From January to May 2026, individuals sent 238 billion tenge abroad from Kazakhstan via money transfer systems, a 7.2% decrease compared to the same period last year. Inbound transfers also fell by 9.9% to 78.1 billion tenge, according to infohub.kz.
For the third consecutive year, outbound transfers have significantly exceeded inbound ones: from January to May 2026, Kazakhstanis sent approximately three times more money abroad than they received. For comparison, the gap was 2.5 times in the same period of 2023 and 2.2 times in 2022.
The decline continues after the record year of 2022, when the five-month volume of outbound transfers reached 391.4 billion tenge and inbound 178.8 billion tenge. By 2026, the outbound flow had dropped 39.2% from that period, while inbound fell by a factor of 2.3.
Compared with data from a decade ago (January-May 2016), the volume of money transfers from Kazakhstan abroad increased by 88.9%. Meanwhile, inbound funds were 8.8% below the level of ten years earlier. This indicates that over the past few years, the flow of money sent abroad by Kazakhstanis has increased significantly, while inbound transfers have declined.