The article presents an overview of the main archival sources on the history of the formation of public and political associations (parties) in Kazakhstan. The authors carried out work by the collections of domestic archives and identified new documents.The authors tried to show a complete picture of archival affairs and documents on political parties. According to the research, the bulk of archival sources on the history of parties and associations are stored in the Archive of the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan and the National Archive of the Republic of Kazakhstan. The work has also been done in other archives. In general, the identified archive materials show how the multiparty system was established and developed, what was the mechanism for the establishment and functioning of public associations.

The archives contain a significant number of party documents, materials of individual parties. The materials of the studied archives, especially the Archive of the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan and the National Archive of the Republic of Kazakhstan, have great potential for studying the history of political institutions in Kazakhstan during the period of Independence.