Swedes look for the apostille office and there isn't one. Sweden handed the job to every notary public in the country, which is faster than a ministry once you know it and a wasted fortnight if you don't. The bigger problem is behind you rather than in front: for five years after you leave, Skatteverket puts the burden on you to prove your essential ties to Sweden are gone. Here is the Swedish half of a Georgian residence permit.
Can you enter Georgia, and for how long?
Yes, for a full year at a time. Sweden appears on the list annexed to the Georgian ordinance approving visa-free entry, which sets the permitted stay at one full year and was last amended on 24 February 2026. We checked that text on 1 August 2026.
Because you are lawfully present for a year without asking anyone's permission, the sensible sequence is to land, assemble documents in Tbilisi and file at a Public Service Hall. Filing through a Georgian mission in Sweden is available and slower, and it removes your ability to fix a queried document in person. The year of visa-free stay resets on re-entry, and it accrues nothing toward permanent residence. Every visitor also needs travel or health insurance with at least GEL 30,000 of cover under the 2026 insurance rule.
Which route actually fits a Swedish applicant
The routes, thresholds and government fees are the same on every passport. What differs is the fit with how Swedish readers arrive, which is usually employed, seconded or running an enskild firma.
Since 1 March 2026 the Special Labour Permit is a prerequisite rather than a parallel process, so a work residence permit filed before it is granted produces a refusal rather than a delay. That sequence catches Swedes who kept a firm at home and assumed the Swedish registration answered the question, because it is the residence permit that triggers it rather than the invoices.
The IT residence permit suits a large part of the Swedish technology cohort at $25,000 of annual income and two years of experience, for a three-year term. Its 183-days-a-year presence condition reads as a restriction and is quietly useful to you, because a counted, evidenced half-year in Georgia is exactly the kind of fact that supports an argument that your centre of living has moved. Read it as documentation as well as an obligation.
If you have capital instead of income, the property route at $150,000 needs no criminal record extract and no labour permit, and it closes fastest for anyone who qualifies for both.
Sweden has no apostille office
This is the Swedish-specific trap and it costs people a fortnight of searching for a ministry that does not do this job.
Sweden decentralised the function. The Hague Conference records Sweden's designated competent authority as all notaries public, appointed by the county administrative boards, and notes there is no centralised register of them. In practice you book a notarius publicus in any Swedish city, present the original document, and walk out with the apostille the same day. It is one of the fastest arrangements in Europe once you stop looking for a central authority. It also means quality control is yours: check that the notary you booked handles apostilles before you travel to the appointment.
The certificate itself comes from Polismyndigheten. Ask for the utdrag för utlandsändamål, the extract intended for purposes abroad, which is a different product from the extract you request to check your own record. Polismyndigheten publishes the procedure for using the extract abroad: it costs SEK 255 plus postage, is issued in Swedish, English, German, French and Spanish, and takes up to two weeks from a complete application and payment. We checked those figures on 1 August 2026. If you also hold another EU or UK citizenship, the police have to request information from that country first, and the extract takes materially longer than two weeks.
The five-language format saves nothing at the Georgian end. The document still needs an apostille from a notary and then a certified translation into Georgian, notarised here, under the rules on certified translation. Apostille first, ship the paper original, translate in Georgia. The full apostille sequence and the police certificate procedures by country cover what gets rejected and why.
What Sweden does when you leave
More than any other country in this cluster except Ireland, and none of it is visible from Tbilisi.
Start with the registration step, because everything else hangs off it. Skatteverket requires you to notify a move abroad if you will live outside Sweden for a year or more, which triggers civil deregistration from folkbokföringen. Doing it late does not merely annoy an official; it undermines the argument you will need later.
Then comes the hard part. Skatteverket's guidance on moving from Sweden is that a Swedish citizen, or anyone who lived in Sweden for ten years or longer, must prove they no longer have close ties to the country, and that this applies for five years from the date of departure. After five years you are no longer automatically treated as resident, but the liability does not switch off by itself: if the ties are still there, so is the unlimited tax liability, and the agency simply has to be the one to show it. Keeping a year-round home, a family that stayed, or a significant business interest in Sweden is what keeps the argument alive.
There is a second and longer tail on assets. Sweden can tax capital gains on Swedish shares and securities for up to ten years after departure, and Skatteverket's own guidance for people living abroad reaches those who have lived in Sweden at any time in the previous ten years. How much of that survives contact with a treaty depends on the treaty, and the Sweden and Georgia agreement has to be read against your particular asset rather than assumed either way. Georgia's Ministry of Finance lists Sweden among the 58 double tax treaties in force, so the instrument exists. We are not going to tell you what it does to a specific holding, and anyone selling shares in the decade after a move should get that answered in Sweden first.
Georgia's own test is separate and mechanical: 183 or more days in any continuous twelve-month period ending in the tax year makes you resident here for the whole of that year, under Article 34 of the Tax Code. The day-count rule runs whether or not you hold a permit, and holding a permit and being taxed here remain two separate questions.
The citizenship trade, and why it is a bad one
Sweden has permitted dual citizenship since 2001, so the obstacle is entirely Georgian. Georgia does not generally permit it and expects renunciation, with an exception by presidential decree on state-interest grounds.
