Georgia Investor Visa

The Law of Georgia on the Legal Status of Aliens and Stateless Persons sets two thresholds for two different permits, in US dollars equivalent in GEL:

The USD 150,000 level for the short-term permit has applied since 1 March 2026 under Law No 863 of 26 June 2025, replacing the earlier USD 100,000.

For both, the market value is not taken from the contract price but must be established by a certified assessor of a body accredited by the Legal Entity under Public Law — the Georgian Unified National Accreditation Body, the Georgian Accreditation Centre.

The business route is not proved by valuation: under the document list of the Public Service Development Agency, the investment of at least USD 300,000 is evidenced by an audit report by a certified auditor.

What is granted is an investment residence permit under Article 15(h) of the Law on the Legal Status of Aliens and Stateless Persons — the sub-paragraph matters, because paragraph (j) of the same article is a different and cheaper short-term permit which this table also refers to. This table uses the letters of the English text published on matsne.gov.ge; in the Georgian original, sub-paragraphs (h), (j) and (k) carry the letters თ, კ and ლ.

The permit's real value is that it is a stage rather than a terminus: it leads to an unlimited residence permit, and the tests for that stage sit in the timing cell.

What belongs here is a protective provision few routes carry: an alien holding an investment residence permit who applies for an unlimited residence permit retains the investment permit until the Agency makes its decision — meaning there is no legal gap between the two permits, which is the standing risk at any transition.

On the investment route the permit terminates if the holder cannot prove the annual turnover required for each year. On the property route it dies with the asset, and the machinery that makes that happen without the holder declaring anything — the two-way flow of information between the Agency and the Public Registry, with the provision and the deadline for each direction — is set out in the residence cell of this table.

According to the Public Service Development Agency, an investment residence permit application is decided within 30, 20 or 10 calendar days, depending on the fee the applicant chooses, GEL 300, 450 or 600; an unlimited residence permit application is decided within 30 or 20 calendar days.

The short-term residence permit under Article 15(j) is issued, and each time extended, for one year. Temporary residence permits generally may be extended for not more than twelve years in total, on the same conditions as were used for the original grant. Article 16(3) takes the investment residence permit (paragraph 1(e)) out of this extension rule, so the investment permit cannot be stretched to twelve years: it runs for five years, and the way forward is the unlimited residence permit.

The route to an unlimited residence permit under Article 15(k) runs through two quite different tests.

The first, for a holder of an investment permit resting on the USD 300,000 investment, requires proof of minimum annual turnover for each year of entrepreneurial activity in Georgia. The tiers are not only the condition for the unlimited permit but also the condition for keeping the investment permit itself: each year, before that year of validity ends, the holder must submit to the Agency information from the Revenue Service on annual turnover, and if the information is not submitted, or does not prove that year's tier, the investment permit terminates (Article 16(1)(e) and Article 21(1²)). Amounts are in USD:

The second, for a holder whose investment permit rests on ownership of immovable property worth more than USD 300,000: retaining the property right for five years after receiving the permit. On both routes the application must be filed before the five-year validity of the investment permit expires.

The short-term residence permit under Article 15(j) dies with the asset: its validity is terminated when the alien right of ownership of the relevant immovable thing is terminated.

For an investment permit resting on property worth more than USD 300,000, the holder is obliged to maintain the property right to that same immovable thing, or to the immovable thing used as a replacement under the condition in Article 21(13).

The Law builds a closed information loop between two bodies so that this is known.

Under Article 20¹(2), the Agency must communicate to the Public Registry the data on the permit holder and the cadastral number of the property within two weeks of issuing the permit. In the other direction, under Article 20¹(4), the Public Registry must inform the Agency of the termination of the property right, likewise within two weeks of that termination.

One point in the holder favour: an alien who retains ownership of the very thing that served as the basis for the permit is exempt from the obligation to submit a reassessment of market value

The two permits define the family differently, and the cheaper one is narrower in the categories it covers, though not in the age of children. The short-term permit under Article 15(j), at the USD 150,000 level, extends to the spouse and the child or children — those two groups only, but the law does not limit the children to minors.

