An employee of a Georgian company and a freelancer billing clients in Berlin end up holding the same residence card. Almost nothing between here and there is the same. One application is decided on a company's turnover, the other on your own, and the two document lists barely overlap. Filing either one without the labour permit underneath it produces a refusal rather than a request for more documents. Here is each route, the evidence it actually runs on, and the order the two stages have to happen in.
Who ends up on the work route
The work residence permit is for people whose claim to live in Georgia is income rather than capital. If you earn from employment or self-employment and you are not buying property, investing, joining family or enrolling at a university, this is your route by elimination rather than by choice, and it is the most common of the six routes into Georgian residency.
It behaves differently from the passive routes in one way that shapes everything below. A property permit rests on a fact that does not move: you either own the apartment or you do not. A work permit rests on an economic activity, and an activity has to be evidenced afresh at every cycle. That is why the evidence sections here are longer than the procedure ones.
The permit is issued for six to twelve months initially and renewed annually. Software, data and infrastructure professionals should price that against the three-year IT residence permit first, because fewer renewal cycles means fewer deadlines to miss.
Two stages, and only one workable order
Since 1 March 2026 the work route is two applications to two agencies, not one.
- The Special Labour Permit. Applied for at the Employment Promotion State Agency under the Ministry of Labour. A decision is due within 30 calendar days, or ten working days on the expedited fee.
- The residence permit itself. Applied for at a Public Service Hall and decided by the Public Service Development Agency, with the labour permit in the file as a supporting document. A further 10 to 30 days.
A residence permit application without a valid labour permit is refused, not queued behind it. That costs the government fee, the decision cycle and, if your lawful stay is running down, the window itself. The mechanics of the first stage sit in the guide to the Special Labour Permit.
Approval then opens a short, finite window in which the residence permit application or a D1 visa from abroad has to be filed. The closing date is stated on your own approval notice, so read it rather than assuming, and do not confuse it with the 30-day decision period that has just ended.
People treat labour permit approval as the finish line. It is the starting gun for a second application with its own deadline, filed at a different agency that knows nothing about the first one.
Employed or self-employed: the line that decides your file
The dividing line is not what your work looks like or what your contract is called. It is whether a Georgian entity employs you, because that decides who produces the evidence.
| Employed route | Self-employed route | |
|---|---|---|
| Who applies for the labour permit | Your Georgian employer | You |
| Whose numbers are tested | The company's turnover | Your turnover or your income |
| The qualifying figure | GEL 50,000 per foreign employee, GEL 35,000 for educational and medical institutions | GEL 50,000 turnover, or income of at least five times the subsistence minimum |
| Core proof of activity | Employment contract and company filings | Individual Entrepreneur registration, client contracts, invoices |
| Who controls the timetable | Largely your employer | You |
| Where it usually fails | The company's turnover evidence | Reconciliation between your own sources |
One group puts itself in the wrong column: employees of foreign companies with no Georgian entity. If nobody in Georgia can file on your behalf, you are on the self-employed route regardless of what your contract says, and your own income carries the application. Worth being clear about why you would be applying at all, because working remotely for a foreign employer does not by itself require a permit. What actually triggers the requirement is a Georgian employer, Georgian clients, or wanting the residence card. On this route it is the third of those, and the permit is the step that makes the application possible rather than something the work obliged you to hold.
The employed route: your employer carries the application
If a Georgian company employs you, the labour permit application is the company's, and the number that decides it is the company's turnover.
The threshold is GEL 50,000, roughly $19,000, of annual turnover per foreign employee, set by Decree No. 317 of 9 July 2026 under the procedural rules on granting residence permits. Educational and medical institutions qualify at GEL 35,000. The figure is stated per foreign employee rather than per company, so it scales with how many foreign nationals the employer already sponsors.
Two consequences follow, and neither is obvious from the outside.
Your status depends on somebody else's accounting. The turnover the company shows has to reconcile with what the Revenue Service already holds at rs.ge. A company trading well but filing inconsistently is a harder sponsor than a smaller company with clean records, so ask before you accept the job rather than after. The employer's side of this, including the penalties that land on the company, is set out in the employer guide to hiring foreign staff.
A brand new company cannot meet the test, and there is relief for that. Decree No. 317 lets a Georgian company less than three months old hire up to three foreign nationals on a first application without demonstrating turnover, and permits issued under the concession run six months rather than the usual term. If you are employee number one at a company incorporated last month, the start-up relief and its six-month term is what you are relying on.
You still produce your own passport, criminal record certificate, photograph, insurance and Georgian address. Those are the items that go slowly, and the company cannot produce them for you.
The self-employed route: your own numbers, two tests
Nobody applies for a freelancer's labour permit but the freelancer. There is no employer to carry turnover and no company filings to lean on. The regime compensates by offering two qualifying tests rather than one, and you need either, not both:
- Turnover of GEL 50,000, the same figure an employer shows per foreign employee, but proved from your own records.
