Lithuanian developers and product people are the fastest-growing group we file for, and they arrive with the same three blind spots. Departure has to be declared once you are away more than six months. Multi-page documents have to be thread sewn before a notary will apostille them. And Lithuanian citizenship is lost on acquiring another state's citizenship, which closes the Georgian passport route before it opens. Georgia's side is straightforward. Yours needs sequencing.
Can you enter Georgia, and for how long?
Yes, for one full year at a time. Lithuania appears by name on the list annexed to the Georgian ordinance approving visa-free entry, which fixes the permitted stay at one full year and was last amended on 24 February 2026. We read that text on 1 August 2026, and it is the instrument Georgian border officers apply rather than any summary of it.
That single fact sets the plan. You can be lawfully present for a year without asking anyone, so land, assemble the file in Tbilisi and submit it at a Public Service Hall. Filing through a Georgian mission in Lithuania is available and slower, and it costs you the ability to fix a queried document at the counter.
Two conditions ride on the entry itself. Every visitor from 2026 needs travel or health insurance carrying at least GEL 30,000 of cover, checked at the border under the 2026 insurance rule. And the year of visa-free stay is presence rather than status, so it accrues nothing toward permanent residence, however many times you reset it.
Which route actually fits a Lithuanian applicant
Georgia's routes, thresholds and government fees do not change with your passport. What changes is which route your working life actually supports.
The property route at $150,000 and the investment route need no home-country criminal record certificate, which removes the notarial apostille from the schedule entirely.
Everyone else lands on the work or IT routes, and since 1 March 2026 both sit behind a second permit. The Special Labour Permit is a prerequisite rather than a parallel filing, so a residence permit application submitted before the labour permit has been granted produces a refusal. Lithuanian contractors invoicing Vilnius or Kaunas clients from a Tbilisi flat are inside that sequence too once they want the card. Foreign clients on their own engage no permit, and a Lithuanian individual activity certificate does not travel either way.
The IT residence permit is where most of the Lithuanian relocation flow ends up, at $25,000 of annual income, two years of experience and a three-year term. The income threshold is rarely the problem. The two years of experience is, because a Lithuanian applicant who has worked through a personal company or on individual activity often has invoices rather than employment records, and the file has to establish the experience rather than assert it. The IT permit guide sets out what qualifies, and the condition of 183 days a year in Georgia is worth reading before you commit to the route rather than after.
Your document chain, and the EU form that does not help
Two documents, one notary, and one instrument that is easy to reach for and wrong.
The certificate comes from the Register of Suspects, Accused and Convicts, administered by the Information Technology and Communications Department under the Ministry of the Interior. Its published rates are 8.67 euros for a first certificate within ten working days on a personal visit, or 8.17 euros where it is delivered electronically, with an urgent one-working-day procedure at 13.00 euros and 12.26 euros respectively. Additional copies under the same request are 0.29 euros each. You can order through the electronic services portal, by post, in person, or at a Lithuanian diplomatic mission if you are already abroad.
Do not order the multilingual standard form for this. It exists so that a Lithuanian certificate can be read by an authority in another EU member state without translation, and it is issued in Lithuanian alongside the official language of an EU country. Georgia is not an EU member state, the arrangement does not reach it, and the form will not save you a Georgian translation or an apostille.
The apostille comes from a notary. Lithuanian notaries have been able to place an apostille since 2016, the fee published by the Chamber of Notaries is 12 euros, and the documents inside scope include those issued by state and municipal institutions, court officers, administrative documents, notarised documents and notarised transcripts. Two practical requirements catch people out: the document has to be in order and legible, and where it runs to several pages those pages must be thread sewn. The Consular Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs handles apostilles only for documents originating from Lithuanian diplomatic missions and consular posts, so for anything issued inside Lithuania the notary is your office.
