Georgia's Mandatory Travel Insurance Requirement

You booked the flight, checked the visa rules, and nobody mentioned insurance. Since 2026 Georgia requires every visitor to carry cover of at least GEL 30,000, and it is a condition of entry rather than a recommendation. The number is low enough that a decent policy clears it without effort and specific enough that the wrong one does not. Here is what the requirement is, who it catches, what to have with you at the border, and where the published rules stop.

The requirement, and the only number in it

Georgia now conditions entry for foreign nationals on holding insurance with a minimum coverage of GEL 30,000. At the rate we use across this site that is about $11,500, but the lari figure is the one written into the rule. Exchange rates drift and statutory amounts do not, which is why we quote both and treat the lari one as the requirement.

The conditions under which a foreign national may enter and remain in Georgia sit in the Law on the Legal Status of Aliens and Stateless Persons, and the operational entry rules are published by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The insurance condition arrived as part of the broader set of 2026 immigration changes rather than as a standalone tourism measure, which matters for how it is likely to be checked: it sits alongside the border and inspection powers expanded in October 2025, not alongside a tourist board campaign.

One honest caveat before the detail. What is firmly established is the GEL 30,000 minimum and that it applies to visitors. The finer operational questions, including the exact penalty for arriving without cover and whether particular insurers are recognised, are not something we can point you at a published source for. Where that is the case in this post, we say so instead of filling the gap.

Who it applies to

All visitors. That phrase is doing more work than it looks, so here is what it covers in practice.

Citizens of roughly 95 countries can enter Georgia without applying for anything, which is exactly why this catches people. There is no application form in which somebody would have asked you about insurance. You simply arrive. If you are unsure which of the rows above is yours, the entry rules by nationality settle it, and nationalities that need to apply in advance should look at the online visa process before booking anything.

Residence permit holders, and applicants

The rule is framed around visitors, and a residence permit holder returning home to Tbilisi is not entering as a visitor. That is the natural reading and it is the one we would act on.

We are not going to tell you it is settled, because we cannot show you the line that settles it. The practical position: if you hold a valid card, carry it, and keep whatever health cover you hold current anyway. If your permit is in process and you are still in the country on a visitor basis, you are a visitor and the requirement applies to you.

There is a second, separate point that people conflate with this one. A residence permit application filed with the Public Service Development Agency has its own insurance expectations as part of the supporting file, and they are not the same document as a travel policy bought for a flight. The distinction between the tourist minimum and what a permit file wants is covered in the guide to health insurance for a residence permit, and the wider document checklist by route shows where it fits in the sequence.

What a qualifying policy needs to show

The only statutory element we can state with confidence is the GEL 30,000 minimum sum insured. Everything else in this section is what any competent officer would expect a policy to demonstrate, and what a policy needs in order to be useful to you rather than merely present.

Check all six before you fly:

1. Sum insured of at least GEL 30,000, or the equivalent in another currency stated on the policy. If your policy is denominated in euros or dollars, make sure the number clears the lari threshold at a realistic rate rather than a flattering one.
2. Territorial scope that names Georgia, or a region that plainly includes it. Policies written for "Europe" sometimes stop at the EU border, and Georgia is not in the EU.
3. Medical treatment and emergency care, not merely cancellation and baggage. A travel policy that pays out when your suitcase is lost is not what this requirement is about.
4. Validity across the whole intended stay, with start and end dates that bracket your trip.
5. Your name, spelled as it appears in your passport. Each traveller needs their own cover, including children.
6. A version you can produce, printed or offline on your phone, in English or Georgian. Airport wifi is not a plan.

We are not aware of a published list of approved insurers, and we are not going to imply one exists. Any insurer whose policy satisfies the six points above is the working answer.

The duration trap, which is the real problem

The amount is easy. The dates are where people fail.

Georgia lets many nationalities stay for 365 days without a visa, and travel insurance is not built around year-long single trips. Three specific mismatches account for most of the exposure:

Annual multi-trip policies usually cap each trip. The headline says twelve months of cover; the terms often limit any single journey to 30, 45 or 60 days. A ten-month stay in Tbilisi is one journey. Read the per-trip limit, not the annual one.

Home-country residency clauses. Most travel policies require you to be resident in the country of issue and to be travelling from it. Spend most of the year in Georgia and you may fall outside the definition of the person the policy was sold to, which is a problem you discover at claim time rather than at the border.

Working invalidates a surprising number of them. Policies commonly exclude activity performed for payment, sometimes including desk work. If you are doing anything that looks like earning, check the wording. That is an insurance question rather than an immigration one: remote work performed from Georgia for clients or an employer abroad needs no Georgian permit of any kind.

A credit card policy is subject to the same three problems and usually a fourth: cover often depends on the trip being paid for on that card, and on you being a resident of the country that issued it.

What we cannot tell you about enforcement

Straight answer: we cannot point you at a published penalty schedule for arriving without cover, so we are not going to describe one. Nor can we tell you how consistently the check happens at each crossing, because that is operational practice rather than published rule.

What we can tell you is how to be indifferent to the answer. Have a policy that meets the six points above, have it readable without a network connection, and have it cover the whole period you intend to stay. That costs very little and removes the question entirely.

The reason to take it seriously rather than gamble is not the fine. It is that entry is a discretionary decision by an officer at the border, and an unresolved question about whether you meet a condition of entry is a bad thing to introduce into that conversation. A refused entry costs the flight, the plans and the day, and it leaves a record.

GEL 30,000 is a threshold, not a level of protection

The requirement is a compliance floor and treating it as a recommendation is a mistake worth naming.

