Kazakhstan to limit approval-free top management roles for foreigners

The ministry has designated two top positions for foreign residents as not subject to approval / Photo: Shutterstock, photo editor: Milosh Muratovskiy

Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Labor and Social Protection plans to restrict the number of top-level managerial positions available to foreigners without local authority approval to just two. The corresponding draft resolution has been posted on the legalacts.egov.kz portal.

Only the brief version of the draft is available for public consideration, which will continue until June 2.

In order to prevent illegal migration, the agency clarified the two positions that foreigners can hold without special approval and outside of quotas. These are chief executive officer and their deputy (not more than one).

Foreign residents may hold these positions without approval from local authorities in companies where 100% of the authorized capital is controlled by foreign owners. Foreign employees holding other positions in such companies are required to obtain approval from local authorities.