Living in Georgia as a foreign resident

Your residence status and your tax status are separate

Before the practical side, one point about status. A Georgian residence permit gives you the right to live in Georgia. It does not make you a tax resident. Tax residency depends on the days you spend in the country, under the 183-day test in Article 34 of the Tax Code. The reverse is also true: being a tax resident gives you no right to stay. See the residency overview for permits and Georgian tax residency for the tax side.

This matters for daily life too. Banks ask about your income and your reason for being in Georgia. Clinics and insurers ask about your status. Keep the two sets of papers apart and know which one a person is asking for.

Tbilisi and Batumi

Tbilisi is the capital. Batumi is a city on the Black Sea coast. Our research covers these two cities only, so this section does not describe other towns.

Climate figures come from WeatherSpark and PB Services. Cost figures come from Numbeo, a website where users report prices. Numbeo's pages show a last update of 20 October 2026. Batumi gets several times more rain than Tbilisi, which some people weigh more than the price gap. The full table, with more items, is on the cost of living page.

Currency

The national currency is the lari, written GEL. The Tax Code and the Law on Funded Pension both refer to the "national currency of Georgia (lari)". The National Bank of Georgia (NBG), the central bank, sets an official rate each day.

• On 24 September 2026 the official rate was about GEL 2.62 per US dollar and GEL 2.99 per euro, according to a third-party copy of NBG data.
• GBC, a Georgian news site, reported GEL 2.6453 per US dollar on 1 July 2026.

We could not read these rates from the NBG itself. Check the NBG site for the rate on the day you need it.

Prices have been rising. Geostat, the national statistics office, put annual inflation at 5.6% in August 2026, with core inflation at 3.8%.

Banking

The main retail banks are TBC Bank, Bank of Georgia and Liberty Bank. Law firms and advisers report that banks became stricter in 2025 and 2026. They ask where your money comes from and why you need the account. They refuse more often when you have no income link to Georgia.

A first personal account usually needs a visit to a branch. The other option is a representative who holds a notarised power of attorney (a signed authority certified by a notary). Fully remote opening of a personal account is limited. Bank of Georgia has a separate online procedure for citizens of Russia and Belarus, including dual citizens.

Details, documents and the open points are on opening a bank account in Georgia.

Costs and pay

Numbeo puts monthly costs for a single person in Tbilisi at GEL 1,725.60 without rent. A family of four is at GEL 6,359.40 without rent. These are user reports, not official prices.

For a sense of local pay, Geostat reported average monthly gross earnings of GEL 2,363.80 in the first quarter of 2026. That was 8.9% more than a year earlier. In information and communication, the average was GEL 4,290.70. Georgia Today reported GEL 2,389.30 for the second quarter of 2026, citing Geostat.

Gross earnings are before the 20% personal income tax (Tax Code Article 81(1)). A rent of GEL 1,754.56 for a central one-bedroom flat in Tbilisi is therefore about three quarters of the national average gross monthly pay in the first quarter of 2026. If your income is local, plan your budget with that in mind.

Healthcare and insurance

The Law on the Legal Status of Aliens and Stateless Persons says foreigners in Georgia are entitled to healthcare under Georgian law (Article 30). Permanent residents have the same social security rights as citizens (Article 31(1)).

The state Universal Healthcare Programme is aimed at citizens. Foreigners do not get automatic access, and most expats use private insurance. The Public Defender (Georgia's ombudsman) has found discrimination on grounds of nationality in a state health programme.

Since 1 January 2026, foreigners who enter Georgia as tourists must hold medical and accident insurance covering at least GEL 30,000 for the whole stay, up to one year. The rule is in Government Ordinance No 602 of 26 December 2025. The ordinance does not mention residence permit holders, so whether it applies to them is open. The details are on healthcare in Georgia.

Safety

The World Bank, using UNODC data, gives Georgia 2.03 intentional homicides per 100,000 people in 2019. That is the latest year with a value. The figure was 2.35 in 2018 and 2.40 in 2017. The series has no values for 2020 to 2025.

Georgia Today, citing Geostat, reported 40,464 recorded crimes from January to September 2025. About 13,000 were property crimes, over 7,000 were drug crimes and about 6,000 were crimes against health.

These numbers describe recorded crime across the whole country. They do not tell you how safe a given street or district is. The limits of the data are set out on is Georgia safe.

Pages in this section

• Opening a bank account in GeorgiaBanks, in person or remote, documents and the 2025 to 2026 tightening
• Cost of living in TbilisiRents and monthly costs in GEL, with a Tbilisi and Batumi comparison
• Healthcare in Georgia for foreignersState cover, private insurance and the GEL 30,000 tourist insurance rule
• Is Georgia safe?Homicide and recorded crime data, and what the numbers cannot tell you

If you are still deciding whether to move, start with the visa-free stay rules and the cost of a residence permit.