Аннотация
Background: Kazakhstan constitutionally protects freedom of conscience and freedom of religion or belief and defines itself as a secular state. The article examines how that guarantee is administered at five state-religion interfaces: registration of religious associations, registration and reregistration of persons carrying out missionary activity, religious literature expert assessment and designated-place rules, notification of religious events outside cult buildings and other listed venues, and regulation of spiritual or religious educational organisations only insofar as they conduct educational activity subject to education legislation. Methods: The article combines doctrinal analysis with selected administrative and judicial indicators from the post-2011 regulatory period. It uses 2011, 2012, 2017 and 2023 as benchmark years, with later official materials for 2024, 2025 and the first quarter of 2026 treated as currentstatus snapshots. The legal analysis covers the Constitution, the 2011 Religion Law, administrative and criminal legislation, implementing bylaws, Article 18 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, selected domestic case law, a Constitutional Court resolution, and persuasive comparative materials. Results and Conclusions: In 2023, Kazakhstan recorded 3,977 registered religious associations. Form No. 1-AD records 206 rulings imposing administrative penalties under Articles 489 and 490 of the Code of Administrative Offences: 49 under Article 489 and 157 under Article 490. Article 490, therefore, accounts for 76.2% of the relevant penalty rulings. The sanction profile is fine-dominant, with one warning and 205 fines. The article concludes that peaceful, first-time, or remediable breaches in the religious sphere require a more graduated compliance sequence before fines, bans, seizures, refusals, suspensions, or liquidations are imposed.