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Georgia work permit

Mariam

RegHub Georgia Specialist

Georgia work permit is the market's name for the employment permission whose statutory label is right to work. March 2026 split the analysis in two. One question is authorisation of the work itself; the other is lawfulness of the stay. Approval of a proposed job or of independent activity settles the first and leaves the second standing. Behind the second question stands either a residence permit or a D1 category immigration visa.

The July 2026 amendments reworked the employment rules that March had introduced. Worknet vacancy posting ceased to be a general prerequisite; annual workforce quotas became the preliminary control for threshold-crossing employers; and the exemption list changed. This analysis uses the post-July position, taking the employment decision first and the separate question of residence or visa status after it.

Right to work in Georgia

The new regime commenced on March 1, 2026. Since that date neither entrepreneur registration nor a concluded employment contract nor evidence of an operating venture amounts to statutory permission, wherever labour approval has to precede the activity. In employee cases the filing duty sits with the hiring employer, while independent applicants file for themselves.

Labour approval covers the specified job or independent activity and nothing beyond it. A separate authority carries lawful stay: a D1 category immigration visa, some other Georgian residence permit, or the route this article labels the work residence permit in Georgia. None of those documents removes a labour-permission requirement.

Responsibility is divided between institutions, and State Employment Support Agency (SESA) administers employment authorisation. Public Service Development Agency (PSDA), an LEPL under Georgia's Ministry of Justice, holds residence permits; D1 visas belong to the diplomatic and consular service. Four instruments carry the principal rules. Georgia's Law on Labour Migration supplies the employment-law basis, and the Law on the Legal Status of Aliens and Stateless Persons the immigration one. Labour procedure sits in Government Resolution No. 70 adopted on February 20, 2026. Government Resolution No. 520 governs the residence procedure. All four are used below in their current amended versions.

Permanent residence takes its holder outside the ordinary labour-immigrant regime, and express statutory provisions exclude or exempt several further statuses and activities. A foreign national whose existing Georgian residence category already supports lawful presence need not switch documents merely because employment begins. Where no suitable immigration basis exists, the residence or D1 step succeeds the labour decision. That division of the two questions is what the 2026 reform introduced.

Determining who must obtain employment authorisation

Three questions open the practical inquiry: what will be done, for whose business, and in which country the duties are physically performed. Absent a statutory exclusion, the ordinary regime takes in two things. One is paid work for a Georgian-side employer. The other is independent economic activity run inside Georgia by an overseas applicant who has no permanent residence.

On the hiring side stands a Georgian legal person, an individual entrepreneur, a registered foreign-company representation, or any other party competent to engage overseas staff. The employer lodges the file, names the proposed worker and position, and evidences professional qualifications and work history alongside the contractual basis. For that decision the principal applicant is the employer, never the worker.

Self-employment takes its own path. Personal submission is mandatory, the applicant identifies the independent activity and produces the evidence prescribed for it, and the assessment includes a remote video interview. Either route can end in right to work in Georgia, though filing duty and evidential focus differ.

For an overseas individual the ordinary procedure does not open on economic connection alone. Express exclusions and exemptions cover, among others:

• permanent residents and holders of the specified investment residence status;

• refugees, together with persons holding forms of protection that Georgian legislation recognises;

• diplomatic staff, qualifying international representatives and accredited journalists from abroad;

• persons discharging management, managerial or audit-committee functions in enterprises of categories I to III, or in qualifying public-interest entities;

• duties discharged wholly abroad for an employer registered in Georgia, where performance requires no entry into the country;

• qualifying duties tied to business a non-resident carries on abroad, save for the entrepreneurial natural person who needs Georgian residence status;

• professional work of short duration, on the conditions the statute sets.

The amended rules place separate conditions on the short-duration exception. Three limits define the route. Four months inside one calendar year is the aggregate ceiling, the activity cannot outlast lawful presence, and the labour migration special electronic system must record the person before commencement. An occupation governed by a national quota takes the case outside the exception.

