Kazakhstan is amending rail regulations, which will enter into force on 20 December. Among the changes is a notable prioritisation of freight categories. If there is not enough capacity for all, international freight will get to go first.
In his decree, the Kazakh transport minister Nurlan Sauranbayev supplements an earlier ruleset with new provisions detailing the priority of freight. When there is insufficient capacity to meet all rail freight demand, some trains will get priority over others.
It seems to be the first time that Kazakhstan is formalising such rules. In 2024, some prioritisations were put into place for perishables and food products. With this new order, containers and international transit are moved up the list. It also introduces a definition for infrastructure capacity.
- Emergency, special and military traffic
- Containers and international transit
- High value-added goods and hydrocarbons in specialised wagons
- Perishables, socially significant food, and coal for heating in winter
- Inputs for domestic plants
- Raw energy exports in universal wagons
- Everything else
A small part of total traffic
On international routes traversing Kazakhstan, such as the Middle Corridor, bottlenecks are the main factor constraining growth. Kazakhstan is working to improve capacity with new infrastructure projects. For example, the country completed a double-tracking project on the Dostyk–Moyynty railway last year.
Still, this has not been enough to eliminate bottlenecks. Freight volumes along the route rose by 22% in the first eight months of 2026. East–west transit through Kazakhstan increased by 55%.
International transit is still a relatively modest business compared to domestic rail freight. In 2025, the national operator KTZ carried 320 million tonnes in total. Around 33 tonnes, some 10% of that figure, was international transit.