Since the start of 2026, targeted social assistance in Kazakhstan has reached 218,400 people from 40,400 families, with total payments amounting to 23.1 billion tenge as of September 1. This is reported by infohub.kz.
Targeted social assistance (TSA) is granted to families whose per capita aggregate income falls below the poverty line. Through this program, the state seeks to improve the well-being of its citizens.
According to the Ministry of Labor and Social Protection of the Population of the Republic of Kazakhstan, a total of 62.7 billion tenge has been allocated for this year. In addition to TSA, low-income families with children are entitled to supplementary payments of 1.5 monthly calculation indices (MCI) per child aged 1 to 6, paid monthly. Such payments have been assigned to 67,800 children for a total of 2.5 billion tenge. In 2026, the amount of this additional support is 6,487.5 tenge.
It is important to note that TSA is not granted automatically. For a family to qualify, all its able-bodied members must be employed or participate in employment measures. As the Ministry of Labor and Social Protection of the Population notes, in addition to payments, citizens are offered employment support measures for those who are able to work.
These may include job placement, vocational training, skills upgrading, and grants for citizens interested in starting their own business. Over the first 8 months of 2026, 6,565 people were employed through such measures.
At the same time, the size of TSA itself is often quite small. It equals the difference between the poverty line and a family's per capita income. In essence, the state tops up the household's per capita income to exactly the poverty line.
For context: in 2025, according to data from the Bureau of National Statistics, the average TSA payment was 9,499 tenge per month.
Applications for TSA can be submitted through a career center, the akim of the rural district at one's place of residence, or via the e-government portal eGov.kz. It was also previously reported that Kazakhstan plans to change the TSA application procedure.
We also recently reported on how much pensioners in Kazakhstan receive on average.