A U.S. talent visa and green card for citizens of Kazakhstan in 2026: what changed in Astana and Almaty after the pause?

An engineer from Almaty and an engineer from Yekaterinburg were approved for EB-1A in the same month and stood in the same embassy building in Astana a week apart. For the citizen of Kazakhstan it was a taxi ride. For the Russian it was the third trip to Astana that year: the first to file documents, the second cancelled because of the pause, the third the interview. Their petitions were of the same level, the consulate was the same, and the cost of the route differed by an order of magnitude. This article is about the route for a citizen of Kazakhstan: the most convenient in the region, and still not free of the surprises of 2026.

In brief

• The categories for citizens of Kazakhstan are the same: EB-1A and EB-2 NIW are self-petitions, and O-1 is a petition too. None of the three is limited by citizenship.
• The consulate is at home. Astana and Almaty handle every visa. The queue is shared with Russians and measured in months.
• In 2026, from 21 January through August, there was an immigrant visa issuance pause for citizens of 75 countries, including Kazakhstan. From October, EB-2 is in a queue for the whole “rest of the world.”
• Logistics are ordinary: cards, couriers, egov.kz — no workarounds.

What changed in 2026 specifically for citizens of Kazakhstan?

Two events, and neither is about the petition. The first is the pause. On 21 January the Department of State paused immigrant visa issuance for citizens of 75 countries and explained it as a review of the risk that applicants would rely on public benefits. Kazakhstan is on the list, next to Belarus, Armenia, Georgia, and Russia. The pause covered issuance only. Interviews in Astana and Almaty were scheduled and held, documents were accepted, and at USCIS everything went on as usual. Issuance resumed after August, and in September it returned after a short global pause on interviews. The second event is the October Visa Bulletin. EB-2, including NIW, for the “rest of the world” went into a queue: Final Action Dates are for a priority date earlier than 1 January 2025, and Dates for Filing an I-485 inside the United States are for a priority date earlier than 15 March 2026. Kazakhstan, like every country in the region, is in the “rest of the world.” The detail is in the October Visa Bulletin.

For the choice of category that means a simple thing. With a strong record outside the workplace, EB-1A now beats NIW not only on the speed of the decision, but on the absence of a queue after it. With a moderate record, NIW is still reasonable: the priority date is fixed on filing, and the earlier the petition is filed, the earlier the place in the queue. The choice is set out in “EB-1A or EB-2 NIW”.

The consulate: Astana, Almaty, and a shared queue

The embassy in Astana and the consulate general in Almaty are full consular posts: immigrant visas, work visas, student visas, tourist visas. For a citizen of Kazakhstan that means an interview with no trip abroad, the medical exam with a panel physician in their own city, and consular processing without hotels and tickets. In the region that is rare. Minsk is closed, Moscow is closed, and Bishkek and Tashkent take their own nationals, not the neighbors.

The other side of the convenience is the queue. Since September 2025 Astana has been the consulate for Russians without residence in a third country, and the interview calendar became a shared one. The wait changes week to week, and in 2026 it was measured in months. We watch it and tell clients when to file Form DS-260 with the National Visa Center (NVC), so they do not lose their place. The Russian route through Astana is in “EB-1A from Russia”.

Logistics: what citizens of Kazakhstan do not have to think about

Three questions that take up half the consultations with Russians and Belarusians are settled for citizens of Kazakhstan in a minute. USCIS fees are paid with a Kazakhstan bank card on Form G-1450 — Visa and Mastercard are accepted. Payment on a representative’s card is an option we offer, not a necessity. The document package goes by express courier from Astana or Almaty to a USCIS lockbox in a few days. A police certificate, of a criminal record or of none, comes through egov.kz within days, in Russian and Kazakh. For the consulate it needs an English translation. Kazakhstan issues an apostille as a party to the Hague Convention, but USCIS does not require one: a certified translation with the translator’s statement is enough. Evaluation services accept diplomas from universities in Kazakhstan. An evaluation is required for NIW.

The one point of logistics worth watching is the address for USCIS notices. Mail to Kazakhstan takes weeks, and a Request for Evidence (RFE) with a short deadline is better received through a representative on Form G-28, on the day it is issued.

What evidence do citizens of Kazakhstan have, and how do officers read it?

Three strong points we see in profiles from Kazakhstan. The first is organizations in the field with a reputation: oil and gas and mining companies, banks, Astana Hub as a setting for startups. All of that meets a leading or critical role for an organization with a distinguished reputation, if the dossier is about the organization itself and not only the job title. The second is awards and competitions with a selection, including industry prizes and international competitions that specialists from Kazakhstan enter more often than it seems. The check is the same: who gave the award, and who else received it. The third is publications. A Kazakhstan outlet with an editorial staff counts the same as any other, with figures for the audience. For people in science, Scopus and Web of Science count without a caveat.

The weak points are the ones common to the region: internal awards, membership in an association bought with a fee, letters from colleagues instead of independent experts. And one feature particular to Kazakhstan: the comparison of pay. The high-salary criterion needs a comparison with highly compensated people in the field, and for salaries in tenge it matters to show both the exchange rate and the source of the statistics. Otherwise the officer compares them with the U.S. market directly, and the criterion is not met. What counts and what does not is in “What are the talent visa criteria”.

Three situations, three routes

The engineers from the first paragraph received their visas on the same day — the pause was over by then. The citizen of Kazakhstan went home by taxi. The Russian flew out on a third flight. The petitions were equal, and that is the main thing to remember about the route from Kazakhstan. It is more convenient not because the officer is softer, but because everything around the petition works without a workaround. Whether you have a petition at all is what the quiz below shows.