Money & costs
3 min readUpdated June 11, 2026
Kazakhstan's currency is the tenge (₸, KZT) — and the good news is that Astana is gentle on a student budget. Cards are accepted nearly everywhere in the capital, so you can land with no cash at all and still get to campus, fed, and caffeinated.
Cards & cash
- Visa and Mastercard work almost everywhere in Astana — supermarkets, cafés, taxis ordered by app, museum tickets.
- ATMs (банкомат) are everywhere: malls, bank branches, the airport. Withdrawing tenge on arrival beats carrying a wallet of foreign cash. Check what your home bank charges for foreign withdrawals before you fly.
- Keep a little cash for small kiosks, markets, and the one café whose terminal is "temporarily not working".
- Exchange offices (обменник) are common and post their rates in the window — rates in the city are better than at the airport. Check a currency converter for the current rate before you travel.
What things cost
Straight from the Organizing Committee's official price guide:
| Price | |
|---|---|
| City bus (with transport card) | 200 ₸ |
| Taxi across town (Yandex Go, Uber, inDrive) | 500–5,000 ₸ |
| Bottle of water | 300 ₸ |
| Sandwich | 500 ₸ |
| Coffee | 1,200–2,000 ₸ |
| Café breakfast | 2,000–3,000 ₸ |
| Lunch (main, salad, drink) | 2,000–3,500 ₸ |
| Dinner | 3,000–4,500 ₸ |
| Museum ticket | 500–2,000 ₸ |
| Theatre ticket | 1,500–4,000 ₸ |
| Cinema ticket | 1,500–3,000 ₸ |
Your GA registration covers the official program meals — the table above is for city days, the social program, and your post-plenary coffee habit.
Tipping
Tipping is appreciated but never demanded. Restaurants sometimes add a service charge to the bill; where they don't, rounding up or leaving 5–10% for good service is a kind gesture. Taxis ordered by app need no tip.
One practical habit
Set your banking app to show a second currency in tenge for the week — mental math at 23:00 during the National Food & Drinks Party is nobody's strength.