Moving to Georgia: The Tax Steps for Your First Year
You can land in Tbilisi, sign a lease and start working without becoming a Georgian taxpayer. Residency here is decided by days counted, not by arrival, and your first year then runs on Georgian filing dates that nobody reminds you about. What follows is when Georgia starts counting, what to settle before you land, and what your first resident year obliges you to do.
- You become a Georgian tax resident once 183 days or more of actual presence fall inside any continuous 12-month period that ends in the tax year, and the residency then covers the whole of that year.
- A day you spent only part of here still counts as a full day, and every tax year is counted afresh.
- A resident's income that is not Georgian-source is exempt, but work you do from Georgia for clients abroad is Georgian-source income taxed at 20%.
- Small business status charges 1% on gross income up to GEL 500,000 a year and applies from the day the application is filed, not from the day you arrived.
- The annual income tax return for that year is due by 31 March, and the tax has to be paid by that same date.
Moving here does not make you a Georgian taxpayer
Arrival changes nothing by itself. Article 34 of the Tax Code treats you as a Georgian tax resident for a whole tax year as soon as your actual presence reaches 183 days inside any continuous period of 12 calendar months that ends in that year.
Because the period is any continuous 12 months rather than a fixed run of dates, the count can open in one year and close in the next, and a day counts in full even where you were only here for part of it. Status is then set per tax period, and days that already made you resident in one period are not counted again for the next.
Article 34 provides for no application, no registration and no election, so residency arrives as a fact about your movements rather than as a decision either side takes. A visa, a residence permit, a registered address or a registration as an individual entrepreneur neither creates residency nor prevents it, because none of them appears in the article at all.
What the article does count is days of physical presence, and the days it refuses to count are those spent in diplomatic or consular status, as staff of an international organisation or a foreign state, in transit, or on treatment or leisure. Residency therefore cannot be arranged after the fact, and the only thing anyone still packing can plan is the dates that produce it.
Timing your arrival decides your first resident year
Georgia works out an individual's taxable income over the calendar year, which runs from 1 January to 31 December, so the year you are planning around starts and ends on those dates. Arrive in February and you can reach 183 days inside that same calendar year, which makes you resident for the whole of it, including the weeks before you landed. Arrive in September and you cannot: the first 12-month window containing 183 days of presence ends in the following year, and the following year becomes your first resident year.
Settle which of the two years you want before the tickets are booked, because the dates are the only part of the test you control. The same rule works in reverse on the way out. Because days that already made you resident in one period are not counted again for the next, the year you leave is judged on the days that are still available to count, not on the fact that you were resident the year before.
- Decide which tax year you want to be your first resident year, then plan the arrival date and the trips out around the 183 days.
- Keep your own record of border crossings. The count runs on days of actual presence, and any part of a day counts as a full one.
- Settle how your Georgian income will be taxed before you start invoicing from Tbilisi, because the regime you end up in depends on the day you apply, not on the day you arrived.
- Tell your current tax authority under its own rules, and find out what it expects from you for the year you leave.
Getting a Georgian taxpayer number
The annual return and the residency certificate application both ask for a Georgian taxpayer identification number, which makes it the first piece of administration a mover needs. For an individual without Georgian citizenship that number is a 9-digit identification number assigned under Georgian legislation, not the personal number printed on a national ID card.
Your duty to register with the Revenue Service is triggered by a tax or customs obligation arising, and no calendar deadline applies beyond that. Registration takes the Annex No I-01 application form plus an identity document, and someone who is not registered as an individual entrepreneur may instead register over a video call or through the remote identification service.
Tax registration is carried out no later than 5 working days from the application. After it, the Revenue Service issues a taxpayer certificate on the form of Annex No I-03 and enters the data in the unified register of tax registration.
Deciding how your income gets taxed before you start invoicing
The general personal income tax rate is 20%. A resident individual's income that is not Georgian-source is exempt, capital gains included, which is why the source of an amount matters more than the account it lands in.
Services actually rendered in Georgia are Georgian-source income. So are a resident's services where the recipient sits in another state, with a single carve-out: a permanent establishment abroad that confirms the services were delivered there.
Where the money is received is not taken into account. Work you do from Georgia for foreign clients is therefore Georgian-source income, not foreign income, whoever pays it and wherever they pay it.
Small business status is the other way an individual's income can be taxed here. It taxes income under the regime at 1%, and the 1% runs on gross income of up to GEL 500,000 from economic activity in a calendar year. You register as an individual entrepreneur first, and only then does the status application go to the tax authority.
The timing is where money is lost. Status runs from the day you file that application, so anything you earned earlier in the same calendar year stays under the regime that applied at the time, which for someone who has just arrived means the general rules at 20%, declared on the annual return a year later. Three months of invoicing before you get round to applying is three months at 20% rather than 1%.
Not every activity can use the regime. 7 kinds of activity are excluded: activities needing a licence or permit, apart from the Tbilisi taxi permit; activities needing significant investment; currency exchange; medical, architectural, advocacy and notary, audit and consulting work, tax consultancy included; gambling; the provision of personnel; and the production of excise goods. Consulting is on that list, so a consultant cannot hold small business status whatever the turnover.
| Your income | Georgian treatment | Rate |
|---|---|---|
| Salary or invoices for work you do from Georgia | Georgian-source income | 20% |
| The same work under small business status | Taxable income under the regime | 1% up to GEL 500,000 a year |
| Income of a resident that is not Georgian-source, gains included | Exempt | 0% |
| Residential rent where you claim no deductions and are on the landlord register | Taxed at the reduced rate | 5% |
| Dividends from a Georgian company | Taxed at source and final for you | 5% |
Your first Georgian deadlines
For a resident, income that nobody withheld tax on in Georgia goes on an annual income tax return, and the Revenue Service gives the last day as 31 March of the year that follows the reporting year. The tax is paid by that same day, because the Code sets no separate payment date for it.
