model than on scale and complexity. A hundred labourers on identical pay in Atyrau and five expatriate engineers on rotation with work permits, flights and relocation are different jobs with different costs for the provider. That is why asking for an "average market percentage" makes little sense: an honest answer always starts with "it depends".
To keep this from staying abstract, take an illustrative example: an operator with a gross salary of 400,000 tenge a month, in a non-hazardous role, and what that person costs the client under outstaffing. Contribution rates follow the 2026 rules; we use a provider fee of 12% purely to show the mechanics, not as a market benchmark.
Salary: 400,000 tenge. Social contributions: 18,000 (5% of salary net of the employee's pension contributions). Employer health insurance: 12,000. Employer pension contributions: 14,000. Social tax: about 21,100. Mandatory payments on top come to roughly 65,100 tenge, so costs already stand at 465,100.
Add a vacation reserve of around 7% of salary, about 28,000, and roughly 10,000 tenge a month for medical checks, accident insurance and protective gear spread across the year. The cost of the worker comes to about 503,000 tenge. A 12% fee adds about 60,400. The invoice before VAT is about 563,500 tenge. With 16% VAT it is about 653,600.
The figure is striking, and this is usually where the client asks, "So someone on 400,000 costs me 650,000?" Yes — but the right comparison is not with the salary, it is with your own payroll. If the same operator worked for you directly, you would spend the first 503,000 tenge anyway. That is the law, not the service. The real difference is roughly 60,000 tenge of fee versus your own costs for an HR officer, a payroll accountant, an employment lawyer, replacement hiring and inspection risk. And if you are VAT-registered, the VAT is recovered.
When the numbers are done honestly, outstaffing wins in some scenarios and loses in others. It pays off when the workforce is temporary or project-based, when departures must be replaced quickly, when the company has no HR function on the ground, or when the project cannot afford to inflate its own headcount. It loses when we are talking about a core team that will stay with you for ten years: over that period the fee adds up to what it would cost to run your own HR department. We look at those scenarios in more detail in our piece on when outstaffing pays off.
Hidden risks: where cheap becomes expensive
The most common mistake is comparing proposals by fee percentage alone. Five percent versus twelve looks like an obvious choice — until you lay both calculations out line by line. The cheaper quote often has no vacation reserve, which means that when a worker leaves, compensation for unused leave will arrive as a separate invoice. Or medical checks are missing, and the first contractor safety audit stops your people at the gate.
The second trap is tax "optimisation". Sometimes a provider offers a price well below market and explains it with a clever scheme: part of the salary paid in cash, workers registered as sole traders, or a contract labelled as a service when it is in fact an employment relationship. For the client this is a direct risk. Article 137-1 of the Labour Code prohibits giving workers conditions worse than those set by labour law, and the receiving party may not discriminate in pay. When inspectors arrive, they will not stop at the provider — the people were working on your site.
The third point is legal restrictions. Provided personnel may not be used to replace striking workers, nor during downtime or bankruptcy proceedings of the receiving party. For hazardous work, workplace certification and accident insurance are mandatory. These workers also count toward the client's average annual headcount — worth remembering for anyone who hoped outstaffing would keep people off the books or preserve small-business status.
Finally, there is something commercial proposals rarely mention at all: replacement speed. If a worker leaves in the second week of a rotation, how many days until the provider sends someone new, and at whose expense? If this is not in the contract, you will be paying a fee for an empty position. Good providers commit to a replacement period and fix it in the SLA. That costs money, but far less than an idle work front.
Before signing, it helps to ask the provider five questions. What is included in the cost base, and what is billed separately? How is the fee calculated when salaries are indexed? Who pays for medical checks, protective gear and training? How quickly is a departing worker replaced? And what will the monthly act look like — will you be able to reconcile it with payroll records? Confident answers backed by numbers are a good sign. "Everything is included, don't worry" is a reason to ask for a line-by-line breakdown.
If you are budgeting a project right now and want to see real figures for your own crew, take a look at our outstaffing services — the calculation is built around your specific positions, schedule and site. Because in the end, the right outstaffing price is not the lowest percentage in the table. It is the number that leaves you with no surprises later.
Frequently asked questions
How much does outstaffing cost in Kazakhstan?
There is no single price. Outstaffing cost is made up of payroll, mandatory employer contributions at 2026 rates, reserves and insurance, the provider's fee and 16% VAT. The fee is usually charged as a percentage of costs, a fixed rate per person or an hourly rate, and its size depends on headcount, the complexity of the roles and the project timeline.
Why is the outstaffing price higher than the worker's salary?
Because the salary is only part of the cost. On top of it the employer must pay social contributions, social tax, employer pension contributions and health insurance contributions, as well as reserve vacation pay and cover medical checks and protective gear. These costs exist with your own staff too, so compare against the full cost of your own employee, not the salary.
How is VAT applied to outstaffing services?
If the provider is VAT-registered, VAT at 16% is charged on the full invoice, including re-invoiced salaries and contributions. A VAT-registered client can recover it, so for them it is largely neutral. For a company that is not VAT-registered, it is a direct additional cost.
Is outstaffing cheaper than hiring your own staff?
For temporary, project-based and seasonal work, and for fast hiring with high turnover, outstaffing is usually cheaper: you do not maintain an HR function and you get replacements for departures. For a core team kept for years, your own payroll is often cheaper, because the provider's fee becomes a significant sum over time.
Can you save on outstaffing through taxes?
Legally, only by recovering VAT if you are registered for it. Schemes with cash salaries or registering workers as sole traders when the relationship is in fact employment create risks for the client as well: the people work on the client's site, and the law prohibits giving them conditions worse than labour law provides.
What should an outstaffing contract specify?
The cost structure and how the fee is calculated, indexation rules, who pays for medical checks, protective gear and training, the replacement period for departing workers, how working time is recorded and the format of the monthly act. The more detailed the calculation, the fewer disputes mid-project.