The investment permit under Article 15(h), at the USD 300,000 level, reaches considerably further:

Family members are the spouse; a minor child; a fully dependent beneficiary of support or disabled person; and a fully dependent person recognised as legally incompetent under the procedure established by the legislation of the country in question.

That same wider definition applies to the unlimited residence permit under Article 15(k)

The status this programme grants, whether a visa or a residence permit, does not replace the holder's passport. The holder still travels on the passport of their own country, so the figure below belongs to the Georgia passport and becomes the holder's only once they are issued a Georgia passport.

According to the Passport Index of Prosperous Intelligence, on data dated 30 September 2026, the Georgia passport reaches 136 destinations without applying for a consular visa in advance. The figure combines three forms of entry and does not count an e-Visa that must be obtained beforehand:

It is therefore a measure of how easily the holder travels, not a count of visa-free countries in the narrow sense.

For comparison, on the same source and the same method of counting, the Vietnamese passport reaches 44 destinations. The two lists of destinations do not nest inside one another, so the difference is an indication rather than a list of places newly opened.

Prosperous Intelligence dates its data and advises checking with the destination’s official authorities before travelling.

A holder on the USD 300,000 investment must submit to the Agency each year information from the Revenue Service on annual turnover of at least USD 50,000 in the first year, USD 100,000 in the second and USD 120,000 in each of the third to fifth years. This is more than a reporting duty: if a year's tier is not proved, the investment residence permit terminates.

That duty belongs to the immigration rules. The personal income tax question is answered by the Tax Code of Georgia, in Article 34.

A natural person is a Georgian tax resident for the entire tax year if they actually stayed in Georgia for 183 days or more in any continuous 12-calendar-month period ending in that year.

Actual stay also includes time spent outside Georgia specifically for treatment, leisure, a business trip or education. In the other direction, paragraph 4(d) of the same article excludes from actual stay the time a person spent in Georgia for treatment or leisure. The Tax Code sets no separate rule for investment residence permit holders: tax residence turns on the days counted under paragraphs 2 to 4 of Article 34, as for any individual.

According to the procedure page of the Public Service Development Agency, the fee for an investment residence permit depends on the processing time the applicant chooses: GEL 300 for a decision within 30 calendar days, GEL 450 within 20 calendar days and GEL 600 within 10 calendar days.

The investor's file must include an audit report by a certified auditor (business route) or a report by an accredited certified assessor (property route), together with a written reference from a member of the Government of Georgia or from three citizens of Georgia holding authority to represent a Georgia-based business entity.

For Vietnamese passport holders: Vietnamese citizens need a visa to enter Georgia and can apply for an e-Visa through evisa.gov.ge, the portal of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Georgia. A residence permit is issued only to an alien staying lawfully in Georgia, but the investment residence permit is exempt from two bars that apply to most other permits: it may still be issued to a person staying on an ordinary C category visa (Article 14(1³)), and to a person staying visa-free by virtue of a visa or residence permit of a country listed in Ordinance No 256 of the Government of Georgia of 5 June 2015 (Article 14(1⁴)).

On documents issued in Viet Nam, the Apostille Convention entered into force for Viet Nam on 11 September 2026, and Georgia is not among the states that objected to Viet Nam's accession, according to the status table of the Hague Conference on Private International Law. Georgian procedural rules require documents issued abroad to be legalised or certified by apostille, unless an international agreement of Georgia provides otherwise, and documents in a foreign language to be submitted with a certified Georgian translation.

The application and accompanying documents for a Georgian residence permit must be submitted to the Agency in the official language of Georgia; in the cases provided for by legislation the Agency is authorised to accept an application in another language as well.

The passport specifically is exempt from Georgian translation provided it contains the alien personal data in Latin transliteration. On verification, the Agency has the right to check the information in the documents by visiting the place indicated, inspecting that place and interviewing the appropriate persons.

Separately, an employer is obliged to inform the Agency within five days where labour relations with an employee holding a residence permit are terminated