Tbilisi Top

What an Accountant Costs in Tbilisi, and What You Are Actually Buying

Sun, 20 Sep 2026 09:00:00 +0400

For a one-person Individual Entrepreneur on small business status, the published monthly rates in this city run from roughly 180 to 350 GEL, before 18% VAT. And most readers of this site should not be paying any of them.

That is the verdict, and it is not a criticism of Tbilisi’s accountants, who are competent and cheap by any European measure. It is a statement about what the monthly fee covers. For a single activity with a handful of invoices a month, the recurring work is one short declaration — the thing this site has already argued you should do yourself. What is worth paying for is the conversation that happens once, at the start, and again whenever your situation changes.

The Monthly Declaration on RS.ge: What You File, When, and What Happens If You Don't

Sat, 19 Sep 2026 09:00:00 +0400

The monthly declaration on RS.ge takes fifteen minutes once you have done it twice, and the version of this job that costs people money is not the filing — it is forgetting that an empty month still has to be filed. While your registration is live you declare every month, turnover or no turnover. The deadline I have filed against since I registered is the 15th of the month following the reporting month, and it is the deadline every accounting practice in this city publishes.

Georgian-Source or Foreign-Source: The Question That Decides Whether 1% Is Real

Fri, 18 Sep 2026 09:00:00 +0400

The question is not where your client is. That is the assumption almost everyone arrives with, and it is the wrong axis. Georgia’s Tax Code decides the source of income by rules in Article 104, and the principle it applies to services produces a result that surprises people: the place the money is received is not what determines where the income arose.

Individual Entrepreneur With Small Business Status: The Registration, Step by Step

Thu, 17 Sep 2026 09:00:00 +0400

This is one of the few genuinely do-it-yourself procedures in this country, and it is two applications rather than one. You register the Individual Entrepreneur at a Public Service Hall, and then you apply separately to the Revenue Service for small business status. About 60 GEL, one business day, and a morning. Nobody needs to be paid several hundred lari to do this for you.

Remote for a Foreign Employer: The Exemption, the Ambiguity, and What to Do This Month

Wed, 16 Sep 2026 09:00:00 +0400

Nobody knows, and anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something or repeating someone who is. What is known is narrower and more useful than the headline: if you are registered as an Individual Entrepreneur here, you are self-employed in Georgia and the requirement almost certainly reaches you, whoever your clients are. If you are a salaried employee of a foreign company with no Georgian presence, and you have registered nothing here, that is the genuinely open case.

The Right to Work: What the Special Labour Permit Asks For, in Order

Tue, 15 Sep 2026 09:00:00 +0400

If you are self-employed here, the special labour permit is a form you fill in yourself, for 200 GEL, and the part that takes time is not the form. It is the description of what you actually do for money — written so that a case officer who has never met you can tell what it is. Budget an evening for that paragraph and a morning for everything else.

Working From Tbilisi After March 2026: The Permit, the 1%, and the Decision, Priced

Mon, 14 Sep 2026 09:00:00 +0400

If you are here for a year, working for yourself, and your clients are abroad, the whole decision costs about 260 GEL and two mornings: roughly 60 GEL to register as an Individual Entrepreneur, nothing to apply for small business status, and 200 GEL for the right to work if you conclude you need it. The 1% is the cheap part. The expensive part is deciding whether you need the permit at all, and that question does not have a settled answer yet.

When to Pay a Lawyer at the Public Service Hall, and When You're Paying for a Queue

Sun, 13 Sep 2026 09:00:00 +0400

The ordinary freelancer’s route — register the Individual Entrepreneur, apply for the right to work, apply for a work-ground residence permit — is genuinely do-it-yourself. The forms are handled in English, the counters speak English, and the published state fees are 200 GEL and 300 GEL. If someone is quoting you a package to do those three things and nothing else, you are paying for a queue.

The IT Residence Permit: Who It Is For, and Whether You Are One of Them

Sat, 12 Sep 2026 09:00:00 +0400

If you work in IT, hold a certificate showing at least two years in the field, and can show at least USD 25,000 of annual income arriving in at least two separate payments spaced 30 days apart, this is the best residence route available to you and you should stop reading about the work permit route. If you cannot show both of those, it is not a route at all, and no amount of arguing that your job is technical will make it one.

Temporary Residence Permits: The Grounds, and Which One You Actually Qualify For

Fri, 11 Sep 2026 09:00:00 +0400

For most readers of this site the answer is the work ground, it costs GEL 300 on the 30-day review, and the application is due 40 calendar days before your lawful stay expires. If you work in IT and clear two specific tests, the IT permit is better and is outside that deadline. Everything else on the Public Service Development Agency’s list is either not available to you or is a case where you should be paying someone.

Overstaying in Georgia: The Fines, the Database, and the Day It Stops Being Cheap

Thu, 10 Sep 2026 09:00:00 +0400

If you are past your lawful stay right now, the cheapest remaining option is almost always to present yourself, pay the fine and leave, rather than to sit still and hope. The fine is survivable. The entry ban attached to it is what decides whether you can come back, and it gets longer the longer you wait.

The Insurance You Now Need at the Border: 30,000 GEL, and What Counts

Wed, 09 Sep 2026 09:00:00 +0400

Buy the policy before you fly, make it cover the whole stay including the day you land and the day you leave, and carry it in English. That is the entire requirement, and the penalty for getting it wrong is not a fine — it is being refused entry at the counter with your bag already on the belt.

The 365 Days: How Georgia Counts Them, and What the Border Run Still Does

Tue, 08 Sep 2026 09:00:00 +0400

If you are planning to stay past your first year on the strength of a border run, stop planning that. It may still work. Nobody can tell you it will, the written rule does not promise it, and since March 2026 it does not solve the problem most readers actually have — which is not time in the country but permission to work. Start a residence permit instead, forty days before your lawful stay expires.

Staying in Tbilisi Legally: Every Route, Ranked by What It Costs You

Mon, 07 Sep 2026 09:00:00 +0400

For most people reading this — arriving to freelance, to contract, or to run a one-person business from a flat in Vera — the route is: enter on the visa-free year, register as an Individual Entrepreneur, get the right to work from the Employment Promotion Agency, and apply for a work-ground residence permit forty days before your lawful stay runs out. In published state fees that is 200 GEL plus 300 GEL, and two mornings of queueing. Everything else on this page is either more expensive, narrower, or not available to you.