Kazakhstan

Kazakhstan is not treated as a standalone market: it belongs to the Eurasian Economic Union together with Russia, Belarus, Armenia and Kyrgyzstan. That means a common customs tariff, common technical regulations, and one requirement that surprises most exporters — EAC certification can only be applied for by a person registered in a member state of the Union. The foreign manufacturer cannot be the applicant.

What Union membership means in practice

EAC certificate or EAC declaration

The EAC marking attests conformity with the Union’s technical regulations. Placing a regulated product on the market without it is not permitted. There are two forms and they are not a matter of choice: the applicable technical regulation determines which one applies.

• EAC certificate — for higher-risk products such as machinery, pressure equipment and household appliances. It requires laboratory testing, a factory audit and periodic production controls.
• EAC declaration — for lower-risk products. Responsibility rests with the manufacturer or the representative; testing may be needed, an audit generally is not.

In both cases the applicant must be a natural or legal person registered in a member state. This is where many European exports stall: the goods are ready and the document cannot be issued because there is nobody entitled to request it.

How goods reach Kazakhstan

The country is landlocked. From Europe and Turkey there are essentially three practicable routings:

1. Road under transit — full loads or groupage, crossing the intermediate countries without importing into them.
2. The Trans-Caspian corridor — via Georgia and Azerbaijan, with a Caspian crossing and an inland leg to the Kazakh side.
3. Rail — for regular volumes and cargo that values a predictable schedule over speed.

The choice is a matter of calendar and cost, not principle: on some shipments the routings differ by days, on others by weeks. It has to be recalculated for every consignment, because it depends on ferry availability across the Caspian and on waiting times at the crossings.

What we do

• Road freight in full loads and groupage, under transit across the intermediate countries.
• Multimodal solutions on the Trans-Caspian corridor: sea plus road, or sea plus rail.
• Export customs clearance, certificates of origin and movement documents.
• Advance check of the applicable conformity regime and coordination with the local representative.
• Dangerous goods under ADR, with approved packaging and complete documentation.

We check the conformity regime before quoting the freight. Send us the product, the tariff code and the destination, and we will tell you which form of certification applies and who has to request it — before the goods are ready.