ABOUT TBILISI TOP

Tbilisi Top is for the part of a long stay in Georgia that comes after the decision to come: the week you have to sign a lease, pay a fee, queue at the Public Service Hall or file something on RS.ge, and being wrong has a price. The 365 visa-free days, the border insurance, the Right to Work permit, the Individual Entrepreneur and Small Business Status, rent in dollars paid in lari, the bank’s questions, and leaving cleanly.

It is not a tourism site and does not sell the city. You have already booked the flight.

Who it is written for

The reader comparing cities who wants a monthly total with the line items named. The one landing next month who needs the order to do things in. The one three months in and against a wall: the labour permit nobody mentioned, the bank that said no. And the one deciding whether to renew or go. Everything assumes you have no Georgian, no Georgian family and no local guarantor.

Why the pages that already rank are not enough

The rules moved, hard, and most of the web has not noticed. From January 2026 you need insurance to get in; from March 2026 you need a permit to work, and the stamp is not one. A confident answer from 2024 sends you to the border uninsured.

And nearly every page that ranks here belongs to an agency, a law firm or an accountant paid by the move. None of them can publish “don’t”, “this part is do-it-yourself”, or “the 1% is not real for you”. This site can, and does.

What every post carries

A checked-on date beside any figure that moves. One line on what changed since the rule’s last version. And something a summary cannot reproduce: the documents in the order the counter asks for them, the sentence in Georgian, or the attempt that failed and why. Every figure is attributed, or left out.

What this site will not do

It is not immigration advice: it describes the process, names the point where you need a lawyer, and never promises an outcome. It is not tax advice: it explains the mechanics of Small Business Status and the Georgian-source question, names the accountant, and stops. It will never tell you your income is Georgian-source, that you will keep the 1%, or that the tax system is a reason to come. It is not medical, investment, property or currency advice. It does not cover Georgian politics or write about any nationality as a community.

Who writes it

Tove came to Tbilisi in 2022 on the 365-day stamp, meaning to stay a winter, and stayed. She registered as an Individual Entrepreneur once it was clear the stamp was not a work status, opened a bank account on the second attempt, signed two leases, applied for a residence permit on the IE ground, and obtained the Right to Work permit under the 2026 transition. What she has done, she writes from experience and dates. What she has not, she sources, dates, and says so.

She is not a lawyer, not an accountant, not a relocation agent, and not Georgian. She has no arrangement with any agency or firm, which is why the answer here is sometimes don’t.