Zora Health / Employer guide / Kazakhstan
Support employees through fertility treatment, and keep the talent you have invested in.
Fertility treatment rarely fits around a work calendar, and most employees go through it quietly, often while doing some of their best work. Zora Health helps you build practical fertility support, from policies and manager guidance to confidential care navigation and access to 128+ partner clinics in 16 countries, around your workforce and budget. Companies including Hilton, LinkedIn, Sanofi, HSBC, Mastercard, Carousell and Singapore Management University work with us.
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Five things Kazakh HR leaders should know
- The state programme Ansagan Sabi funds about 7,000 IVF cycles a year through the social health insurance fund, at about ₸1.2 million per programme. Clinics carried out about 18,600 assisted reproduction cycles in 2025, so most treatment is paid privately.
- Free IVF is for citizens aged 18 to 42 with infertility, one attempt a year. Foreign employees pay in full, and waits of 1 to 1.5 years were reported in 2024.
- Article 146 of the 2020 Health Code allows assisted reproduction for married and unmarried people. Since 26 July 2026, only married Kazakh citizens can commission surrogacy.
- Maternity leave is 126 days, and either parent can take unpaid childcare leave until the child turns 3. There is no statutory fertility leave or paid paternity leave, though an employer cannot refuse up to 5 calendar days of unpaid leave for the birth of a child under Article 97 of the Labour Code.
- Aon projects a gross medical trend of 32% for Kazakhstan in 2027, after 29% in 2026, so a fixed allowance keeps the employer’s cost predictable.
Why fertility is a business problem for employers
Fertility treatment does not fit around a work calendar. A clinic sets the date of a scan the day before. Egg collection happens when the body is ready, usually about 36 hours after a final trigger injection. Then comes a two-week wait, and for many couples, another cycle. Your team feels it: missed meetings, unexplained absences, a strong performer who suddenly goes quiet.
We found no survey of employees in fertility treatment in Kazakhstan. Multi-country evidence suggests many hide it: in Carrot Fertility’s 2023 survey of 5,000 people in Canada, India, Mexico, the UK and the US, 79% said they were uneasy discussing fertility at work.
- Resignations. 39% of employees in fertility treatment had left or were considering leaving their job, in Ferring’s 2025 survey of more than 3,600 employees and employers in Australia, France, Japan, Poland and the UK.
- Lower performance. 55% said fertility challenges had hurt their work performance (Carrot, 2023).
- Queues for free IVF. In 2024, the estimated need was 20,000 cycles a year against about 7,000 quotas, and the wait for a quota was 1 to 1.5 years (Zakon.kz, 2024).
What employers gain
Keep the people you spent the most to develop
Replacing an employee costs one-half to two times their annual salary, according to Gallup. An employee who misses the quota, or does not qualify, faces a private bill of more than ₸1 million per cycle. A written policy, paid time off and a funded allowance remove one reason people leave.
Stand out in a tight labour market
73% of employees facing fertility challenges said a role offering fertility support would appeal to them (Ferring, 2025), and 65% said they would change jobs for fertility benefits (Carrot, 2023).
Make fertility support financially predictable
An annual or lifetime allowance sets the employer’s maximum cost in advance. In Kazakhstan, Aon projects a gross medical trend of 32% for 2027, after 29% in 2026 (October 2026).
Zora helps employers structure benefits around local treatment costs, the state quota and existing insurance, so HR can run the programme within an agreed budget.
Want to see what this would look like for your Kazakh workforce?
