In the fourth quarter of 2025, 4.8% of Kazakhstan’s population — or 988.2 thousand people from 172.7 thousand households — had incomes below the subsistence minimum (around 58.8 thousand tenge per capita per month). Over the year, the number of such individuals increased by 2%.

Despite the marginal increase at the national level, the situation in rural areas continues to deteriorate, while the gap in living standards between urban and rural populations remains persistently high. In cities, the poverty rate remained at 3.6%, whereas in rural areas it increased from 6.8% in the fourth quarter of 2024 to 7% in the same period of 2025. Rural residents are nearly twice as likely to have low incomes compared to urban populations, reflecting chronic inequality in access to income and economic opportunities.

At the regional level, disparities are highly pronounced. In 9 out of 20 regions, the poverty rate in the fourth quarter of last year exceeded the national average. Turkestan Region remained the worst performer, with the share of low-income population reaching 8.4%, followed by Mangystau Region at 7.9%. In these regions, roughly one in twelve residents lived below the subsistence minimum. Other high-risk regions included Abai Region (7.4%) and Zhetysu Region (7%). A more favorable situation was observed in major cities and industrial centers: the rate stood at 2.6% in Astana and 3.1% in both Karaganda Region and Atyrau Region.

Particular concern is driven by the sharp increase in the share of the population with incomes below the cost of the food basket — an indicator of extreme poverty. In the fourth quarter of 2025, the proportion of those whose incomes barely cover basic food needs rose to 0.3%, tripling compared to the same period of the previous year. Notably, the increase was primarily observed in urban areas, where the share of the extremely poor grew from 0.1% to 0.3%, while in rural areas it remained unchanged at 0.2%.

At the regional level, extreme poverty is also highly uneven. The most critical situation in the fourth quarter of last year was recorded in Ulytau Region, where the indicator reached 3% — ten times higher than the national average. Elevated levels were also observed in Karaganda Region (1.3%) and Akmola Region (1%). Even with incomplete data for some regions, it is already clear that the problem is locally concentrated but acute.

Large families remain the most vulnerable group. The risk of falling below the poverty line is directly correlated with household size. Among households with five or more members, the share of the population with incomes below the subsistence minimum reached 9.1%. This is 3.5 times higher than among four-person households (2.6%) and ten times higher than among three-person households (0.9%). Extreme poverty is also most prevalent in large families: 0.4% of their members have incomes below the cost of the food basket, while in smaller households this indicator is close to zero. For single-person households, data on incomes below the food basket threshold are not available.

Thus, large families face the highest risk: their vulnerability to low income is nearly 75 times greater compared to single-person households. A similar pattern is observed for extreme poverty: the larger the household, the higher the likelihood of falling below the food basket threshold. This directly indicates that current support measures for large families are not achieving their intended effect.