of the country's foreign trade is imports: $13.0 billion in 2025, per the National Statistical Committee
Kyrgyzstan: imports are 81% of trade, and a third of them come from Russia and Kazakhstan
Kyrgyzstan's foreign trade came to $15.8 billion in 2025, and $13.0 billion of it was imports, more than 81% of the total. A country of 7.4 million people imports more than four times what it exports. Brands come in through whoever already brings goods across the border.
The numbers
24.kg reported the year's results on 16 February 2026, citing the National Statistical Committee: trade turnover of $15.825 billion, down 11.2%; exports of $2.852 billion, down 44.5%; imports of $12.973 billion, up 3.5%. Imports made up more than 81% of everything traded. Exports fell by almost half while imports kept growing.
Where the goods come from matters more than the total. Trade with the Eurasian Economic Union reached $5.924 billion, up 7.7%, and imports from the union alone came to $4.772 billion, up 25% in a year. Inside that union trade, Russia accounted for 64.9% and Kazakhstan for 31.5%. More than a third of what Kyrgyzstan imports comes from the union, almost all of it from Russia and Kazakhstan, and a distributor sitting in Almaty often already serves Bishkek.
The population has passed 7.4 million, per the same statistics committee.
How goods get in
Kyrgyzstan has been a member of the Eurasian Economic Union since 12 August 2015. An EAC certificate or declaration obtained for Kazakhstan is valid here, as it is in all five member states, according to certification firms such as Schmidt & Schmidt. There is no second certification to budget for.
That leaves entry down to the partner and the logistics. The practical decision is whether the Kazakh distributor covers Kyrgyzstan from Almaty, whether a Bishkek company takes the territory on its own, or whether the volume justifies neither yet. All three answers are common, and the numbers above are what decide between them.
Where buyers look
DataReportal's Digital 2026 report counts 7.32 million people by the UN's estimate, 6.48 million internet users, 88.5% of the population, and 3.90 million social media user identities. Instagram's advertising tools reach 3.90 million, Facebook 938 thousand. Telegram publishes no figures of its own, and the report leaves it out.
In our experience the trade itself runs in messenger groups, WhatsApp and Telegram, and Instagram is where a company's face is checked. A brand a Bishkek buyer cannot find in Russian on a phone screen is a brand that does not get the forwarded price request.
Language
Business correspondence with the companies we have worked with in Kyrgyzstan has run in Russian; Kyrgyz matters for consumer-facing content outside the capital. Materials prepared for Kazakhstan in Russian work here without a rewrite, which is one more reason the two markets are usually entered together. Whether they need a site of their own at all is a question we took apart in the Journal.
When the market gathers
KyrgyzBuild, the construction show, runs each April in Bishkek; the organiser has set the next edition for 13-15 April 2027. That is the scale of the exhibition market here: one show worth attending per sector. The organiser publishes the exhibitor list before the show, and it shows who is already active in the category.
What we do in Kyrgyzstan
Bishkek is a few hours' drive from Almaty, and we cover Kyrgyzstan from there. It usually comes with the Kazakhstan work: the same certificate, distributors on one map, and a separate page on the site only if demand here turns out to differ from the Kazakh one.
In the monthly format, from $10,000 a month, month one is the setup, and from month two the ads and letters to distributors run. If you have your own site and marketing, we search for distributors for a fee and a percentage: $2,200 plus a percentage of orders in month one, then the percentage only. If you exhibit in Almaty or Astana, our team works your stand.