A corporate title, by itself, establishes no exemption. The legislation names the categories of management that qualify, so category IV officers, entrepreneur status and other corporate participation call for a provision-by-provision check rather than reliance on the title. In remote-work cases the analysis depends on where performance happens. An arrangement carried on wholly abroad may fall within the exclusion, while activity inside Georgia is judged by what actually happens there. Residence status and compliance with labour authorisation stay separate questions.

July 2026 quota procedure

The employer sequence changed in July. Worknet publication, once the general preliminary condition, ceased to be the standard entry step for employee filings. For larger foreign workforces the preliminary control is now an annual quota.

Six or more foreign nationals planned for a calendar year make quota approval necessary, as does a foreign share of headcount above 5%. Where that 5% comes to under five people, the percentage limb is disregarded. An electronic quota request must precede the individual labour application by 10 working days at least. SESA then sets the annual figure and may raise it on a substantiated request.

The employee dossier at the next stage names both parties and the role proposed. It then records the employment agreement, the candidate's professional qualifications and work history, and whatever else Resolution No. 70 particularises. A separate assessment measures employer financial capacity against the applicable turnover thresholds. GEL 50,000 of employer turnover is ordinarily required for each overseas worker supported. For an employer in education or healthcare the figure per supported worker drops to GEL 35,000.

A narrow start-up relief covers the three months that follow establishment or registration, provided the employer supports three overseas workers or fewer. It leaves the remaining eligibility and documentary conditions of Georgia work permit approval in place.

An independent applicant, by contrast, uses neither an employer nor a representative. The filing is personal, and the applicant describes the independent activity and supplies the prescribed evidence. July's amendment struck the standalone business-plan item for new projects from the application list. A video interview nevertheless remains mandatory. English or Georgian may be used, and an interpreter may assist where necessary. The applicant produces at that interview the passport original that the filing used.

Processing runs on two timetables. The standard track costs GEL 200 and carries a decision period of 30 days counted on a calendar basis. Accelerated handling costs GEL 400, and 10 working days is its maximum decision period. A further GEL 200 is charged on extension.

Employment authority is specific rather than portable. For an employee it attaches to whichever employer the decision names, so joining another company calls for renewal. A change of position calls for corresponding authorisation, and so does a move of self-employment into another field. Pay, internal grade and schedule may change without a fresh filing while the substantive position holds.

Employee and self-employed routes compared

One labour-migration framework governs both routes, and the procedural burdens fall on different actors. Each of them carries the market label Georgia work permit. The table below sets out who files, which preliminary control applies and what evidence is distinctive.

Two filing routes lead to one type of labour authorisation, not to two legal statuses. Residence remains a second issue on either of them, and the matter is complete only once the successful labour application has passed an immigration-status check.

Work residence permit in Georgia

A favourable labour decision leaves the residence question open. An applicant present in Georgia who holds no residence permit of another kind files with PSDA inside 10 calendar days of labour approval. Those abroad go the D1 route, and there the visa filing falls due inside 30 calendar days of approval.

The immigration route is settled by the status the applicant actually has when the filing is made. Another Georgian residence permit capable of supporting lawful stay does not cease merely because employment starts. Entitlement to Georgian work residence follows neither from a document serving another purpose nor from one granted by a third state. Right to work in Georgia requirements are therefore assessed apart from the immigration basis supporting presence.

The usual residence dossier assembles six items:

• the passport;

• evidence that presence in the country is lawful;

• the job or business relied on;

• the labour-authorisation record, where one exists;

• financial material;

• a photograph.

Where the labour decision is retrievable electronically by the deciding body, the paper duplicate may be omitted. A separate card obligation opens with the grant, and one month is allowed for collecting the document unless the holder is exempt.

In addition the applicant faces an income test. Monthly remuneration or income must equal five published average-consumer subsistence minima or more. Sufficient personal bank funds may stand in place of the ordinary evidence of an income stream where the residence rules allow.

Three residence timetables are on offer, and the charge follows the speed:

An initial temporary residence period ordinarily runs between six months and one year. Neither those residence charges nor those periods govern the duration or the cost of the separate labour authorisation.

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Employer financial tests, staffing quotas and residence eligibility

Employer financial capacity is judged on one basis for the labour decision and on another for residence. Two turnover benchmarks apply per supported overseas worker:

The residence side examines turnover across 12 consecutive calendar months ending at the filing, normally through Revenue Service data.

