Since April 2018, citizens of China and India who transit through the international airports of Astana and Almaty have a 72-hour visa-free entry regime.
72-hour visa-free entry regime
The unique visa-free regime of 72-hour transit for Chinese citizens traveling through the cities of Astana and Almaty in a pilot regime has shown its effectiveness and safety. This regime for Chinese citizens was extended until the end of this year in April and a similar regime was introduced for citizens of India. Now, citizens of China and India, who use the 72-hour visa-free regime, are registered at the airport by the border service and are given migration cards indicating the time of crossing the border. All other nuances associated with the stay of foreign guests fall on the shoulders of the Kazakh airline that the citizens of these countries will fly away from the country with. Representatives of the airline independently submit lists of such passengers to the internal affairs bodies and solve various difficult situations, such as violation of the visa-free travel period.
In the photo, the Chinese guests arrived at the Visit Almaty tourist hub. According to the data obtained by the Border Guard Service of the National Security Committee of the RK Almaty International Airport, we see a significant increase in tourists from China from 50 to 1,343 tourists. In total, according to the regime, more than 10 thousand Chinese arrived in Almaty. The growth of transit tourists from India is also projected on the example of China. Now the growth of tourists is insignificant, since the visa regime for them came into force only in April 2018. Over 8 months, the city was visited by 2.5 thousand people.