Translation happens in Georgia, on the paper original, after the apostille is attached. A translation prepared in Lithuania is itself a Lithuanian document needing its own certification. What actually gets rejected is set out in the full apostille sequence, the police certificate procedures by country and the rules on certified translation.
What Lithuania does when you leave
Declaring departure is a legal duty, not a formality. If you leave Lithuania for more than six months you must declare your departure under the Law on Declaration of Residence. Anyone who failed to declare before leaving can do it afterwards through the e-government portal, identifying themselves by internet banking or a qualified electronic signature, or at a Lithuanian diplomatic mission or consular post. Administrative liability attaches to failing the declaration duty, and the declaration is also what stops Lithuanian institutions treating a stale address as current.
Tax residence follows presence and permanence. Lithuania treats you as resident where you are present for 183 days or more in a tax period, or for 280 days or more across successive tax periods with at least 90 days in one of them, or where you have a permanent place of residence there. Someone who has established a permanent place of residence in Lithuania and then departs is treated as resident until the day of departure where they spend under 183 days in that tax period.
There is a trailing rule, and it is narrower than the Finnish one but worth checking against your own facts. A person who has been a Lithuanian resident for at least three successive tax periods and then departs permanently for a target territory, where they remain related to Lithuania by significant commercial interests, is treated as resident for the whole tax period of departure and the two following ones. The list of target territories is set by the Lithuanian authorities and we have not verified today whether Georgia appears on it, so if you hold significant Lithuanian commercial interests, ask your Lithuanian adviser to confirm the current list before you count on a clean break. The general residence and departure rules above apply regardless.
None of that is triggered by a Georgian permit. It is triggered by the facts of your presence and your interests, which is the same distinction that separates holding a permit from being tax resident on our side.
The treaty position and the citizenship endgame
Georgia's Ministry of Finance publishes 58 double tax treaties in force and Lithuania is among them. A treaty allocates taxing rights and breaks ties where both countries claim the same income, which is the comfortable column and one that American, Canadian and Australian applicants do not sit in.
A treaty does not make you Georgian tax resident. Georgia's own rule is 183 days in a rolling twelve-month window, and it bites whether or not you hold a card.
Citizenship is where a Lithuanian reader should stop early. Lithuanian law provides that citizenship of the Republic of Lithuania is lost upon acquisition of the citizenship of another state, with exceptions that are narrow and mostly historical: people who hold it by birth in defined circumstances, those deported or who left before 11 March 1990 and their descendants, and citizenship acquired by marriage or adoption. Naturalising in Georgia is not in any of those categories. Georgia points the same way from the other end, because it does not generally permit dual citizenship and expects renunciation, with an exception by presidential decree on state-interest grounds. Both doors are shut, so treat the dual citizenship position as settled and treat permanent residence at ten years, which requires no renunciation of anything, as the destination.
Timeline, cost and the verdict
Count backwards. Georgian law requires the application to be filed at least 40 calendar days before your lawful stay expires, and anything filed inside that window is refused review rather than assessed. On a work or IT route the labour permit decision sits in front of that again, and the counting rule is in the 40-day rule.
For a Lithuanian applicant the realistic trigger is around two months out on the standard track, or a fortnight less if you use the urgent certificate procedure. Government fees on the Georgian side are identical on every passport, and the full cost breakdown by route covers the state fees alongside ours. How nationality changes the shape of a file is compared across the guides by nationality.
The verdict is straightforward, with one decision to make consciously rather than by drift. The document chain is cheap, the notary is fast, the treaty is in place and entry is free for a year. What a Lithuanian reader should decide up front is whether they ever want a Georgian passport, because the answer determines whether the ten-year permanent residence track or the citizenship track is the one you are building toward, and only one of them lets you keep the passport you have.
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See what it costs, from $450
Key takeaways
- Lithuanian citizens enter Georgia visa-free for one full year, verified against the Georgian visa-free ordinance on 1 August 2026.
- Notaries have issued apostilles since 2016 at EUR 12, and a document of several pages must be thread sewn first.
