Do I need an international driving permit for Kazakhstan?

An international permit is valid only together with the matching national licence (Road Traffic Law, Art. 73 para. 15), so on its own it does not work. We found no list of countries whose national licence is enough, and the UK, Canada and Australia tell their own citizens to carry an international permit as well, so carry both.

How long can a tourist drive on a foreign licence?

The law sets no separate day limit for tourists. The 60-day period in Art. 73 para. 19 runs from the date a residence permit is issued or, for a Kazakh citizen, from the date of entry.

What is the legal alcohol limit for driving in Kazakhstan?

The traffic rules and the Code of Administrative Offences give no number. A draft threshold of 0.3 per mille was sent back for revision as of 5 June 2026, and we could not confirm that any threshold has been introduced. The penalty for driving drunk is 15 days of arrest and a 7-year driving ban.

What happens if I do not pay for a toll road?

An individual has 30 calendar days from the trip to pay. On day 31 the case goes to transport control, and the fine is 5 MCI under Art. 628. For a foreign-plated car, the debt can also block the digital queue at a road border crossing.

Does my own car need insurance to enter Kazakhstan?

Yes. A compulsory motor liability (OGPO) contract must be in place when the car crosses the border, covering the whole stay and at least 5 calendar days. The exception is a contract Kazakhstan recognises under an international treaty.

Driving in Kazakhstan: foreign licence, rules, tolls

Q: Are headlights required during the day?

Yes. Every moving vehicle must show dipped headlights or daytime running lights in daylight (Traffic Rules, para. 134). A daytime breach earns a warning, and a repeat within a year costs 5 MCI.

Yes. The road traffic law accepts foreign national and international licences, though an international permit counts only alongside your national licence. Daytime headlights, a drink-driving rule with no number and plate-reading toll arches catch visitors next.

You can drive in Kazakhstan on a foreign licence as a temporary visitor. Article 73 of the Law on Road Traffic admits visitors on national licences and, without one, on a valid international or foreign national licence, subject to paragraphs 14 to 19. An international permit is valid only together with the matching national licence. There is no separate day limit for tourists.

Everything below was checked against the versions of the law, Traffic Rules and Code of Administrative Offences open on 5 November 2026. Fines are in MCI, the Monthly Calculation Index, a statutory unit reset each January. Our MCI page gives the current value and how to convert.

Which licences count, and what the law excludes

The key test is whether your licence conforms to Kazakhstan’s international treaties. A foreign licence that does not conform is invalid (Art. 73 para. 16).

Your situation	What the law says	Provision
Foreign national licence	accepted under the conditions in paras. 14-19	Art. 73 para. 13
Licence outside Kazakhstan’s treaties	invalid	Art. 73 para. 16
International permit	valid only with the national licence	Art. 73 para. 15
International permit issued in Kazakhstan	invalid inside Kazakhstan	Art. 73 para. 9
Minimum age	18 for categories B and A, 16 for subcategory A1	Art. 73 para. 17, Art. 74 para. 2
Time limit for tourists	none set; 60 days run from a residence permit or a Kazakh citizen’s entry	Art. 73 para. 19
Working as a driver on a foreign licence	not allowed, except for citizens of Eurasian Economic Union states	Art. 73 para. 14
Lost foreign licence	not replaced in Kazakhstan	Art. 73 para. 10

The lost-licence row is the one that can end a road trip: nobody in Kazakhstan can replace it, so keep a photo separately and have a plan that does not involve driving.

Carry the licence, the vehicle registration certificate (unless issued in Kazakhstan) and any other vehicle documents (Traffic Rules, para. 9). Missing them means a warning or 5 MCI. Driving without the right to drive, or without the correct category, costs 20 MCI (Art. 612).

Roadside practice does not always match the statute. In February 2024 Kyrgyzstan’s foreign ministry said Kyrgyz licences are valid in Kazakhstan and acknowledged isolated cases of police recommending an exchange. Government advice is also stricter than the statute’s wording: the UK says you need a 1968 international permit as well as a UK licence, Canada says a Canadian licence alone is not acceptable, and Australia says you need both.

Not verified yet We found no list of countries whose licences conform to Kazakhstan’s treaties. We saw Kazakhstan’s accession to the 1968 Vienna Convention only in search results and did not open the UN document, so we will not tell you that your passport settles the question.