For a Swede the trade is poor for the same reason it is poor for an Irish reader: renouncing means giving up EU citizenship and free movement across the Union in exchange for a Georgian passport. Permanent residence after ten years of continuous temporary residence carries no renunciation and delivers most of what people actually want from the endgame. The dual citizenship position sets out why this is decided on day one rather than in year ten.
Timeline, cost and the verdict
Straightforward, with the work sitting on the Swedish side rather than the Georgian one. Entry is free, the extract is quick, and the apostille is a same-day errand at a notary.
Count backwards anyway. The application has to be filed at least 40 calendar days before your lawful stay expires and a file lodged inside that window is refused review rather than assessed, which is set out in the 40-day rule. On a work or IT route the labour permit decision sits in front of that. The full cost breakdown by route covers the government fees and ours, and neither moves with nationality.
The Swedish half is where the money is. Whether your ties are genuinely severed, what to do with a bostadsrätt you kept, and how the ten-year rule interacts with the treaty are questions for a Swedish adviser and are worth resolving before you file here rather than after. The Georgian sequence we can settle, and half an hour on a free consultation beats a guess. The Irish guide covers a country with a similar trailing-ties problem, and the rest are in the guides organised by nationality.
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
- Swedish citizens enter Georgia visa-free for one full year, verified against the Georgian visa-free ordinance on 1 August 2026.
- Order the utdrag för utlandsändamål from Polismyndigheten, not the extract for checking your own record. SEK 255 plus postage, up to two weeks, five languages.
- Sweden has no central apostille authority. Every notarius publicus is competent and there is no national register, so confirm your notary offers the service before booking.
- The five-language extract still needs an apostille and a Georgian translation notarised here.
- Since 1 March 2026 the Special Labour Permit comes before the work or IT residence permit, including for an enskild firma billing from Georgia.
- For five years after departure the burden is on you to show your essential ties to Sweden have ended, and after that the liability still does not end automatically.
- Sweden can tax gains on Swedish shares for up to ten years after you leave, subject to the treaty with Georgia.
Frequently asked questions
Can Swedish citizens enter Georgia without a visa?
Yes, for one full year at a time. Sweden is on the list annexed to the Georgian ordinance on visa-free entry, checked on 1 August 2026, and the period resets when you leave and return. Every visitor also needs travel or health insurance with at least GEL 30,000 of cover.
Which criminal record extract does Georgia want from a Swedish applicant?
The utdrag för utlandsändamål, the extract from belastningsregistret intended for use abroad. It is a different product from the extract you order to check your own record, and only the abroad version is the right one to apostille. Polismyndigheten charges SEK 255 plus postage and states up to two weeks.
Who issues apostilles in Sweden?
Notaries public. Sweden decentralised the function and designated every notarius publicus, appointed by the county administrative boards, as a competent authority. There is no ministry to write to and no central register of notaries, so you book an appointment locally and confirm in advance that the notary handles apostilles.
My Swedish extract is already in English. Do I still need a translation?
Yes. The extract is issued in Swedish, English, German, French and Spanish, but Georgia requires a certified Georgian translation with the translator's signature notarised here, covering the apostille as well as the document beneath it. Translating or certifying abroad creates a second foreign document needing its own authentication.
Is there a double tax treaty between Georgia and Sweden?
Yes, and it is in force. Georgia's Ministry of Finance lists Sweden among the 58 double taxation treaties it recognises. What that treaty does to a specific Swedish shareholding under the ten-year rule is a question to put to a Swedish adviser, because the answer depends on the asset and we do not resolve it here.
How long does Sweden keep me tax resident after I move to Georgia?
Potentially indefinitely, which is the point people miss. For five years after departure, a Swedish citizen or anyone who lived in Sweden ten years or more must prove their close ties have ended. After five years the burden shifts to Skatteverket, but if the ties genuinely remain, so does unlimited tax liability.
Do I need to deregister from folkbokföringen before moving to Georgia?
You must notify Skatteverket if you will live outside Sweden for a year or more, and that notification is what produces civil deregistration. Do it properly and on time. It is not a formality: it is the first piece of evidence in any later argument about whether your essential ties to Sweden ended.
Do I need a Georgian work permit if I keep my Swedish company?
Only if you want a residence card, or your clients are Georgian. The Special Labour Permit follows who pays you rather than where you sit, so running a Swedish company for Swedish clients from Tbilisi engages nothing on its own. It is required to employ foreign staff in Georgia, to trade as an Individual Entrepreneur with Georgian clients, and as the first step on a work or IT residence permit.
Can a Swedish citizen get Georgian citizenship?
In principle, after ten years of continuous residence and exams in Georgian language, history and law. In practice it is a poor trade, because Georgia expects renunciation and giving up Swedish citizenship also ends EU citizenship and free movement. Sweden itself has permitted dual citizenship since 2001, so the obstacle is Georgian rather than Swedish.
Which Georgian residence permit is best for a Swedish citizen?
If you have income, the IT permit for technology work at $25,000 a year and two years of experience, or the work permit for everything else, both behind a Special Labour Permit. If you have capital, the property route at $150,000 needs no criminal record extract and no labour permit, and it is the shortest path for anyone who qualifies for both.