GEL 30,000 is roughly $11,500. A medical evacuation by air ambulance from Tbilisi to Western Europe costs a multiple of that. A complicated inpatient stay can too. The number exists so that the state is not left carrying the cost of routine treatment for uninsured visitors, and it was set with that purpose rather than with your worst week in mind.

If you are here for a fortnight, buy the sensible policy you would buy for any trip and it will clear the threshold without you thinking about it. If you are here for a year, the question stops being about the border requirement at all and becomes a question about how you get treated if something serious happens. Those are different purchases.

If you are moving from visiting to living

The insurance question changes shape once you stop being a visitor.

A travel policy is priced and written for someone who has a home elsewhere and is away from it temporarily. Once Georgia is where you live, the honest product is local or international health cover rather than travel insurance, and the permit file will want evidence of something durable rather than a booking-linked certificate.

That transition usually happens at the same moment as several others. The route you qualify for, the Special Labour Permit if you are heading for a work or IT permit, the work residence permit application itself, and the 40-day filing deadline set by the the procedural rules on granting residence permits all land in the same few weeks. Insurance is the cheapest item on that list and the easiest to forget, and it then turns up as a missing document on the day you file.

If you are somewhere between a long holiday and a move, bring your dates and circumstances to a free consultation and we will tell you which side of the line you are on, what your file will need, and when the renewal cycle will ask for the same evidence again.

Free consultation

Thirty minutes to establish which route fits, what it costs, and whether you have enough time left on your current stay.

See what it costs

Key takeaways

• Every visitor to Georgia must hold insurance covering at least GEL 30,000, around $11,500, since 2026.
• The lari figure is the requirement. The dollar equivalent is a conversion that moves with the rate.
• It applies to visa-free arrivals, e-visa holders and consular visa holders, and each traveller including children needs cover in their own name.
• Check six things: the sum insured, that Georgia is inside the territorial scope, medical and emergency cover, dates covering the whole stay, the name, and an offline copy.
• The common failure is duration. Annual multi-trip policies often cap a single trip at 30 to 60 days, which a 365-day stay breaks.
• We cannot cite a published penalty for arriving without cover, so we will not describe one. Carry a policy and the question does not arise.
• GEL 30,000 is a compliance floor, not adequate protection. Medical evacuation costs far more.

Frequently asked questions

Is travel insurance mandatory for Georgia?

Yes. Since 2026 every visitor entering Georgia must hold insurance covering at least GEL 30,000. It is a condition of entry rather than a recommendation, and it applies whether you arrive visa-free, on an e-visa or on a consular visa.

How much insurance cover do I need to enter Georgia?

A minimum of GEL 30,000, which is roughly $11,500 at current rates. The amount is fixed in lari by the rule, so the dollar equivalent shifts with the exchange rate while the requirement stays the same. A policy denominated in another currency should clear the lari figure at a realistic rate.

Do I need insurance to enter Georgia if I have a residence permit?

The requirement is framed around visitors, and a permit holder returning to Georgia is not entering as a visitor. We would not describe that as formally settled, so carry your residence card and keep health cover current anyway. If your permit application is still in process and you are in Georgia on a visitor basis, you are a visitor for this purpose.

Does my Georgian travel insurance need to cover the whole 365 days?

It needs to cover the period you actually intend to stay, which for a long visa-free stay means a policy that does not quietly cap single trips at 30 or 60 days. Annual multi-trip products are the usual trap here, because the twelve-month headline refers to the policy year rather than to one journey.

What happens if I arrive in Georgia without travel insurance?

We cannot point you at a published penalty schedule, so we are not going to invent one. What we can say is that entry is a discretionary decision by a border officer, and failing a condition of entry is a poor position to be in during that conversation. A policy that meets the requirement costs little and removes the issue.

Does a credit card travel policy meet Georgia's insurance requirement?

It can, if the cover is at least GEL 30,000, includes medical treatment, names Georgia in its territorial scope and runs for your whole stay. Card policies frequently require the trip to have been paid for on that card and require you to be resident in the issuing country, so read those conditions before relying on it.

Does travel insurance cover me if I work remotely from Georgia?

Often not. Many travel policies exclude activity performed for payment, and many require you to be resident in the country the policy was issued in, which a long stay undermines. That is a question about your policy wording rather than your status: remote work for clients or an employer abroad requires no Georgian permit, so there is nothing on the immigration side to reconcile it with.

Is travel insurance the same as the health insurance a Georgian residence permit needs?

No. The GEL 30,000 rule is an entry condition on visitors. A residence permit application has its own insurance expectations as part of the supporting file, and a short travel policy bought for a flight is not usually what that file wants. Treat them as two separate purchases with two separate purposes.

Do children need their own insurance policy for Georgia?

Each traveller needs cover in their own name, so a child needs to be named on a family policy or hold their own. A parent's individual policy does not extend to a child by implication. Check that the certificate lists every person travelling exactly as their passports spell it.

Which insurers are approved for Georgia's insurance requirement?

We are not aware of a published list of approved insurers and we will not imply one exists. The working test is whether the policy shows at least GEL 30,000 of cover, includes medical and emergency treatment, names Georgia in its scope and runs for the whole stay. Any insurer meeting that qualifies.

Is GEL 30,000 enough insurance for a trip to Georgia?

It is enough to satisfy the entry requirement and it is not enough for a serious medical emergency. Air ambulance repatriation to Western Europe costs several times $11,500. Treat the threshold as a legal floor and buy the level of cover you would want anywhere else, particularly if you are staying for months rather than days.