Foreign citizens wishing to obtain citizenship of Kazakhstan will have to provide a new certificate when submitting documents, Tengrinews.kz reported on January 14.

Changes have reportedly been made to the order of the Minister of Internal Affairs on issues of admission to citizenship of Kazakhstan.

According to the amendments, the application requires a certificate of fingerprint registration of a foreign citizen or stateless person.

Tengrinews.kz notes that changes have also been made to simplified admission to citizenship.  An application for a simplified acquisition of citizenship may be rejected if a foreign citizen has grounds for refusal to issue a permit for permanent residence (when submitting documents both for obtaining a permit for permanent residence and simplified admission to citizenship).  The grounds are not specified in the document.

The amendments will be discussed until January 23.

Foreign citizens are reportedly required to undergo fingerprint registration in Kazakhstan from January 1, 2024. For citizens of Kazakhstan, the procedure is voluntary.  According to the latest data from the Ministry of Internal Affairs, about 8,000 foreign citizens and about 7,000 Kazakh citizens have undergone fingerprinting since the beginning of the year.

Kazakhstan’s law on citizenship notes that citizenship of the Republic of Kazakhstan defines a sustainable political and legal relationship of a person with the state, expressing the totality of their mutual rights and obligations.

In the Republic of Kazakhstan, everyone has the right to a citizenship.  Citizenship in the Republic of Kazakhstan is acquired and terminated in accordance with this law.  A citizen of the Republic of Kazakhstan under no circumstances shall be deprived of citizenship, the right to change his citizenship, and cannot be expelled from Kazakhstan.