Georgia is one of the easier countries in the region for a foreign national to buy in, which is exactly why people skip the parts that matter. There is no permission to obtain, no minimum holding period and no nationality bar on ordinary real estate. There is a hard prohibition on agricultural land, a registry that decides who owns what regardless of your contract, and a set of checks that are cheap before you sign and impossible afterwards. Here is the whole sequence.
What a foreign national is allowed to own
For ordinary real estate the answer is short. A foreign national may own an apartment, a house, an office, a shop, a warehouse or non-agricultural land on essentially the same footing as a Georgian citizen. No prior approval is required, no local partner is required, and you do not need to hold a residence permit or live in Georgia to buy.
Two consequences follow that people find counter-intuitive.
Owning does not make you a resident. Title and immigration status are separate things granted by separate authorities. You can own a Tbilisi apartment for a decade while entering as a visitor and leaving when your permitted stay runs out.
Being a resident does not make buying easier. A permit holder buys under the same rules as a tourist. The direction of dependency runs the other way: property can support a residence permit application, and residence status does nothing for the purchase.
The agricultural land prohibition
This is the one hard bar, and it is not a technicality that a lawyer routes around.
Foreign nationals generally cannot own agricultural land in Georgia. The restriction has been introduced, struck down, reinstated and re-legislated across more than one round of constitutional and statutory change, which is why the position sounds unsettled in older discussions of it. Treat the prohibition as live and verify the position on the specific plot before any money moves.
Three practical points do most of the work here.
The category is what the registry says, not what the land looks like. A plot's designation is recorded, and a scrubby field on the edge of a village and a productive vineyard may sit in the same category. Equally, land that has been reclassified is not agricultural merely because crops once grew on it. Read the extract.
A house on agricultural land is a compound problem. Buildings and the land they stand on are recorded together in ways that matter, and a purchase that includes an agricultural parcel is not saved by the fact that the thing you actually wanted was the cottage.
It closes the route as well as the purchase. Because agricultural land cannot be owned, it cannot form the basis of a property residence permit either. Anyone shown a rural plot with residency implied should stop at that sentence.
Structures that purport to put agricultural land in a foreign buyer's hands indirectly are exactly where this goes wrong, and the risk is not merely that the arrangement unwinds. It is that it unwinds after you have paid.
The Public Registry decides who owns what
Georgian property ownership is registered. The transfer happens when the National Agency of Public Registry records it, not when the parties sign, and not when the money lands. A perfectly drafted contract with an unregistered transfer leaves you holding a claim against a seller rather than a property.
The registry extract is the document that matters, and it tells you four things at once: who the registered owner is, the cadastral code identifying the exact parcel or unit, the area and description, and what is registered against it.
That last item is where purchases fail. An extract can show a mortgage in favour of a bank, a tax lien, a court-ordered restriction on disposal, a seizure, a right of way, or a note that the building's legal status is not what the marketing suggests. None of these are visible on a viewing.
Pull a fresh extract yourself rather than accepting one handed to you. An extract dated six weeks ago describes a property as it stood six weeks ago, and the whole function of a register is that it changes.
Due diligence, in the order that catches things
Confirm the seller is the registered owner. Not the developer, not the agent, not a relative acting informally. Where someone signs under a power of attorney, verify the instrument itself and its scope, because a PoA that permits management does not permit sale.
Check for encumbrances on a same-day extract. Mortgages, liens, restrictions and disputes.
Check the legal status of the construction. Unregularised building work, an extension that was never signed off, or a block completed without the right permissions are all common enough to ask about specifically, and they surface later as a problem for you rather than the person who built it.
Ask about marital consent. Property acquired during a marriage may be treated as jointly owned even where one spouse is the registered name. Getting the consent that the situation calls for is routine. Discovering afterwards that it was needed is not.
Ask about arrears. Utility debts and building management charges are a negotiation point, and the negotiation is much easier before completion.
For off-plan, understand what you are actually buying. Until the building exists and title transfers, you hold a contractual claim on a developer, not a property. Check the developer's own title to the land and its construction permissions, and understand that no residence permit application is possible until the unit is registered in your name.
Plan the money. Banks apply anti-money-laundering checks to incoming funds and will ask where the purchase money came from. Assemble that evidence before you transfer rather than while a completion date slips.
What it actually costs to buy
Georgian transaction costs are low by European standards, and low is not the same as nil. The line items are these.
| Cost | Who sets it | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Public Registry fee | Published state tariff | Varies with turnaround. Faster registration costs more |
| Notary fee | Regulated tariff | Where the transaction is notarised |
| Agent commission | Negotiated | Agree who pays it, in writing, before viewing offers |
| Translation and certification | Market | Needed where documents are not in Georgian |
| Accredited valuation | Market | Only if you are pursuing a residence permit |
| Bank and currency costs | Your bank | Often the largest overlooked item on a cross-border purchase |
We are deliberately not publishing figures for the registry and notary tariffs here. They are set by published schedules that are revised, and a stale number in a blog post is worse than no number when you can read the current tariff directly from the registry before you file. Ask for a written quotation covering every line above, and treat any answer that gives you one combined number as incomplete.
Annual property tax exists in Georgia and turns on your circumstances and the property. Confirm your own position with the Revenue Service or an adviser rather than assuming the figure quoted to a different buyer applies to you.
Buy qualifying Georgian property and get a renewable one-year residence permit. No job, no business, and no criminal record certificate on the published document list.
See what it costs, from $570
Buying does not get you a residence permit. Value does
Owning Georgian property is not a residence permit. It is the factual basis on which one can be applied for, and there is a threshold in between.
