Kazakhstan has made four consecutive cuts: the 48% tax rate has been implemented, and the red line of 5-year vehicle age may not be able to raise the number of vehicles on the road

Horgos Port exported 344,000 vehicles in the first eight months, a year-on-year increase of 33.3%. However, at the height of exports, Kazakhstan issued four new regulations from September 22 to early October, and the import channels for natural persons for personal use were substantially tightened-cars that are more than 5 years old no longer have an e-passport and cannot complete the first registration.

1. Clarify a rumor first

Recently, it has been rumored in the export circle that "Almaty Customs has suspended vehicle clearance."

It was verified that there was no such thing as "Almaty Customs had suspended customs clearance alone." KEDEN is a national unified customs declaration system. С (electronic vehicle passport) and С к С К С (vehicle structural safety certificate) are both national rules. No state can press the pause button alone.

But this rumor is not groundless. There was indeed a brief systematic rejection in early July: starting from the evening of June 30, the KEDEN system stopped accepting customs declarations for passenger vehicles by natural persons, and the wrong message was "Import by natural persons is prohibited," and a large number of vehicles were stranded in customs warehouses; subsequently, the State Revenue Committee of Kazakhstan (К п) publicly denied the restrictions twice on July 3 and July 9, saying that the tax rate remained unchanged and the system had not been changed. It was more like a temporary action without an announcement or a transition period.

The real problem lies in late September. These four knives are more troublesome than suspending customs clearance-they are at the level of rules and will not resume themselves.

2. Timeline: Not a pause, but a series of knives

6/30 - 7/1: The KEDEN system refused to accept customs declarations for passenger cars by natural persons, and the vehicles were stranded in the customs warehouse. Officials later denied it

7/21: Prime Minister Bektynov asked the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Industry to introduce measures to crack down on illegal imports within 10 days. The new mechanism will clearly come into operation from September 1

9/22: The scrapping recovery tax (утильсбор) was changed to be paid before customs clearance and release. Natural persons could have made the payment before the first registration, and the cash pressure moved forward

Issued on 9/23 and effective on 9/26: Order No. 474 of the Ministry of Industry and Construction: Natural persons С is only issued to vehicles not more than 5 years old, and the red line of 5 years old has been implemented

9/26: New regulations: Natural persons can only use it once a year; it is prohibited to change right-hand rudder vehicles to left-hand rudder vehicles, and the route for replacement and modification is closed

9/28 - 9/29: Personal channels will be subject to the Eurasian Economic Union unified tax rate, and Aktau customs clearance fees will increase from approximately 1 million tenge to approximately 10 million tenge

Early October: "One unit per year + car owner is the customs declaration" was fully implemented, and the gray customs proxy model lost its replicability

Three or four hard thresholds

The first knife is the age of the car. Natural persons can only accept vehicles that have been shipped for less than 5 years, and the owner information on the e-passport must be consistent with the customs declaration. If the car is over 5 years old, if you can't get an e-passport, you can't complete the first registration-the car will not be licensed once it arrives in Hong Kong.

The second knife, quantity. Natural persons are limited to one vehicle per year for their own use, and they can bring a trailer or RV with a total mass of no more than 3.5 tons. The previous practice of relying on "finding local people to hold it on their behalf" for customs clearance in batches was basically no longer replicable after the two terms of "one unit a year" and "the owner must be a customs declaration" were stacked up.

The third knife is taxes and fees. Imports for personal use by natural persons will be levied at the unified tax rate of the Eurasian Economic Union: 48% of the value of the goods or no less than 1.5 euros/cubic centimeter. Previously, the actual comprehensive cost under gray operations was generally pressed by the industry between 32% and 33.4%. This knife cuts the price difference itself.

The fourth knife is to recover tax. Starting from September 22, tax recovery certificates must be obtained before vehicles are released. The amount has not changed, but the payment time has been moved forward from "before first registration" to "before customs clearance is completed", directly increasing the cash pressure on in-transit orders.

In addition, the Ministry of Transport has proposed to increase the environmental protection requirements for imported vehicles to Euro 5, but the effective date has not yet been determined and currently does not constitute an existing threshold and is an expected risk.

4. Accounts need to be recalculated: Why is "the value of goods multiplied by 48%" wrong

In the rules announced by the Kazakh tax authorities, 48% is only a percentage, and there is also a minimum amount calculated based on displacement. The two are higher.

The caliber of each gear is: 54% for the value of goods within 8,500 euros, and no less than 2.5 euros/cc; 48% for 8,500 - 16,700 euros, and no less than 3.5 euros/cc; 48% for higher prices, but the minimum amount is higher by displacement. If the vehicle is more than 3 years old and less than 5 years old, it will be calculated in euros/cubic centimeters.

If it is imported commercially (legal persons or individual households pay for the goods), the cost item is completely different: customs fees + import duties + 16% value-added tax, and consumption tax will be added for engines exceeding 3,000 cc. The two channels cannot be mixed.

conclusion

The threshold in this market is changing from "who can find cheap sources of goods" to "who can run the compliance process and make delivery certainty."

What we have earned in the past few years is information asymmetry: we know which port is fast, which channel is loose, and which customs broker has a solution. This road is being blocked one by one. The next profit will come from whether a car can be safely and surely delivered to customers within the rules-that is the compound interest of credit and a slower but more difficult moat.

The four knives in September did not cut off the market in Kazakhstan, but the era when money can be made without compliance.

The information quoted in this article comes from public media reports and the original text of unofficial communiqués. Whether specific vehicle models can be admitted, please confirm in writing between the customs broker and the competent authority of Kazakhstan

Source: Xiong Yu, digital automobile export

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