What IVF costs, and what the state pays
About 1 in 6 people worldwide are affected by infertility (World Health Organization). In Kazakhstan, about 15% of families face infertility and about 20,500 couples seek help each year (Inbusiness.kz, September 2026). In 2023, experts from the Kazakhstan Association of Reproductive Medicine said 45% of infertile couples could conceive only with assisted reproduction (Inbusiness.kz, 2023).
| Treatment | Setting and date | Reported cost |
|---|---|---|
| IVF under a state quota | Public or private clinic contracted by the social health insurance fund, 2026 | Free to eligible patients. The Ministry of Health puts the cost at about ₸1.2 million (about US$2,650) per programme |
| IVF, one cycle | Clinics in Kazakhstan, October 2025 | ₸1.2 million to 1.5 million (about US$2,650 to 3,300) |
| Egg freezing | Private clinics, November 2025 | Stimulation ₸300,000 to 700,000, retrieval and freezing ₸350,000 to 900,000, storage ₸50,000 to 120,000 a year |
| Surrogacy | Private arrangements, February 2026 | Average fee to the surrogate of ₸7 million to 9 million, plus a monthly payment and housing |
Sources: Inbusiness.kz, January 2026; 24.kz, October 2025; Finratings.kz, November 2025; 24.kz, February 2026. Prices vary by clinic and protocol; ask clinics for current quotes. US dollar figures use ₸453.26 to US$1, the National Bank of Kazakhstan official rate for 4 November 2026.
| Item | Public support (or own savings) | What the employee still carries |
|---|---|---|
| State IVF quota (Ansagan Sabi) | About 7,000 cycles a year, allocated by region. Citizens aged 18 to 42 with infertility that therapy has not corrected (confirmed in 2025); one free attempt a year, and unmarried patients with written consent (rules reported in 2021 and 2022). Male-factor infertility qualifies | The wait, genetic testing of embryos (excluded in 2026), further cycles and the full cost for non-citizens |
| Egg freezing for non-medical reasons | No public support found | Full cost, often more than ₸1 million in the first year |
| Donor treatment and surrogacy | In 2019, quotas excluded donor programmes and surrogacy; we found no later change | Full cost |
Sources: Inbusiness.kz, February 2021; Azattyq Ruhy, November 2022; Zakon.kz, August 2024; Inbusiness.kz, January 2026; 24.kz, October 2025; Informburo, 2019. Confirm current rules with the social health insurance fund.
Age is one of the strongest predictors of IVF success, alongside individual medical and treatment factors. Kazakhstan publishes no registry success rates by age; in October 2025, doctors quoted by 24.kz put the chance of pregnancy at nearly half for women under 35 and no more than 15% after 40.
In 2025, the pregnancy rate after a first embryo transfer was about 30% on average, and cumulative effectiveness about 40% (Inbusiness.kz, 2026). Many patients need more than one cycle, older patients most of all, so the size of an allowance and when employees can use it both matter.
Give Employees Access to Fertility Specialists Across Asia
Help employees navigate fertility care with access to doctors and clinics, treatment information, and clear guidance on IVF, egg freezing and other fertility options. Employees can explore their options privately, without needing to go through HR.
Fertility support that fits your workforce and budget
You do not need to overhaul your existing health insurance to support employees through fertility treatment. Start with awareness and manager education, add confidential one-to-one support, or introduce a funded allowance across your offices. There is no minimum company size.
Where included in the employer programme, eligible employees can use talks and care navigation without paying Zora a separate fee. Care navigation allowances are set in each proposal. Treatment and other third-party costs are paid separately, either by employees or through the fertility allowance their employer provides.
Companies starting the conversation
Essentials
Expert-led talks for employees and managers, fertility and menopause policy templates, manager guides and full access to the Zora app. Up to 2 talks a year.
Employees supported one to one
Navigation
Everything in Essentials, plus confidential one-to-one care navigation and access to our partner clinic network.
Large and multi-country teams
Complete
Everything in Navigation, plus quarterly anonymised reporting, a dedicated account manager and scheduled review meetings with HR.
Optional add-ons can be added to any programme, subject to availability: hormone and fertility diagnostics and telehealth with specialists. Pricing is tailored to your headcount, your countries and the services you choose. Most companies start with a single talk.
Request a proposal See how Zora works for employers
Comparing fertility benefit providers? Use our RFP question bank
Our RFP question bank has 40 questions, with why each one matters, what a good answer looks like and a scoring sheet for three providers. Six of the questions for Kazakhstan:
- Are local-plan employees covered, or only staff on international health plans?