- Income of at least five times the subsistence minimum, which keeps the route open for people with real earnings and modest gross receipts.
Be precise about the second test. The rule fixes the multiple, five. It does not fix the amount, because the subsistence minimum it multiplies is a published figure that gets revised, so the lari total you have to clear moves without the rule changing at all. Calculate it against the figure current on the day you file, and treat the result as a floor rather than a target.
Most foreign freelancers here reach for Individual Entrepreneur registration to make their income provable. An IE files with the Revenue Service, so declared turnover sits in government records rather than in a folder assembled for the occasion, which is stronger evidence than bank statements alone. It is not the permit, though. An IE registration is a tax and business status, and the labour permit is the thing that carries Georgian-client trade and that this residence permit application is built on. Registration runs through the business registry rather than through immigration, and our sister firm at register-company.ge handles that side, including the 1% small business regime that usually comes with it.
Nor does registration produce a history retrospectively. An IE registered last week has no filings for the turnover test to look at, which makes a first trading year the hardest version of this application. The workable options in that position sit in the guide to the self-employed labour permit.
Income evidence, in detail
Your income is examined twice, and people prepare for one moment and get asked about the other.
At the labour permit stage the question is whether you meet a qualifying test: the employer's turnover, or your own turnover or income multiple. A threshold question with a number attached.
At the residence permit stage the question is softer: can you support yourself here. Georgian law sets no fixed statutory minimum for it. On the applications we handle, income of around $610 a month is generally treated as sufficient, but that is an observation about practice rather than a line in the legislation, and clearing it on paper does not help if the rest of the file disagrees.
What persuades at either stage is consistency across independent sources.
| Source | What it proves | Where it fails |
|---|---|---|
| Revenue Service declarations | Income the state can already see | Nothing filed yet, or filings that lag the period you are claiming |
| Bank statements | That the money arrived | Foreign accounts with no translation, or balances instead of inflows |
| Client contracts and invoices | That the income is continuing, not a one-off | Contracts that describe work different from the activity applied for |
| Employment contract and payroll | Salary and role | Salary that does not match what the company reports |
| Employer turnover evidence | The company can carry a foreign hire | Figures that do not reconcile with the tax authority |
Four things weaken an otherwise sound file, and all four are avoidable:
- A single large payment instead of a pattern. Twelve months of steady receipts beats one impressive invoice, even where the invoice is larger.
- Numbers that tell three slightly different stories. Declared turnover, banked receipts and invoiced work should agree. When they do not, the request for clarification costs weeks a 40-day count does not have.
- Foreign currency and foreign banks left unexplained. Statements from abroad need certified Georgian translation and a legible conversion. Normal on the self-employed route, and still something to prepare rather than assume.
- An activity description that does not match the evidence. The labour permit authorises a type and scope of work. If the classification you applied under does not describe what your invoices show, the mismatch is a refusal ground on its own.
The documents, route by route
Everything issued outside Georgia needs an apostille, or consular legalisation where the issuing country is not a Hague party, and then certified Georgian translation. That chain, not the application form, is what sets your timetable. Country-by-country timings sit in the guide to apostilles for Georgian applications.
Both routes need the same personal core: a valid Special Labour Permit, a passport valid beyond your intended stay, an apostilled or legalised criminal record certificate, a photograph to the Agency's specification, health insurance covering the period, and a Georgian address that is owned, leased or a registered virtual one.
Everything else diverges.
| Document | Employed | Self-employed |
|---|---|---|
| Who files the labour permit | Your Georgian employer | You |
| Employment contract with a Georgian company | Yes | No |
| Employer turnover evidence and tax filings | Produced by the employer | Not applicable |
| Individual Entrepreneur registration | Rarely | Usually, the backbone of the file |
| Client contracts and invoices | No | Yes |
| Personal Revenue Service declarations | No | Yes |
| Bank statements | Supporting | Central |
The file has to be complete on the day you attend the Public Service Hall. A missing translation sends you home rather than starting a clock, and on a work route that costs you against the 40-day deadline too. The master checklist by route is in the residence permit document guide.
What both stages cost
| Item | Government fee | Decision |
|---|---|---|
| Special Labour Permit, standard | GEL 200, around $75 | 30 calendar days |
| Special Labour Permit, expedited | GEL 400, around $155 | 10 working days |
| Residence permit decision | GEL 300 to 600 by track, around $115 to $230 | 10 to 30 days |
| Residence card issuance | GEL 60, around $23 | On collection |
Those amounts are fixed in lari by law. The dollar figures are conversions and they drift; the lari figures are the legislation and they do not.
Our own fee for the work residence permit starts at $450 where a valid labour permit already exists. The complete self-employed package, covering Individual Entrepreneur registration, the labour permit filing and the residence permit in sequence, is $1,070. They are quoted separately for the reason this post is structured the way it is: the two routes are not the same amount of work.
The main route for freelancers, remote workers and employees. Since March 2026 it runs on top of a Special Labour Permit.
