Monitoring of water ecosystems in Kazakhstan is based generally on chemical indicators. Biological indicators, such as macroinvertebrates and a phytoplankton are rarely used. Sometimes some macrophyte species of are used for the assessment of water quality. The aim of the study was to analyse the possibilities of the introduction of the Polish monitoring system based on aquatic plants for rivers in Kazakhstan watercourses. The Polish method uses the Macrophyte Index for Rivers (MIR) and it has been prepared for the purposes of the EU Water Framework Directive. The systematic structure of Kazakhstan’s water plants were analyzed and compared with the macrophyte list of Poland. Flora of Kazakhstan was used as the main source of information and some recent publications were analyzed as well. It was found that the aquatic flora of Kazakhstan is rich and a total of 240 taxa of emergent and submerged plants are identified in the country. We have confirmed that a large number of aquatic plants recorded in Kazakhstan are recognized as bioindicators. The ecological tolerance and sensitivity of the identified bioindicators was analysed. A preliminary nine taxa with the the highest indicator weight in the MIR system (W = 3) were detected as the most sensitive indicators in Kazakhstan flora: Sciuro-hypnum plumosum, Scapania sp., Ceratphyllum demersum, C. submersum, Potamogeton lucens, P. praelongus, Lemna gibba, Menyanthes trifoliata and Acorus calamus. It was found that the MIR index can be applied in Kazakhstan, especially if we enrich the list of indicative species with the local macrophytes, which were not included in the original version. The list of potential indicator-species includes: Ranunculus altaicus, Ranunculus natans, Althenia filiformis, Nelumbo nucifera, Trapa incise which does not occur in Europe and Nuphar pumila, Nymphoides peltata, Ranunculus rionii, Rorippa palustris, Trapa natans, Utricularia intermedia, U. minor, Eleocharis acicularis and Vallisneria spiralis.