- Do you require an infertility diagnosis before support starts?
- Which clinics do you work with in Almaty and Astana, and which of them also deliver state quota IVF?
- How does the allowance work alongside the Ansagan Sabi quota, including for employees on the waiting list and for expatriates who do not qualify?
- How do you set eligibility for single employees, donor treatment and egg freezing, and how do you handle the 2026 limits on surrogacy?
- How do you handle employee health data under Kazakhstan’s Law on Personal Data and Their Protection, including the 2026 amendments?
Your download link appears here as soon as you submit. Zora Health may contact you about employee benefits; see our privacy policy.
Plan your fertility benefit budget
Fertility benefit budget planner
Model the annual claims budget for a fertility allowance. Change any number.
This is a claims budget, not a Zora quotation. Zora’s programme fees, implementation and optional services are separate.
Illustration only. Utilisation is an editable assumption, not observed Zora data. The calculation assumes each user claims their full annual allowance, and excludes programme fees and setup costs. For a tailored model, request an employer proposal.
Estimate the potential workforce impact of fertility challenges
A rough planning scenario. It applies a global infertility estimate to your headcount, so it is not a prediction for your workforce, a measured loss or a forecast of savings from any programme.
Range: ₸22,550,000 to ₸63,800,000 a year, depending on replacement cost.
Assumptions: infertility affects about 1 in 6 adults (World Health Organization, 2023), applied to employees aged 25 to 44. Replacing an employee costs one-half to two times their annual salary (Gallup, 2019); the headline uses the low end. Absence is valued at salary divided by 250 working days. Exit rate and days lost are your own assumptions.
This is a hypothetical cost scenario, not a prediction of actual employee departures, an estimate of Zora’s financial impact or a guaranteed saving from fertility benefits.
Already have corporate health insurance? Here is where Zora fits
Your medical plan may cover some consultations and tests, but fertility treatment is often limited or excluded, so check your policy wording. Employees still need to understand their options, the public funding they qualify for and which clinic suits them.
Zora works alongside your existing insurance and benefits. We help employees get reliable information, navigate their care options and reach suitable specialists, and we give HR manager guidance, policy templates and, on the Complete programme, anonymised reporting. You strengthen fertility support without replacing your medical plan.
How Zora works
For your employees
Employees join the Zora app with a company code, or single sign-on for larger teams. They can learn about fertility and egg freezing, understand what your benefit covers, book a confidential care navigation call and find partner clinics and specialists.
For HR
- Kick-off, week 1. Agree goals, countries and which employees are eligible.
- Policy and benefit design, weeks 2 to 4. Draft or update your fertility policy using our templates.
- Launch, typically weeks 4 to 6. A launch talk for employees and managers, plus a communications pack for HR to send.
- Live support. Employees book care navigation calls and use the Zora app.
- Reporting, every 3 months, on the Complete programme. Anonymised usage, common themes and our recommendations, reviewed with your account manager.
Privacy
Employee privacy is central to our programmes. On the Complete programme, routine employer reports contain aggregated engagement and utilisation information, with safeguards to prevent identification of individual employees. On every programme, personal health information is not included in standard HR reporting, and employees can get help without telling their manager. Where eligibility checks or claims administration need individual-level data, access is limited to authorised parties for defined purposes, as agreed in writing before launch. Employee data is handled in line with Singapore’s Personal Data Protection Act and Kazakhstan’s Law on Personal Data and Their Protection (No. 94-V of 2013), which treats health data as restricted-access personal data.
Clinics and doctors in Kazakhstan
Zora’s clinic and doctor directory does not list providers in Kazakhstan yet. It lists 421 clinics and 1,185 doctors across 25 countries, mostly in Asia Pacific and the Middle East (browse clinics or browse doctors). Employees in Kazakhstan can still use Zora’s education and the Zora app. Ask us how your team in Kazakhstan would use Zora before you launch. See Zora’s employer guides for every country.
