Overdue debt of Kazakh companies on loans in foreign currency by the end of 2025 increased 7.7-fold, to $182.6 million. Total overdue debt of legal entities increased by 51.7%, to $902 million. This was reported by Qazaqyia.kz citing Kursiv Media.
The data comes from the statistical bulletin of the Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC) for 2025.
Main growth came from long-term currency loans
The main growth came from long-term currency loans. Overdue debt on them increased 51-fold over the year and reached $168.6 million. At the same time, for short-term currency borrowings, the indicator, on the contrary, decreased by 31.2%, to $14 million. Thus, more than 92% of overdue debt of businesses in foreign currency at the end of the year was accounted for by long-term loans.
Expansion of currency lending
The growth of problem debt occurred simultaneously with the expansion of currency lending to companies. The total loan portfolio of legal entities in Kazakhstan in 2025 increased by 26.2%, to $36.8 billion. Business debt in foreign currency grew faster — by 35.4%, to $10.9 billion. Long-term currency loans increased by 41.1%, to $8.2 billion.
Largest overdue debt by industry
In absolute terms, the largest overdue debt among industries at the end of 2025 was at wholesale and retail trade enterprises — $326.4 million. In manufacturing it amounted to $169.3 million, and for companies in the accommodation and food service sector — $141.1 million. These data take into account debt in all currencies.
EEC data and conversion into tenge
The EEC provides indicators of EAEU countries in dollars for comparability. Data on balances are recalculated at the exchange rate at the end of the corresponding period. At the rate of 502.57 tenge per dollar at the end of 2025, the currency overdue debt of Kazakh business corresponded to approximately 91.8 billion tenge, and the total overdue debt of legal entities — about 453.3 billion tenge.
Deterioration of payment discipline in small business
It was previously reported that Kazakh entrepreneurs from the small business segment faced a deterioration in payment discipline on bank loans amid declining revenue and persistently high rates.
Credit portfolio quality in 2026
In 2026, the quality of the aggregate credit portfolio of banks continued to deteriorate. According to reporting data from second-tier banks as of August 1, loans with overdue payments of more than 90 days reached 1.85 trillion tenge, or 4.12% of the loan portfolio. At the beginning of the year, the indicator was 1.58 trillion tenge, or 3.63%. Thus, since the beginning of the year, the volume of such loans increased by approximately 276 billion tenge, or 17.5%, and their share increased by 0.49 percentage points.
Loans with overdue payments of more than 30 days as of August 1 amounted to 2.35 trillion tenge, or 5.22% of the portfolio. The total amount of directly overdue debt, including overdue interest, reached almost 2 trillion tenge against 1.66 trillion tenge at the beginning of the year, increasing by approximately 20.5%. At the same time, current bank reporting provides indicators for the entire loan portfolio and does not allow separately identifying the overdue debt of legal entities specifically on currency loans.