Valve paid more taxes in Kazakhstan than Google and Apple — Russians are transferring Steam accounts to this region

Valve emerged as the leader in Kazakhstan's ranking of foreign VAT payers.

Recently, the media drew attention to a publication in Digital Business Media. Tax security expert Dmitry Kazantsev reviewed the ranking of foreign VAT payers in Kazakhstan prior to speaking with the outlet. His attention was caught by the figures of a company well known to gamers — Valve.

As it turned out, in the first half of 2026, Valve transferred more than 11 billion tenge in VAT. For comparison, “Google Commerce Limited / Google Play” recorded 5.35 billion tenge, while Apple Distribution International paid 8.54 billion tenge.

Dmitry Kazantsev explained that “[…] behind the name Valve in the tax ranking stands not just a single game, but a large platform offering various types of purchases. If we conditionally recalculate Valve’s payment at the standard 16% VAT rate, it results in about 81.3 billion tenge in purchases, including tax.”

Valve earns money not only from game sales. Steam users can also purchase additional content, subscriptions, in-game currency, and virtual items. In addition, Steam has a separate Community Market where players can buy and sell virtual items.

Notably, in recent years, gamers from Russia have been actively transferring their Steam accounts to Kazakhstan, meaning the VAT from their purchases made a certain contribution to achieving this result.

A fragment of the ranking of foreign VAT payers in Kazakhstan:

• 1 — Valve Corporation / Steam — 11.21 billion tenge
• 2 — Elementary Innovation / Temu — 10.06 billion tenge
• 3 — Apple Distribution International / Apple — 8.54 billion tenge
• 4 — Google Commerce Limited / Google Play — 5.35 billion tenge
• 7 — TikTok Pte. Ltd. — 1.47 billion tenge
• 8 — OpenAI OpCo, LLC / ChatGPT — 1.12 billion tenge
• 9 — Anthropic, PBC / Claude — 1.10 billion tenge
• 10 — Lamoda — 0.90 billion tenge