Illustration Engraving: an old four-wheel-drive car on a long straight steppe highway, the road splitting into asphalt and gravel, distant mountains, a driver checking a paper map on the bonnet

Speed limits: 60 in town, 100 on an ordinary road

The default for a car is 60 km/h in built-up areas and 100 km/h outside them. Higher limits exist only on certain road types, and the sign is what counts.

Where	Car or motorcycle	Car with trailer
Residential zones and courtyards	20 km/h	20 km/h
Built-up area	60 km/h; special regime by sign, up to 90	60 km/h; special regime by sign, up to 90
Road without a central divider	100 km/h	70 km/h
Road with a central divider	110 km/h	80 km/h
Motorway, sign 3.24	by sign, up to 140 km/h	90 km/h

Buses and trucks are limited to 50 km/h in built-up areas. Source: Traffic Rules, paras. 73 and 74.

On sections that became toll roads in July 2026, the road operator KazAvtoZhol gave these limits: Karaganda-Balkhash-Burylbaital and Burylbaital-Kurty 140 km/h, Taldykorgan-Ust-Kamenogorsk 110 km/h on category I-b stretches and 100 km/h on category II. See the fines table for the four speeding bands.

Illustration Engraving: a loaded off-road car on a gravel switchback in the foothills

Rules foreign drivers tend to miss

Dipped headlights all day. Every moving vehicle shows dipped headlights or daytime running lights in daylight (Traffic Rules, para. 134). A daytime breach is a warning, then 5 MCI for a repeat within a year; after dark it is 5 MCI, then 7 MCI (Art. 602). Check the light switch first in any unfamiliar car.

Seat belts for everyone. The driver must be belted and must not carry unbelted passengers, and passengers must fasten up too (paras. 9 and 21). The fine is 5 MCI, then 10 MCI (Art. 593).

Phone only hands-free, by headset or speaker (para. 12). The fine is 5 MCI, then 10 MCI (Art. 591).

Children under 12 ride in a child restraint or with other means that let the belts secure them. In the front seat only a child restraint is allowed (para. 157). Ask for a child seat when you book a rental.

Drink-driving: no number in the law

Neither the Traffic Rules nor the Code of Administrative Offences sets a level below which you may drive. The ban is on driving while intoxicated (para. 12; Art. 608). So these acts give you nothing to rely on for “one glass is fine”. The safe rule for a visitor: if you have had a drink, do not drive that day.

The penalties have little in common with an ordinary fine:

driving drunk, or handing the wheel to a drunk person: 15 days of arrest and a 7-year ban (Art. 608 part 1);
a repeat within a year after the earlier penalty has expired: 20 days of arrest and an 8-year ban (part 3-1);
refusing a police test: 15 days of arrest and an 8-year ban (Art. 613 part 4). The ban is longer than for intoxication itself, and the driver is required to take the test (para. 9).

The Constitutional Court upheld part 1 of Art. 608 on 27 October 2023 (No. 34-NP).

You may read about a 0.3 per mille limit. That is a Health Ministry draft published in March 2026 and sent back for revision as of 5 June 2026. Until the end of 2020 mild intoxication counted from 0.5 per mille; the threshold was removed in November 2020.

Not verified yet We found no status for the 0.3 per mille draft after 5 June 2026. We did not open the current Health Ministry order on medical examination, so we cannot say what technical boundary applies during a test.

Toll roads: KazToll reads your plate, and you have 30 days

KazAvtoZhol runs tolls under the name KazToll: kaztoll.kz, an iOS and Android app, and a free call centre on 1403. Arches read the number plate and the system charges the trip. The debt is tied to the plate, so tracking it is up to you.

At the end of 2025 the network had 28 sections and 4,883 km, with cars paying on the 13 first-category sections. July 2026 added Karaganda-Balkhash-Burylbaital (645.64 km), Burylbaital-Kurty (80 km) and Taldykorgan-Ust-Kamenogorsk (about 773 km).

