Kazakhstan may establish prohibitive rates for recycling fees when importing cars from Russia and Belarus, increasing the payment amount by 40 times. A draft of these changes to the order of the Ministry of Ecology, Geology, and Natural Resources of the republic has been published for discussion.
The creators of this document emphasize that its main goal is to level the playing field for Kazakhstani cars in the markets of the EAEU countries. Last year, Russian customs officials began requiring owners of cars assembled in Kazakhstan and imported into Russia in 2024-2025 to pay additional recycling fees based on various coefficients, which is viewed as re-export. The average additional payment amounted to 1-1.5 million rubles for cars valued at 3-4 million rubles.
The draft also proposes to introduce increasing coefficients for passenger and cargo vehicles produced in Russia and Belarus. At the same time, for other vehicles, the coefficients will remain unchanged: for passenger cars, for example, it will range from 1.5 to 11.5 depending on the engine size. For cars from Russia and Belarus, the coefficients are expected to increase to 22-246, respectively.
According to The Moscow Times, these measures are intended to eliminate the existing imbalance in recycling fees between Kazakhstan, Russia, and Belarus. According to the EAEU Customs Code, cars produced in Kazakhstan using foreign components are classified as EAEU goods, but when supplied to Russia and Belarus, additional coefficients are applied.
Starting in 2024, when exporting cars from Kazakhstan to Russia and Belarus, the recycling fee will include the difference in customs duties, VAT, and excise taxes paid in Kazakhstan. As a result, the cost of a car for the buyer may increase by 25%. For example, VAT in Kazakhstan is 4 percentage points lower than in Russia, and the recycling fee itself is significantly lower. As of today, the recycling fee for passenger cars with an engine size of 1 to 2 liters in Kazakhstan is about 114,000 rubles, whereas when re-imported back to Russia, this amount can reach 900,000 rubles.
If the proposed changes are adopted, the cost of importing a passenger car from Russia and Belarus to Kazakhstan will rise to 4.4 million rubles, which is 38.5 times higher than the current rates.
In addition to passenger cars, the increase in recycling fees is also related to the intention to limit access for Russian and Belarusian agricultural machinery to the Kazakh market. Assembly plants for Russian and Belarusian brands operate in the republic, and the authorities aim to support local manufacturers, notes a Russian automotive analyst.
Kazakhstan was previously an important export destination for the Russian automotive industry. In 2020, Lada ranked second in sales after Hyundai, but in 2021, the main assembly production of AvtoVAZ in the country was closed due to disagreements with local authorities over the terms of the investment agreement, and the Russian company began to lose market positions. Lada assembly was restored at the Allur plant in Kostanay, but in significantly smaller volumes.
Nevertheless, last year saw a sharp increase in sales of Russian cars in Kazakhstan. According to the Kazakhstan Automobile Union, 1,393 Lada cars were sold in the first half of 2025, which is much more than the 427 cars sold during the same period in 2024. In July, imports of passenger cars from Russia amounted to $7.8 million, which is four times higher than last year's figures. However, the share of Russian cars in the new passenger car market does not exceed 3%, while Chinese cars occupy 53% of the market.
Kazakhstan is among the top five largest exporters of cars to Russia, supplying 10,000 new passenger cars in 2025, according to Autostat data.
“This is once again a manifestation of internal policy: Kazakhstan is closing its market to AvtoVAZ, as Russia has restricted access for all other manufacturers,” noted Anton Shaparin, vice president of the National Automobile Union. “I fear that similar measures may spread to other goods, including blocking Russian certificates and products entering the Kazakh market.” In his opinion, this is another blow to the Eurasian Economic Union.
