Visa-Free Stay in Georgia: the One-Year Rule, Visa Runs and Overstaying

Nationals of the countries on Georgia's visa-free list may enter and stay for up to one full year without a visa, at the time of writing. That is the whole answer to lawful presence for many newcomers, and the most over-read sentence in Georgian immigration. The visa-free year is a permitted period of stay. It is not a residence permit, it gives no residence card, nothing in the law promises that leaving and re-entering starts a fresh year, and since 1 March 2026 it does not by itself allow you to work here. A stay beyond the permitted period is a breach of the Law on the Legal Status of Aliens and Stateless Persons, with a penalty and consequences for later entries. The sections below take each point in turn and stop where the residence permit routes begin.

The visa-free year is a period of stay, not a right of residence

The Law on the Legal Status of Aliens and Stateless Persons distinguishes between being in Georgia lawfully for a period and residing in Georgia on a permit. A visa-free entry puts you in the first group. You may rent a home, open a bank account if a bank accepts your file, register a company or an individual entrepreneur, buy property and enrol a child at school. What you do not have is a residence card, a status that survives the end of the period, a basis for family reunification, or time that counts towards permanent residence. Those come with a residence permit, applied for on documents and decided by the Public Service Development Agency. The Law's own default for a visa-exempt alien is 90 days in any 180-day period; the full year is for the countries on the list the Government approves, which differs by country and changes. Confirm the position for your own passport before booking a flight, and for a spouse with a different nationality.

Visa runs: what re-entry does in practice and what the law promises

A visa run is a short trip abroad at the end of the permitted period, followed by re-entry in the hope of a fresh year. It has in practice worked for many people, often several times. Plainly, it is a sequence of separate entries, each decided by a border officer on the day. The Law gives the authorities discretion to refuse entry on grounds it lists, and nothing in it says that a year of lawful stay entitles you to another. A pattern of year-long stays with no visible basis for being here, no permit, no registered activity, no family tie, is exactly the pattern a residence permit is designed to replace.

• Treat each re-entry as a decision, not a formality. Carry the documents that show why you are here: a lease, a registry extract, a permit application receipt.
• Do not time anything important, a school year, a lease, a company's first trading months, around a border crossing you do not control.
• If you have lived here a year and intend to stay another, the question is which permit route fits, not how to cross the border again; the founders' residence permit guide compares the routes.
• Keep your own record of entries and exits. The same days decide your tax residency, and the Revenue Service counts them on border records.

Visas for nationals outside the list, and the D1 visa

A national of a country not on the visa-free list applies for a visa before travelling, in the category that matches the purpose of the stay; the categories, the documents and the channel depend on nationality and purpose and are confirmed case by case, so no figure is stated here. One category matters to founders in particular. The law names a D1 visa beside the residence permit as a basis on which a foreigner may hold the right to work in Georgia. For a founder from a visa-requiring country who intends to manage a Georgian company from Tbilisi, the sequence can start with the visa rather than a visa-free entry, and the right to work and the work residence permit follow. Which route is open to a given passport is the first question to settle in writing.

Overstaying is a breach with a penalty, and it follows you

A stay beyond the permitted period, whether a visa-free year, a visa or an expired permit, is a breach of the Law on the Legal Status of Aliens and Stateless Persons. It exposes the person to a penalty, and it can affect the next entry and the next application: an overstay sits in the border record that officers and the Agency can see. The amount of the penalty and the further consequences depend on the length of the overstay and the circumstances and are confirmed case by case rather than quoted as a figure; the Law itself says that an alien who has overstayed is refused a visa and entry into Georgia until the penalty is paid. If you are near the end of a permitted stay with no decision on a permit, act before the date, not after. A pending permit application does not by itself extend the period of stay: the Law lets the Agency defer the obligation to leave while a residence permit application is being decided, but that deferral is requested separately and granted by decision, so the timing of both is part of the plan.

1. 1

   Count the permitted period from the entry stamp, not from the day you started living here, and write the end date down.

2. 2

   Decide at least two months before that date whether you leave or apply for a permit; on the work route the right to work alone can take up to 30 calendar days.

3. 3

   If a permit is the answer, build the file early: legalised and translated documents take two to six weeks, and the permit application follows the right to work within 10 calendar days.

4. 4

   If you will not have a decision before the period ends and no deferral of the obligation to leave has been granted, leave before the date. A clean record is worth more than the weeks you would save.

5. 5

   If you have already overstayed, take advice before you travel, so the penalty is settled and the record explained once.

Staying is not working: the rule since 1 March 2026

Until 2026 a foreigner on a visa-free stay could register as an individual entrepreneur and invoice the same week. Since 1 March 2026 a foreigner who carries on activity in Georgia, as an employee of a Georgian employer or in their own name, needs the right to work under the Law on Labour Migration, held together with a residence permit or a D1 visa, unless one of the Law's exemptions applies. At the time of writing the exemptions include work or services for a non-resident connected with that non-resident's activity outside Georgia, and the Government's rule withholds that exemption from an individual entrepreneur who needs a residence permit to stay lawfully; the current list is the first thing to check. Working without the right to work is an offence with a fine, GEL 2,000 at the time of writing and rising on repetition, as our article on the 2026 right-to-work rule explains. Tax has not changed: Small Business status still taxes an individual entrepreneur at 1% of turnover. The order of events has.

What this article does not answer

It does not say which countries are on the visa-free list or for how long, which visa category fits a given passport, or what an overstay costs in lari: those are set by the Government, change, and are confirmed for each client rather than published here as figures. It does not compare the residence permit routes, which the founders' residence permit guide does, and it does not count the 183 days that make you a tax resident, which the tax residency article does. We prepare right-to-work and residence permit files and say in writing which route fits before any state fee is paid. We do not control the border or the Agency, and nobody does.