You have two numbers in front of you and they are four years apart. One says you can apply for Georgian permanent residence after six years of temporary residence; the other says ten. Four years is not a rounding error when you are planning a life around it, and the difference decides whether you are nearly there or barely halfway. The requirement is ten. Here is the date it changed, why the older figure exists, and what to do if your plan assumed six.
Ten years, and the date the answer changed
Georgian permanent residence requires ten years of continuous lawful temporary residence.
The six-year figure was correct law until an amendment came into force on 12 May 2021. From that date the requirement has been ten. Both numbers were once right, which is exactly why the question is worth a page of its own: this is not a disagreement between authorities, it is a change with a date on it.
So the test is simple. Anything describing a six-year path to Georgian permanent residence is describing the position before 12 May 2021. If the figure you are holding is lower than ten, it predates the amendment and you should stop planning against it.
The permit categories, the permanent residence requirement and the grounds for refusal all sit in the Law on the Legal Status of Aliens and Stateless Persons, which is the operative text as amended rather than as originally passed.
Which figure applies to you
Ten. That is the answer for anyone applying now, and it is worth being unambiguous about it because the alternative reading is expensive.
We have not identified a transitional provision that preserves the six-year requirement for people who were already resident in Georgia when the amendment took effect. If one exists and applies to you, it will be established on the facts of your own file rather than assumed from a blog post. Plan on ten years, and treat anything better as something you get confirmed in writing before you rely on it.
That is a deliberately conservative position and it is the right one. A plan built on ten years that turns out to be shorter costs you nothing. A plan built on six that turns out to be ten leaves you filing an application four years early, paying for it, and being refused.
What four extra years actually costs you
The gap between six and ten is not four years of waiting. It is four more cycles of everything.
| What the extra four years adds | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Four more residence permit renewals | Each one is a fresh evidence pack, a government fee of GEL 300 to GEL 600 (about $115 to $230) by track, plus GEL 60 for the card |
| Four more filing deadlines | Every renewal is another chance to break the chain that the whole ten years rests on |
| Four more years of labour permit renewals on the work and IT routes | Since 1 March 2026 the Special Labour Permit sits underneath those two categories, on its own timetable |
| Four more years of continuity risk | A change of employer, a study-to-work transition or an unplanned absence can each produce a gap |
That last row is the one that hurts. The requirement is not ten years of living in Georgia, it is ten years of continuous permit-holding, and a gap between one permit expiring and the next being granted resets the count rather than pausing it. Nine years followed by a two-month gap leaves you at zero.
Four extra years is therefore four extra opportunities for the count to go back to the start, and the way it usually happens is not carelessness. Applications filed inside the last 40 days of your lawful stay are refused review rather than processed late, which produces precisely the gap that resets the clock. What breaks continuity in practice, and how to document a decade of permits, is worth understanding properly before year ten arrives, because continuity is what these applications actually turn on.
If you planned around six, here is how to recount
Most people are further from the mark than they think, for a second reason on top of the amendment: they count from the year they arrived rather than from the date their first permit was granted.
- Find the grant date of your first temporary residence permit. Not your first entry, not the date of your first lease. Visa-free presence accumulates nothing.
- List every permit since, with start and end dates. Use the cards and the decision letters, not memory.
- Mark every gap. Any period where one permit had expired and the next had not yet been granted breaks the chain, and the clock restarts from the grant date of the permit that followed it.
- Count ten years from the start of your current unbroken run.
- Check the years that changed route. Study to work, work to property, employer to employer. Those transitions are where the summer-shaped holes live.
If the recount puts you further out than you expected, that is unwelcome but it is information you can act on with years to spare. If it puts you at year eight when you thought you were at year six, the same is true in the better direction. The ten-year mechanics in full cover what counts, what does not and how the application evidences the whole decade.
The routes that really are shorter
Two exceptions exist, and they are the only ones.
Investment residence permit holders: five years. Holders of the investment residence permit at $300,000 reach permanent residence in five years rather than ten. For anyone comparing capital thresholds, halving the path to permanent status is a substantial part of what the additional money buys, alongside the five-year permit term and the exemption from work authorisation.
Spouse or minor child of a Georgian citizen: immediately. No waiting period at all. This is a different category rather than an accelerated one, and it is worth establishing early because it reshapes the whole plan for a mixed-nationality family.
Nothing else. There is no accelerated route for high earners, for property owners above a given value, for company founders, for people who have paid a lot of Georgian tax, or for anyone who has simply been here a long time on visa-free entry. If someone offers you a shorter path that is not one of the two above, ask them which provision it sits under.
Why the two numbers get tangled with citizenship
There is a second ten in Georgian migration law and it does real damage to people's planning.
Naturalisation as a Georgian citizen also requires ten years of continuous residence, plus examinations in Georgian language, history and law. So the same clock produces two different destinations, and it is common to hear the requirements quoted interchangeably, or to hear that permanent residence comes at six and citizenship at ten, which conflates the pre-2021 figure with the current one.