- The criminal record certificate costs EUR 8.67 within ten working days, or EUR 13.00 under the urgent one-day procedure.
- The EU multilingual standard form is an intra-EU instrument and does nothing for a Georgian filing.
- Declaring departure is a legal duty once you are leaving for more than six months, with administrative liability for failing it.
- Lithuanian tax residence turns on 183 days, or 280 across successive periods with 90 in one, or a permanent place of residence.
- Lithuanian citizenship is lost on acquiring another state's citizenship, so permanent residence in Georgia is the realistic endgame.
Frequently asked questions
Can Lithuanian citizens enter Georgia without a visa?
Yes, for one full year at a time, and the period resets when you leave and return. Lithuania is listed by name in the annex to the Georgian ordinance on visa-free entry, checked on 1 August 2026. Every visitor also needs travel or health insurance carrying at least GEL 30,000 of cover, which has applied since 2026.
Which police certificate does Georgia want from a Lithuanian applicant?
A certificate from the Register of Suspects, Accused and Convicts, issued by the Information Technology and Communications Department under the Ministry of the Interior, then apostilled. It is 8.67 euros within ten working days, or 13.00 euros under the urgent one-working-day procedure. Order it in the name exactly as your passport spells it.
Who issues an apostille in Lithuania?
A notary. Notaries have been able to place apostilles since 2016 and the Chamber of Notaries publishes the fee at 12 euros. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs handles only documents originating from Lithuanian diplomatic missions and consular posts, so anything issued inside Lithuania goes to a notary instead.
Should I order the EU multilingual standard form for Georgia?
No. It exists so a Lithuanian document can be read by an authority in another EU member state without translation, and it is issued in Lithuanian alongside another EU official language. Georgia is outside that arrangement, so the form replaces neither the apostille nor the certified Georgian translation.
Do I have to declare my departure from Lithuania?
Yes, if you are leaving for more than six months. It is a duty under the Law on Declaration of Residence and administrative liability attaches to failing it. If you have already left you can declare through the e-government portal using internet banking or a qualified electronic signature, or at a Lithuanian diplomatic mission or consular post.
When does Lithuanian tax residence end after I move to Georgia?
Lithuania treats you as resident where you are present 183 days or more in a tax period, or 280 days or more across successive periods with at least 90 in one of them, or where you have a permanent place of residence there. Someone who had a permanent place of residence and departs is treated as resident until the day of departure if they spend under 183 days that period.
Can Lithuania keep taxing me after I leave for Georgia?
There is a narrow trailing rule for someone resident for at least three successive tax periods who departs permanently for a target territory while retaining significant commercial interests in Lithuania, which extends residence to the departure period and two more. Whether Georgia is on the current list of target territories is a question for a Lithuanian adviser, and we have not verified it here.
Is there a Lithuanian tax treaty with Georgia?
Yes. Georgia's Ministry of Finance lists 58 treaties in force and Lithuania is among them. It allocates taxing rights and breaks ties where both states claim the same income, which is a materially better position than American, Canadian or Australian applicants are in.
Can a Lithuanian citizen work remotely from Georgia without a permit?
Yes. The Special Labour Permit follows who pays you rather than where you sit, so invoicing a Lithuanian company from Tbilisi does not engage it. The permit is required in three situations: employing foreign staff in Georgia, trading as an Individual Entrepreneur with Georgian clients, and applying for a work or IT residence permit. If you want the residence card, the labour permit comes first whoever your clients are.
Would taking Georgian citizenship cost me my Lithuanian citizenship?
Yes, on the ordinary reading of Lithuanian law, which provides that citizenship is lost on acquisition of the citizenship of another state. The exceptions are narrow and mostly historical, and naturalisation in Georgia is not among them. Georgia expects renunciation in any event, so permanent residence after ten years is the route that keeps your Lithuanian passport intact.
