Starting from July 2, 2021, employers in Kazakhstan will be required to provide vaccination against COVID-19 for their employees.

This requirement applies to service organizations (banking, financial, insurance, consulting and hotel organizations), wholesale and retail trade facilities, passenger transportations, airports, and communication and telecommunication facilities.¹

Organizations included in the government’s List must organize vaccination of their employees within the following deadlines:

• By July 15, 2021 – for the first component of the vaccine;
• By August 15, 2021 – for the second component of the vaccine.

Admission to work at the office/place of business will be granted to employees if: a) they are vaccinated or b) undergo mandatory PCR testing once a week.

*Employees with permanent medical contraindications, or who have had COVID-19 within the last three months are exempt from vaccination and mandatory PCR testing.

At the same time, there is a requirement for organizations to comply with the percentage of employees who work at the place of business versus  remotely (in the cities of Almaty and Nur-Sultan, which are now in the “red” zone, 20% of employees can work at the place of business, while the remaining 80% can work remotely).² Vaccinated workers can go to work without these restrictions. As for employees, who have not been vaccinated, have no medical contraindications and have not had COVID-19 within the last three months, they can work at the place of business only if the percentage requirement is met.

Although the new regulations on mandatory vaccination do not provide a clear answer regarding conditions of access for unvaccinated employees to go to work, we suppose that an employee who weekly provides a negative PCR test result may be allowed to enter the place of business only if the above percentage requirement is met.

We are actively monitoring the situation and we will keep you updated. If you have any questions about this alert, please contact us.

1. The full list of activities subject to these restrictions is indicated in the Decree of the Chief State Sanitary Doctor No. 31 dated 1 July 2021 (the “List”).↩
2. Decree of the Chief State Sanitary Doctor No. 68 dated 25 December 2020, as amended.↩