Rules and eligibility in Kazakhstan
Who can use assisted reproduction
Under Article 146 of the Code on the Health of the People and the Healthcare System (No. 360-VI, 7 July 2020), married couples and unmarried women and men can use assisted reproduction with informed consent; unmarried people cannot use surrogacy (Article 146, as amended on 14 July 2026). Donation rules (Order ҚР ДСМ-236/2020) allow paid or unpaid, anonymous or identified donation of eggs, sperm and embryos, and stop using a donor after 10 children are born (Azattyq Ruhy, December 2020). Confirm current rules with local counsel.
Egg freezing
Citizens have the right to store eggs, sperm and reproductive tissue, as a paid service outside the free care package (Informburo, 2019). We found no published age or storage limit.
Surrogacy is legal and regulated
Surrogacy needs a medical indication and a notarised contract, and the surrogate must be 20 to 35 with a child of her own (24.kz, February 2026). On 14 July 2026, President Tokayev signed a law amending the Marriage and Family Code so that only married Kazakh citizens can commission surrogacy; it took effect on 26 July 2026 (Zakon.kz, July 2026).
Maternity, childcare and dismissal protection
Maternity leave is 126 calendar days (70 before birth, 56 after), with 14 more days for complicated or multiple births. The State Social Insurance Fund pays the benefit on income up to 7 times the minimum wage, ₸595,000 a month in 2026 (gov.kz; GRATA). Either parent can take unpaid childcare leave until the child turns 3 (Astana Times, January 2026), with a Fund benefit of 40% of income until 18 months, capped at ₸238,000 a month in 2026 (gov.kz). There is no statutory fertility leave or paid paternity leave, though an employer cannot refuse up to 5 calendar days of unpaid leave for the birth of a child under Article 97 of the Labour Code (Digital Business, 2026). Article 6 bans discrimination on grounds including gender and age, but does not name marital status (Labour Code, Article 6), and employers cannot dismiss pregnant women or women with a child under 3 for staff reduction.
Health data and localisation
Under the Law on Personal Data and Their Protection (No. 94-V, 21 May 2013), health data is restricted-access data. Article 12 requires personal data to be stored in a database or digital object in Kazakhstan, and transfers abroad need an adequate destination or a ground such as consent (Article 16) (Uppersetup, August 2026). Law No. 256-VIII changed the definition of personal data from 11 July 2026, and Law No. 326-VIII added rules on breaches, public data and controller size classes from 25 August 2026 (Morgan Lewis; EY).
Why employers choose Zora
Companies including Hilton, LinkedIn, Sanofi, HSBC, Mastercard, Carousell and Singapore Management University work with Zora Health. We work alongside your existing insurance, helping employees use the cover they already have and find suitable specialists based on their needs.
Trying to conceive with a heavy workload took a toll on my husband and me. It helped us understand our options.
Questions HR teams ask us
Is fertility leave mandatory in Kazakhstan?
No. The Labour Code has no fertility, IVF or paid paternity leave; a father can take up to 5 calendar days of unpaid leave for a birth, which the employer cannot refuse. It gives 126 days of maternity leave paid through the State Social Insurance Fund and unpaid childcare leave for either parent until the child turns 3. Employees in treatment usually use annual leave, sick leave or unpaid leave.
Does the state pay for IVF in Kazakhstan?
Yes, for some patients. The Ansagan Sabi programme funds about 7,000 IVF cycles a year through the social health insurance fund. It is for citizens aged 18 to 42 with infertility, one attempt a year, and waits of 1 to 1.5 years were reported in 2024. Embryo genetic testing is not included.
Can single women use IVF or freeze their eggs in Kazakhstan?
Yes. Article 146 of the 2020 Health Code allows unmarried women and men to use assisted reproduction, except surrogacy, and unmarried patients have been eligible for quota IVF with written consent. Private clinics offer egg freezing for non-medical reasons, with no public funding.
Does Zora replace our health insurance?