An employer standing outside the VAT register must evidence that status and produce material from which actual receipts can be established. Other reliable material may support the figure where objective circumstances prevent production of a prescribed certificate. The residence authority therefore examines economic evidence for those 12 months, and company registration by itself establishes no threshold.

Residence assessment carries its own start-up relief. An enterprise no older than three months may support as many as three overseas workers without an ordinary turnover certificate, provided every remaining condition is met. Six months then caps that enterprise's first work-residence grant.

Workforce controls stand apart from the financial tests. An annual employer quota applies at the thresholds described above, and national limits attach to particular occupations:

Eligibility can therefore depend on availability under the relevant quota even where the financial figures are satisfied.

On the applicant side the means test stays at five average-consumer subsistence minima. Employer-side review extends to turnover and quota capacity on rules of its own. Those tests remain distinct on the immigration route labelled work residence permit in Georgia. Personal means are tested on one side, employer economic capacity on the other, and quota rules address the permitted scale or occupation of overseas recruitment.

IT specialists, short-term activity and overseas remote work

A specific residence route exists for qualifying IT professionals, and four requirements govern it:

• relevant IT work over two years, as the minimum record;

• qualifying IT remuneration for the prior year of USD 25,000 in GEL equivalent;

• two or more receipts for it, whose dates lie 30 days apart or further;

• for an entrepreneur, a business inside the prescribed technology activities.

Three years is the outer duration the applicable procedure allows an IT professional holding a Georgia work permit. Residence status rests on a separate decision, so the two sets of validity dates need not coincide.

IT residence also carries a physical-presence condition. Absence from Georgia beyond 183 days across any continuous 12 months gives the residence authority a statutory ground to terminate that status.

Short-term professional activity works through a separate mechanism. Under that exception qualifying activity stops at four months per calendar year, registration comes beforehand, and the person's lawful stay bounds the activity. Registration creates no residence basis of its own.

Wholly overseas work is different again. Someone engaged through a Georgian employer while discharging every duty abroad may come within the overseas-performance exclusion, so long as the work requires no travel into the country. A separate exemption can extend to qualifying services belonging to the operations a non-resident conducts elsewhere. Once the person actually works inside Georgia, the analysis turns to the real activity and the immigration position. Neither the remote-work label nor labour-authorisation terminology answers that question without the underlying facts.

Renewal, termination, penalties and the transition period

Renewal stays bifurcated, because labour permission and immigration status run on different administrative tracks. A Georgia work permit renewal is due 30 calendar days ahead of expiry at the latest. Ordinary initial authorisation lasts between six and 12 months. Through years one to five a standard extension usually reaches one year and no further. Special rules, the IT duration described above among them, can produce another result.

Five calendar days is the reporting window for termination and for any other reportable change in employment. Within that period the employer updates the electronic register of labour migration. July's amendment carves out pay, internal grade and schedule changes: while the substantive role is unchanged, those adjustments alone call for no replacement labour decision.

Several grounds bring employment authority to an end. The underlying relationship terminates, the authorised scope changes, a filing deadline passes, the immigration basis lapses, the follow-on residence or D1 application ends in refusal, or another statutory ground arises. Labour and immigration decisions stay formally separate even though the agencies exchange information. After early termination two working days are allowed for passing what the labour body holds to PSDA, or to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs where D1 is the immigration basis.

Unauthorised work draws escalating administrative fines. GEL 2,000 answers a first breach, GEL 4,000 a second and GEL 12,000 a third. Which party bears the sanction depends on the provision breached, and the hiring side may answer alongside the overseas employee or independent worker.

Refusal may arise from an incomplete file left uncured, from failure to establish an applicable criterion, from quota or occupation restrictions, or from another statutory ground. A court challenge to the labour decision has to be brought inside one month. Proceedings do not suspend the prohibition on working while judgment is awaited.

The transition applies to people with an active labour-migration registration on the reform date, March 1, 2026. January 1, 2027 is the date by which the labour permission and the appropriate residence permit must both be held. The extension moves timing alone; it does not merge the two statuses.