They are now the same duration and they are not the same thing. Permanent residence is an indefinite immigration status you can hold alongside your existing nationality. Naturalisation is a change of nationality, and Georgia does not generally permit dual citizenship, so it ordinarily expects you to renounce the passport you already hold. For almost everyone that makes permanent residence the destination and citizenship a separate decision, taken later and for different reasons. The side-by-side comparison sets out what each one gives you.
What to do at year six now
If your plan had you applying at year six, the year-six action is no longer an application. It is maintenance, and it decides whether year ten works.
Renew on time, every time. File the renewal well outside the 40-day window. Four more renewals with no gaps is the entire task.
Keep the paper. Every residence card, every decision letter, every entry and exit record. The permanent residence file evidences the whole decade rather than the last twelve months, and reconstructing years three to six at year ten is far harder than filing them as they happen.
Track the second clock. Since March 2026 the Special Labour Permit sits underneath the work and IT residence permits, run by a different agency on a different timetable. A lapse there can take the residence permit with it, and with it the continuity you have spent years building.
Reconsider the destination. Some people who planned for permanent residence at six years discover, on recounting, that what they actually want is the settled position rather than the specific status, and the investment route or a citizen spouse changes the arithmetic entirely.
Applications go through the Public Service Development Agency, assessed under the procedural rules on granting residence permits. We quote for permanent residence after reviewing the file rather than from a price list, because the work is proportional to how complete a decade of documents is, and that varies more than anything else on this site.
Indefinite status after ten years of continuous temporary residence, or five on an investment permit. Ends the renewal cycle and the labour permit requirement with it.
See what it costs
Key takeaways
- Georgian permanent residence requires ten years of continuous temporary residence.
- It was six years until 12 May 2021, when an amendment raising the requirement came into force. Any lower figure describes the earlier position.
- Plan on ten. We have not identified a transitional provision preserving six years for people already resident in 2021.
- Investment residence permit holders qualify at five years. The spouse or minor child of a Georgian citizen qualifies immediately.
- The extra four years mean four more renewals, four more deadlines and four more chances to break continuity.
- Count from the grant date of your first permit, not from the year you arrived. Visa-free time counts for nothing.
- Naturalisation also takes ten years, but it ordinarily costs you your existing nationality. Permanent residence does not.
Frequently asked questions
Is Georgian permanent residence six years or ten years?
Ten. The requirement is ten years of continuous temporary residence in Georgia. It was six years until an amendment came into force on 12 May 2021 and raised it, so any figure below ten describes the position before that date rather than the law you will be assessed under.
When did Georgia change permanent residence from six years to ten?
On 12 May 2021, when the amendment raising the requirement came into force. Both figures were correct law at different times, which is why the question comes up so often. Applications made now are assessed against the ten-year requirement.
Does the six-year rule still apply if I moved to Georgia before 2021?
Plan on ten years. We have not identified a transitional provision that preserves the six-year requirement for people who were already resident when the amendment took effect. If something in your own file supports a shorter period, get it confirmed in writing before you rely on it rather than assuming it.
What counts toward the ten years for Georgian permanent residence?
Time held on a temporary residence permit: work, IT, property, family reunification or study. Visa-free presence accumulates nothing, however continuous it is, and time on a permit that was later revoked does not count either. The count runs from the grant date of your first permit.
Can I get Georgian permanent residence faster than ten years?
In two situations. Investment residence permit holders qualify after five years, and the spouse or minor child of a Georgian citizen qualifies immediately with no waiting period. Nothing else shortens the requirement, including high income, property ownership above any value, or founding a company.
What breaks the ten years of continuous residence in Georgia?
A gap between one permit expiring and the next being granted. It resets the count rather than pausing it, so nine years followed by a two-month gap leaves you at zero. Revocation of a permit and prolonged absence from Georgia also undermine the chain.
How do I count my ten years if I have changed permit types?
Changing route is fine, and it does not restart anything by itself. What matters is that each new permit was granted before the previous one expired. Lay the permits out in order with their grant and expiry dates, and look for periods where nothing was in force.
Is Georgian citizenship also ten years?
Yes, and the overlap causes confusion. Naturalisation requires ten years of continuous residence plus examinations in Georgian language, history and law, or five years if you are married to a Georgian citizen. The duration is the same as permanent residence, but the outcome is not.
Should I apply for permanent residence at six years anyway?
No. An application made four years short of the requirement will be refused, and you will have paid the fee and spent the time. If you are at year six, the useful work is renewing on time, keeping the document trail intact and protecting the continuity that the year-ten application depends on.
What does permanent residence in Georgia actually give me?
Indefinite status with no expiry and no renewal cycle, and exemption from the Special Labour Permit introduced on 1 March 2026, so Georgian employment and Georgian clients need no second filing. It does not give you a Georgian passport, the vote, or the right to own agricultural land, all of which remain with citizenship.
What should I keep for my permanent residence application?
Every residence card, every decision letter, and evidence of the basis for each period of residence, plus entry and exit records. The application evidences the whole ten years rather than the current permit, and assembling that from scratch in year ten is the single most avoidable difficulty on this route.
