Georgia

Yes. This is the whole point of the High Net Worth Individual status under Article 34 of the Tax Code of Georgia, which bypasses the 183-day count. You qualify by meeting one of three tests: confirmed worldwide assets over GEL 3m plus a Georgian residence permit or citizenship plus USD 500k of Georgian-situs assets, the same wealth test with GEL 25,000 of Georgian-source income instead of the permit, or annual income of at least GEL 200,000 in each of the last three years. Keep in mind that the status is issued annually. You must reapply each year with refreshed evidence. It is not a permanent designation.

Georgia operates a genuinely territorial system. Foreign-source income and foreign-source gains are exempt for residents, and there is no wealth tax and no inheritance tax. Personal income tax is a 20% flat rate on Georgian-source income, with capital gains at 5% on the sale of a vehicle or of an apartment/house with attached land. The catch that trips people up is the definition of source. Income counts as Georgian-source if the work is performed while you are physically in Georgia, regardless of where the client or the money sits.

It is legitimate for genuine small traders billing under GEL 500,000 a year. But it is routinely mis-sold. The rate is 1% of gross turnover, not profit, with no expenses deductible. So on a low-margin business, the effective rate on profit can exceed the standard 20%. More importantly, the prohibited-activity list is broad and catches most professionals. Consulting of most kinds, legal, accounting, tax and financial advisory, medical, architectural, brokerage and any licensed activity are excluded. The Revenue Service tests what you actually do, not how you invoice it. And the common claim that a Georgian resident working remotely for foreign clients earns exempt foreign income is simply wrong. If you sit in Tbilisi and invoice New York, that is Georgian-source income.

No. There is no citizenship-by-investment programme in Georgia. Marketing that describes one is describing the discretionary Presidential exception, which cannot be bought. Ordinary naturalisation under the Organic Law on Georgian Citizenship requires ten years of continuous residence, Georgian language, history and law examinations, and renunciation of your existing citizenship. Georgia does not permit dual citizenship except by Presidential grant on state-interest grounds. For a UHNW family holding a Western nationality, this ends the conversation. Georgia is a tax and residence jurisdiction only.

Citizens of roughly 95 countries, including the EU/EEA, UK, US, Canada, Australia, Japan, the Gulf states, Russia and Kazakhstan, may enter without a visa. They can stay 365 days per entry under Government Ordinance No. 255 of 5 June 2015, and the clock resets each time they leave and come back. It is the most generous visa-free regime in the region. Two cautions apply. These days count for nothing toward permanent residence or naturalisation. And from 1 January 2026, all foreign nationals must carry travel medical insurance covering the full stay, with minimum cover of GEL 30,000, under Decree No. 602 of 26 December 2025.

No. That advice is two years out of date. Georgia joined the Common Reporting Standard in 2022. 2023 was its first reporting year, and the first exchanges ran in September 2024. So a CRS self-certification claiming sole Georgian tax residency, while your address, phone number and spending pattern point elsewhere, will trigger the reporting institution's indicia review. The account is very likely to be reported to the other jurisdiction anyway. Banks, not the tax office, are the real choke point here.

Yes, it changed on 1 March 2026: the property threshold for a one-year temporary residence permit rose from USD 100,000, in place since 2019, to USD 150,000, measured on the combined market value of all properties owned as assessed by accredited appraisers. The USD 300,000 investment route to a five-year permit is unchanged and leads to indefinite residence after five years of maintained ownership. Transaction costs are low — there is no significant transfer tax, a genuine advantage over Türkiye — but the government's stated rationale for the rise implies further tightening may come.

Not on its own. Georgia issuing a residency certificate does not stop your former country from taxing you. Treaty tie-breakers turn on permanent home, centre of vital interests and habitual abode. A certificate that requires zero presence in Georgia establishes none of these. If you spend most of your year in a country that taxes on residence, expect that country to win the tie-break. It will likely treat the Georgian certificate as evidence of planning rather than of fact. The certificate can be a useful anchor within a coherent structure, but it is not a defence on its own. It also carries frontier risk, given that roughly 20% of Georgia's territory is under Russian occupation and EU accession is effectively frozen.