Others file the same return: individual entrepreneurs, micro and small business holders for income taxed under the general rules, individuals with gifts or inheritance that are not exempt, individuals letting property whose rent is not taxed at source, and non-residents with Georgian-source income that nobody withheld on. Someone who is not obliged to file at all may still do so, to claim a recalculation and a refund.
A first year that spans two countries, with part of it under foreign rules and part of it under Georgian ones, is worth putting on paper before the return is filed rather than after, and that is the sort of question a written opinion signed by David Sisvadze is for.
Small business status changes the rhythm. Each month brings a return, due together with the tax by the 15th day of the following month, and one you never file is not treated as a zero return.
Advance payments are a second-year question. An entrepreneur whose reporting period is the calendar year pays current tax in 4 instalments, each one 25% of what last year's tax came to, falling due on 15 May, 15 July, 15 September and 15 December. A taxpayer with no taxable income in the past tax year makes none of them, and a small business status holder makes no current payments in any year at all.
Interest runs on unpaid tax at 0.05% a day, and the day you actually pay counts as an overdue one.
The first return falls due in the March after a year you may have spent half of somewhere else, and the fine is charged on the tax due under the return you did not file: 5% of it when the return is up to 2 months late, 10% once it is later than that. A return with no tax due is the only one that costs nothing to file late.
Proving to your old country that you moved
The Revenue Service issues the Georgian tax residency certificate. A resident applies for it electronically, giving the name and the full address in Georgian as well as English, together with their Georgian taxpayer number, and what comes back is an electronic document in the approved form.
Your old country may use a residency form of its own instead. Where that form has a field for it, the Georgian tax authority must confirm your Georgian residency on the form itself with signature and official seal, against a notarised Georgian translation of it.
The certificate exists to claim treaty relief. Georgia has 58 treaties on the avoidance of double taxation in force, the Ministry of Finance publishes the partner list, and relief under any of them is claimed through Minister of Finance Order No 633.
The United States is not on that list, and an American is taxed on worldwide income wherever they live, so moving here adds a Georgian return rather than replacing a US one. Relief from double tax then has to come from the American side, through credits and exclusions that are only obtained by filing a US return.
If you cannot be here 183 days
Article 34 carries a second route. It allows the Minister of Finance to grant residency to a high net worth individual on conditions the Minister writes, and those conditions are Order No 60.
The Order asks for confirmed assets of more than GEL 3,000,000, or annual income of more than GEL 200,000 during the last 3 tax years before the application. On top of that it wants Georgian property of at least USD 500,000 in value. Alongside the property you need a Georgian link: either residence documents, meaning a residence permit, a residence card or a Georgian citizen's ID card, or GEL 25,000 or more of Georgian-source income in the tax year before the application, so the route tests wealth and a Georgian connection in place of presence.
It is granted one tax year at a time, and the documents are submitted again for each year. The Order sets no minimum number of days in the country, because presence is exactly what this route replaces.
Frequently asked questions
When do I become a tax resident of Georgia after moving?
On the day your presence reaches 183 days within a continuous 12-month period that ends in that tax year. The residency then covers the whole of that tax year, not just the part after the 183rd day. Any part of a day in the country counts as a full day for the purpose.
Do I need a residence permit to be a tax resident of Georgia?
No. A visa, a residence permit and a registered address neither create Georgian tax residency nor prevent it, because Article 34 counts days of physical presence and mentions none of them. A residence permit counts in one place only: it is one of the documents that can qualify you on the high net worth individual route.
What happens if I leave Georgia before 183 days?
You are not resident for that tax year, and Georgia taxes you only on Georgian-source income. Status is set per tax period, so leaving early in one year does not undo residency in an earlier year, and days that already made you resident once are not counted again for the next period.
Does Georgia tax foreign income after I move there?
A resident individual's income that is not Georgian-source is exempt, capital gains included. The catch is what counts as Georgian-source: services you actually perform in Georgia, and services you supply from here to a recipient in another state, are Georgian-source income taxed at 20% unless they go through a permanent establishment abroad. A foreign client and a foreign bank account do not change that.
Do I need a Georgian tax number when I move?
You need one as soon as a tax or customs obligation arises: that is the moment a foreign citizen has to ask the Revenue Service for tax registration. The number is a 9-digit identification number rather than a personal number from an ID card. Registration is carried out no later than 5 working days after the application.
When is my first Georgian tax return due?
By 31 March of the year after your first resident year, with the tax paid by the same day. It covers income that was not taxed at source in Georgia, which means invoices, rent from an individual tenant and anything else the general rules reach. Filing it late costs 5% of the tax the return shows, or 10% once you are more than 2 months past the date.
Does the 1% rate apply from the day I arrive?
No. Small business status applies from the day the application is filed with the tax authority, and you have to be registered as an individual entrepreneur before that. Income earned earlier in the same year stays under the general rules at 20% and goes on the annual return the following year.
What is the tax year in Georgia?
The calendar year, 1 January to 31 December. An individual's taxable income is computed over that period, which is also the period the 183-day test has to end inside. For a newly registered taxpayer the calendar year runs from the registration date to 31 December of the same year.