The threshold is $150,000 in assessed value, in force since 1 March 2026, and the March 2026 rise from $100,000 caught buyers who had budgeted against the old figure. What decides it is assessed value certified by an assessor accredited through the Unified National Accreditation Body, not your purchase price, and the gap between price paid and value certified is where applications fail. Get an indicative figure before you commit.
The permit itself is granted under the Law on the Legal Status of Aliens and Stateless Persons, applied for under the procedural rules on granting residence permits and decided by the Public Service Development Agency. It runs one year at a time and can cover a spouse and minor children on the same purchase, which is set out in full in the property residence permit route.
What it does not carry is an exemption from the Special Labour Permit, which since 1 March 2026 is required of a Georgian employer hiring foreign staff and of an Individual Entrepreneur billing Georgian clients. Only the investment permit and permanent residence carry that exemption. If your income comes from clients or an employer outside Georgia, none of this is engaged and the property permit is doing exactly the job you bought it for.
Buying through a company
You can buy through a Georgian company, and people do it for commercial reasons: multiple investors, a development project, an operating business that needs premises.
For residency purposes it defeats the object. The permit rests on ownership by the applicant, and property registered to a company you control is owned by the company. If the residence permit is any part of why you are buying, buy in your own name.
Where a company genuinely is the right vehicle, formation and the tax regime that follows are a separate discipline from immigration, and company registration in Georgia is handled on our sister site. Registration confers no residence rights by itself.
Before you buy, think about the exit
Two things that feel distant at purchase decide how comfortable the next few years are.
Letting it out. Most buyers intend to. Whether the income affects the permit, what tax treatment applies and whether a management agreement changes the analysis are all covered in letting a Georgian property on a residence permit, and there is one genuinely open question about work authorisation in there that nobody should be answering confidently.
Selling it. The basis for the permit goes with the property. Anyone who buys, obtains residency and later treats the apartment as a tradeable asset finds out at renewal, which is why the sequence around a sale needs planning before the listing rather than after the offer.
If the plan is a base you keep for years, the property residence permit service is the right shape. If the plan is a trade, buy the property and stop calling it a residency route.
Key takeaways
- Foreign nationals can buy residential, commercial and non-agricultural land in Georgia with no prior permission and no residence requirement.
- Agricultural land is generally off-limits to foreign nationals, and it cannot support a residence permit either.
- Title comes from the Public Registry entry. The contract is not the transfer.
- Pull a fresh extract yourself and read the encumbrances before money moves.
- Costs are low but itemised: registry fee, notary, commission, translation, valuation and bank charges. Get every line in writing.
- Buying does not grant a residence permit or work authorisation. The permit needs $150,000 in assessed value and a separate application.
- Buying through a company is fine commercially and fatal to the residency route.
Frequently asked questions
Can foreigners buy property in Georgia?
Yes. Foreign nationals may buy residential and commercial real estate and non-agricultural land without prior permission, without a local partner and without holding a residence permit. The one significant exception is agricultural land, which foreign nationals generally cannot own at all.
Can a foreigner buy agricultural land in Georgia?
Generally no. The prohibition on foreign ownership of agricultural land has been through several rounds of constitutional and legislative change, so verify the current position on the specific plot before contracting. Because the land cannot be owned, it also cannot form the basis of a property residence permit.
Do I need a residence permit to buy property in Georgia?
No. Ownership and immigration status are separate, and you can buy as a visitor or without ever having entered the country. The relationship runs the other way: a qualifying purchase can support a residence permit application, while holding a permit does nothing to make the purchase easier.
What is the Public Registry in Georgia and why does it matter?
The National Agency of Public Registry records land and property ownership, and the entry in it is what makes you the owner. Signing the contract and paying the money do not transfer title on their own. The registry extract also shows the cadastral code, the area and any mortgages, liens or court restrictions registered against the property.
What checks should I run before buying an apartment in Georgia?
Confirm the seller is the registered owner on a same-day extract, read every encumbrance on it, check the legal status of the construction, ask whether spousal consent is required, and settle any utility or building arrears before completion. For an off-plan purchase, check the developer's own title and permissions, because until the unit is registered to you what you hold is a claim rather than a property.
How much does it cost to buy property in Georgia?
The main items are the Public Registry fee, notary costs, agent commission, translation where documents are not in Georgian, and your own bank's cross-border charges. Registry and notary tariffs are published and revised, so read the current schedule rather than a figure quoted second-hand, and ask for a written itemised quotation rather than one combined number.
Does buying property in Georgia give me residency?
Not automatically. It creates the factual basis for a separate application, and the property has to be assessed at $150,000 or more by an accredited assessor. That threshold rose from $100,000 on 1 March 2026, so treat any lower figure as out of date.
Can I work in Georgia if I buy property there?
It depends on who pays you. A property residence permit confirms your right to live in Georgia and carries no exemption from the Special Labour Permit, so a Georgian employer hiring you needs one, and billing Georgian clients as an Individual Entrepreneur needs one. Work done for clients or an employer outside Georgia does not engage the permit at all.
Should I buy Georgian property in my own name or through a company?
In your own name if residency is any part of the reason. The permit rests on ownership by the applicant, and property held by a company you control is owned by the company rather than by you. A company can be the right vehicle for genuinely commercial reasons, and it forecloses the residency route.
Can my spouse and I buy a Georgian property together for the residence permit?
You can buy jointly, and it complicates the permit. The registry records shares, so on the natural reading each of you holds your share rather than the whole, and two half-owners of a $200,000 apartment are not two people holding $150,000. The structure that avoids the question is one qualifying owner with the family joining through family reunification.
