Georgia

Georgia lets nearly anyone in for a year and then makes them start again. Arrival is close to free. Permanence runs through a single narrow ladder: ten years of continuous temporary residence permits, with no credit for the visa-free years that most people actually spend here.

Can you stay in Georgia long term?

Yes, but only on the slowest terms in the region. Ten years of continuous temporary permits, then permanent residence, then citizenship after another set of conditions. Nothing about the one-year visa-free stay shortens that. A decade of border runs produces no residence record, no permanent residence eligibility and no citizenship claim.

The permits themselves are ordinary. Work, IT, investment, property, study and family all exist, and the investment route is the one real shortcut: USD 300,000 buys a five year permit and a lifelong permit after five years, skipping the decade. The property route is the popular one and the weakest: USD 150,000 buys one year at a time, renewable forever, never permanent on its own. Study years are expressly excluded from the ten year count, so a student can be here for twelve years and still be at zero.

Since 1 March 2026 a residence card no longer means you can work. The right to work is a separate decision from the State Employment Support Agency, with its own fee, its own recorded interview and a GEL 2,000 fine for working without it. That change hit property owners and dependants hardest, because their cards were never work authorisations and nothing else grants the right by default.

Citizenship sits at ten years of residence with Georgian language, an exam on the constitution and history, and an income condition. Georgia generally bars dual citizenship, with a presidential exception that is discretionary. The conditions are described consistently by advisers but the Organic Law on Citizenship was not opened for this page, so treat the detail as unconfirmed. For anyone who intends to keep their existing passport, that is the question to settle first.

Ways to move to Georgia

Read the settlement column first. Every row above the last two is a temporary status, and the visa-free row is not a status at all.

The programmes

Visa-free 365 day stay. Citizens of 94 listed countries arrive without a visa or a fee and stay for 365 days per entry. Since 1 January 2026 insurance of at least GEL 30,000 is checked at the border. The year is counted per entry, not per calendar year, and leaving and returning restarts it in practice rather than by statute.

Temporary residence permit. The working core of the system: labour activity, IT, investment, study and family reunion, each with its own threshold and duration. The work route requires five times the subsistence minimum and an employer with GEL 50,000 of turnover per foreign employee. All of them count toward the ten year clock except study.

Property permit. One year at a time for owners of non-agricultural property worth USD 150,000 or more, up from USD 100,000 on 1 March 2026. Valuation is by an accredited appraiser, not the price you paid. It carries no work rights and never becomes permanent by itself.

Permanent residence. Indefinite status after ten years of continuous temporary permits. Study time, medical treatment time and diplomatic-mission employment are excluded, and a gap between permits can reset the count. The threshold was raised from six years to ten, so the six year figure is out of date.

Citizenship. Naturalisation after ten years of residence, subject to language, a constitution and history exam, and income. Dual citizenship is generally barred with a discretionary presidential exception.

What Georgia is bad at

Settlement. The one year stay is sold as openness but builds nothing, and the re-entry reset that makes it feel renewable is administrative practice, not a written entitlement, so a long run of back-to-back years is the profile most likely to be questioned. The permanent residence clock is now ten years, one of the longest in the region, and it discards study years and any gap between permits. Since March 2026 the property card supports nobody: you can live in the flat but cannot earn from a Georgian client without a second permission, a fee and a recorded interview. There is no digital nomad visa and no retirement visa, despite the country being marketed to both groups. The IT permit is an IT permit, requiring documented activity and in practice 183 days a year here, not a general remote work route.

Guides

• Visa-free 365 day stay: the per-entry rule, the insurance condition, and why the year is not residence
• Temporary residence permit: work, IT, investment, study and family grounds compared
• Property permit: the USD 150,000 threshold, valuation, renewal and the missing work right
• Permanent residence: the ten year record, what counts, what resets it
• Citizenship: residence, language, exams and the dual nationality problem

Sources

• Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Border Police, Ordinance No. 255 of 5 June 2015 and entry conditions, checked 2026-10-22
• Public Service Development Agency, residence permit categories and requirements, checked 2026-10-22
• State Employment Support Agency, right-to-work permission under Government Resolution No. 70 of 1 March 2026, checked 2026-10-22
• US Embassy Tbilisi, insurance requirement from 1 January 2026, checked 2026-10-22

Last updated 2026-10-22.