See what it costs, from $450
The schedule the deadline imposes
The Law on the Legal Status of Aliens and Stateless Persons requires the residence permit application at least 40 calendar days before your current lawful stay expires. Inside that window the Agency refuses to review the file at all, so a strong application is never assessed rather than assessed and rejected.
Count backwards from your expiry date and the work route fills the space quickly:
- 40 calendar days, untouchable, before your lawful stay ends.
- Up to 30 calendar days for the labour permit decision, which has to complete before the residence permit can be filed.
- Two to six weeks for an apostilled criminal record certificate from your home country, on their timetable rather than yours.
- A week or so to compile, translate and check everything else, running in parallel where possible.
That is why three months before expiry is the point at which to start, and why the 40-day count now has a labour permit decision inside it. Paying for expedited processing shortens the agencies' side and touches nothing that happens before it.
The same arithmetic then repeats every cycle, with two expiry dates instead of one, which is why renewing a Georgian residence permit starts well before the year is up.
Key takeaways
- The work route runs on income rather than capital, so the evidence has to be rebuilt at every renewal.
- Employed and self-employed are two different files. The employer's turnover decides one, your own turnover or income decides the other.
- Employers show GEL 50,000 of annual turnover per foreign employee, or GEL 35,000 for educational and medical institutions.
- Self-employed applicants qualify on GEL 50,000 of turnover or income of at least five times the subsistence minimum. Either test, not both.
- Individual Entrepreneur registration documents your income. It is not the labour permit.
- The Special Labour Permit comes first. A residence permit filed without one is refused rather than delayed.
- Government fees are GEL 300 to 600 plus GEL 60 for the card, on top of GEL 200 or GEL 400 for the labour permit.
- File at least 40 calendar days before your lawful stay expires, and start three months out.
Frequently asked questions
How do I get a work residence permit in Georgia?
In two stages. First a Special Labour Permit from the Employment Promotion State Agency, which takes up to 30 calendar days. Then the residence permit application at a Public Service Hall with the labour permit in the file, decided in 10 to 30 days. Filing them in the other order, or at the same time, produces a refusal.
What is the difference between the employed and self-employed work permit routes in Georgia?
Who produces the evidence. On the employed route your Georgian employer applies for the labour permit and its turnover is tested, at GEL 50,000 per foreign employee. On the self-employed route you apply yourself and your own turnover or income is tested. The residence permit that follows is the same card either way.
What turnover does a Georgian employer need to hire a foreign worker?
GEL 50,000, around $19,000, of annual turnover per foreign employee, set by Decree No. 317 of 9 July 2026. Educational and medical institutions qualify at GEL 35,000. A company less than three months old can hire up to three foreign nationals without meeting the test on a first application, but those permits run six months only.
What income do I need for a Georgian work residence permit?
There are two separate questions. For the labour permit, self-employed applicants need GEL 50,000 of turnover or income of at least five times the subsistence minimum. For the residence permit itself there is no fixed statutory minimum, only a requirement that you can support yourself, which is assessed on the file as a whole.
Do I need a Georgian labour permit if my employer is abroad?
On this route, yes. The labour permit is the first stage of the work residence permit whoever pays you, and because no Georgian entity can file on your behalf you apply on the self-employed route using your own income, even though your working arrangement is employment. If you do not want the residence card at all, a foreign employer does not engage the permit on its own.
Do I need to register as an Individual Entrepreneur for a Georgian work residence permit?
Not as a legal precondition, but it is how most self-employed applicants make their income provable. Registration puts your declared turnover into Revenue Service records, which is stronger than bank statements alone. It only helps once it has produced a filing history, so registering the week before you apply achieves very little.
How much does a Georgian work residence permit cost?
Government fees are GEL 300 to 600 depending on the processing track, around $115 to $230, plus GEL 60 for the card. Add GEL 200 or GEL 400 for the labour permit underneath it. Our fee starts at $450 for the residence permit alone, or $1,070 for the complete self-employed package including Individual Entrepreneur registration.
How long does a Georgian work residence permit take?
The two decisions together run up to 30 calendar days for the labour permit and 10 to 30 days for the residence permit. The realistic end-to-end figure is six to eight weeks, and an apostilled criminal record certificate from your home country usually takes longer than both government decisions combined.
What documents do I need for a work residence permit in Georgia?
Common to both routes: the labour permit, passport, an apostilled criminal record certificate, a photograph to specification, health insurance and a Georgian address. Employed applicants add an employment contract and their employer's turnover evidence. Self-employed applicants add Individual Entrepreneur registration, client contracts, invoices and Revenue Service declarations.
Does a Georgian work residence permit count toward permanent residence?
Yes. Every renewed year of temporary residence counts toward the ten years that unlock permanent residence, provided the chain never breaks. A gap between permits restarts the count rather than pausing it, which is the strongest practical argument for renewing early rather than at the deadline.