No. Zora works alongside your insurance. We help employees understand their options, find suitable specialists and use the cover they already have.
How much does a fertility benefit cost an employer?
It depends on the allowance, eligibility and expected uptake. Use the budget planner on this page for a first estimate, then ask us for a tailored proposal based on your headcount and countries.
How quickly can we launch?
Typically 4 to 6 weeks from contract to launch, depending on scope and countries. Most companies start with a single talk.
Related guides for Kazakh employers
Build a fertility benefit for your team
Whether you are introducing fertility benefits for the first time or improving an existing programme, tell us your headcount, countries and priorities. We will come back within two working days with suitable services, an indicative budget and a practical rollout plan for your Kazakh team. No obligation.
Not ready to talk yet? Explore how Zora works
Sources
- Bureau of National Statistics data reported by NUR.KZ, Kazakh women are having fewer children, 8 April 2026
- World Bank data via TheGlobalEconomy, Kazakhstan female labour force participation, 2024
- Inbusiness.kz, Rise in male infertility: results of the multiple increase in IVF quotas, 12 January 2026
- Inbusiness.kz, Kazakhstan increased the number of IVF quotas, 15 September 2026
- Zakon.kz, Ansagan Sabi: 7,000 children born with IVF in Kazakhstan, 8 August 2024
- Inbusiness.kz, Funding of 7,000 IVF cycles under OSMS planned, 15 February 2021
- Azattyq Ruhy, Free IVF: how to get a quota under Ansagan Sabi, 27 November 2022
- Zakon.kz, How to get IVF under a quota in Kazakhstan, August 2022
- 24.kz, IVF effectiveness is rising in Kazakhstan, 13 October 2025
- 24.kz, How much IVF costs in Kazakhstan and the world, 13 October 2025
- Finratings.kz, How much it costs to freeze eggs in Kazakhstan, 24 November 2025
- Code on the Health of the People and the Healthcare System, Article 146, as amended by Law No. 350-VIII of 14 July 2026 (kodeksy-kz.com)
- Azattyq Ruhy, Rules on donation of reproductive cells published (Order ҚР ДСМ-236/2020), 20 December 2020
- Informburo, IVF, donation or surrogacy: how infertility is treated in Kazakhstan, 5 February 2019
- 24.kz, Deputies want to ban surrogacy for foreigners in Kazakhstan, 18 February 2026
- Zakon.kz, Who can commission surrogacy: Tokayev signed the law, 15 July 2026
- Government of Kazakhstan (gov.kz), Going on maternity leave in Kazakhstan, updated 11 March 2026
- The Astana Times, Who really takes childcare leave in Kazakhstan? 27 January 2026
- GRATA International, GILS Employment Law: Kazakhstan
- Labour Code of Kazakhstan, Article 6, Prohibition of discrimination (zakonpravo.kz)
- Morgan Lewis, Republic of Kazakhstan data protection law amendments in 2026, July 2026
- EY Kazakhstan, Personal data protection rules updated, July 2026
- Uppersetup, Personal data and localisation in Kazakhstan in 2026, August 2026
- National Bank of Kazakhstan, Official (market) exchange rates, 4 November 2026
- Aon, APAC medical cost growth projected to slow to 9.7% in 2027, 12 October 2026
- Digital Business, Unpaid leave in Kazakhstan: how many days and when the employer cannot refuse, 6 July 2026
- Inbusiness.kz, Kazakhstan increased the number of IVF quotas, 15 September 2026
- Ferring Pharmaceuticals, Fertility Matters at Work and This Can Happen, workplace fertility survey, November 2025
- Carrot Fertility, Global Fertility at Work report, 2023
- Gallup, This fixable problem costs US businesses $1 trillion, 2019
- World Health Organization, 1 in 6 people globally affected by infertility, April 2023
Information on this page is correct as of 5 November 2026. Laws, public funding, insurance rules and treatment costs change often, so check current rules with the relevant authority, insurer or a qualified adviser before making decisions. This page is general information, not legal, financial, tax or medical advice.