Section, passenger car	Pay after, MCI	Prepaid, MCI
Almaty-Khorgos via Shelek, full section, 295 km	0.1625	0.1381
zone km 25.8-38.2	0.0068	0.0058
zone km 38.2-120.7	0.0454	0.0386
zone km 120.7-204.65	0.0462	0.0393
zone km 204.65-254.9	0.0277	0.0235
zone km 254.9-320.8	0.0364	0.0309
BAKAD ring road, one trip within an hour, from 16 Aug 2026	0.14	50% discount if paid on time

The whole Almaty-Khorgos section costs a fraction of 1 MCI, against 5 MCI for not paying (Art. 628). Prepaying is cheaper than paying afterwards. For other sections, look up the rate in KazToll.

To stay clear of the fine:

Before setting off, open a KazToll account and add the plate. It shows your balance, passes and trip history.
Top up, or pay after the trip: banking apps, online payments, wallets by plate number, SMS to 505 on some networks, or cash at a terminal at the pay-after price (payment methods as reported by NUR.KZ in January 2026).
Count 30 calendar days from the trip. On day 31 the case goes to transport control (Toll Rules, para. 25, as amended by Order No. 59 of 16 March 2026). Early-2026 articles that mention 7 days are out of date.
Check your trip history before returning the car or leaving the country.

With foreign plates the debt matters more than the fine: at road crossings you will not be registered in the digital queue until it is paid. The fines page covers leaving the country and coming back.

Not verified yet We could not confirm how to register a foreign plate with KazToll or how to pay without a Kazakh bank; we did not find instructions for foreigners. A separate rate for transit foreigners was proposed by the Transport Ministry in February 2026, and its adoption is also unconfirmed. There is no single primary-source table of all sections, as we did not open orders other than No. 903.

Driving your own car in: insurance from the border

A compulsory motor liability (OGPO) contract must exist at the moment the car crosses the border, for the whole stay and at least 5 calendar days (OGPO Law, Art. 13). Driving without it is prohibited (Traffic Rules, para. 12). The policy covers only Kazakhstan unless a treaty says otherwise.

The one exception is an owner holding a contract that Kazakhstan recognises under an international treaty (Art. 5 para. 3). Temporary-entry policies use a territory coefficient of 4.4 (Art. 19). A new resolution in force since 28 April 2026 says which cars count as being in international traffic: cars of foreigners and people without a residence permit, and cars of people living or registered outside Kazakhstan.

Not verified yet We could not confirm whether a treaty recognises policies for cars from Eurasian Economic Union states, or where to buy a policy at the border (which crossing, which insurer). We found the temporary import period only on legal forums and do not publish it.

Rental cars and cameras: the fine reaches the keeper

When a camera records an offence, the owner or keeper answers for it. Anyone given the car for temporary use counts as a keeper, and the owner is released if a check of their report establishes who had the car at the time (Art. 31). Our reading for a visitor: a rental company can report that the car was with you, and liability then moves to you as keeper, so settle in the contract who pays for cameras and tolls.

Sergek cameras record speed, red lights, signs and markings, stopping and parking, by reading the plate (Almaty police explanation, 2022). In April 2026 the Interior Ministry said its systems read plates from most countries, so foreign plates give you no cover.

Not verified yet We could not confirm rental terms at the major companies: their pages did not open, and aggregators quote minimum ages of 18, 21, 23 and 25. The UK says hire firms often ask for a year of driving experience, a higher minimum age and an international permit. Ask about licence requirements and deposit in writing before you book.

Road works and winter: confirmed and unconfirmed

The Almaty-Bishkek highway is under reconstruction at km 19-27 from 20 July 2026, widening from 4 to 8 lanes on a stretch carrying more than 70,000 vehicles a day, so allow extra time. The Saty-Kaindy road, about 10 km, was under construction with its base ready for asphalt on 1 June 2026. For routes, see the drive to Charyn and day trips from Almaty.

Not verified yet Winter tyres: we found no requirement in the Traffic Rules and did not check other acts. Road conditions on Almaty-Charyn and Almaty-Astana in November 2026, and fuel stops in the steppe: no dated confirmation.

Before a winter drive in the north, check the Kazakhstan cold map: stations recorded −40 °C or lower in 9 of 20 cities over 35 winters, and Karaganda gets the most days of wind with snow.

If you would rather not drive, the transport overview covers trains, flights and buses.

If the car is rented, go through the contract with our car rental checklist, and for dirt routes see whether you need a 4x4.