Half the people who search for a Georgian e-visa do not need one, because their passport already gets them a year at the border. The other half need it urgently and are about to lose a week to an embassy appointment they never had to book. Which group you are in is decided by a named list, not by a region or an income level. This post settles that first, then covers what the e-visa actually authorises and where it stops being enough.
First, check whether you need a visa at all
Georgia's visa-free regime is set by Government Ordinance No. 255 of 5 June 2015, last amended on 24 February 2026. It lists nationalities by name, and its first note grants each of them one full year in the country without a visa. Checked against the ordinance on 1 August 2026, the annex runs to 94 numbered entries, five of which are groups of overseas territories and dependencies rather than states.
The list is what governs. Not the region you are in, not whether you hold a US green card, not whether your neighbours got in without one. If your nationality appears, you enter with a passport and nothing else, and the 365-day visa-free year is what you are working with. If it does not appear, you need a visa before you travel, and the entry position by nationality is the place to start.
Do not read anything into a country's absence from a summary written elsewhere. Check the ordinance itself, and note the date you checked, because it has been amended seven times since 2015 and the most recent amendment is from February 2026.
What the e-visa is, and what it is not
The e-visa is an application channel, not a new category of permission. Georgia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs runs the electronic visa portal, you apply on it, you pay on it, and you print the result. The document that comes out carries the same right to enter Georgia as a visa sticker issued at a consulate.
What it is not is a long-term instrument. The e-visa is a short-term visa, and Georgian law is specific about what that means. Under the Law on the Legal Status of Aliens and Stateless Persons, a single-entry short-term visa may be issued for no more than 30 days, and a multiple-entry short-term visa may carry up to a five-year validity while capping actual presence at 90 calendar days in any 180-day period.
That last distinction catches people out constantly. A five-year visa is not five years of stay. It is five years during which you may keep arriving, subject to a rolling ceiling that a visa-free national does not have.
The purposes the portal covers
The portal is built for short visits: tourism and business travel are what it is designed to process. Coming to see the country, attend meetings, visit a conference or see family for a few weeks all sit comfortably inside it.
What sits outside it is the entire immigration category. Arriving to work, to study, to join a family member or on the strength of Georgian property is a D category matter, decided by a diplomatic mission on an evidence file rather than by an online form. The D category immigration visas are a separate route with separate prerequisites, and for work specifically the D1 visa and the labour permit that has to come first are a sequence rather than a single application.
Choosing the online short-term route because it is faster, when your actual purpose is immigration, is a false economy. You arrive on a visa that does not match what you are doing, and the mismatch surfaces at the point where you try to convert it into status.
Who can use the portal
Eligibility is set by the Ministry rather than by the ordinance, and the portal publishes it as a set of country groups rather than one list.
The condition worth knowing before you start is that one of those groups is admitted only with a supporting document: nationals in it must also hold a valid Schengen visa, a valid visa from an OECD member country, or a valid residence permit issued by a Schengen or OECD state. If that applies to your nationality, the Georgian application is the second step rather than the first, and the supporting document has to be valid at the time you use it.
Check your own nationality against the portal's current country list before you book anything. The groups are revised, and an out-of-date summary is how somebody buys a flight against a rule that changed.
The process, step by step
- Confirm your nationality is eligible, and whether the supporting-document condition applies to you.
- Complete the online application, with passport details and the purpose of travel.
- Upload the supporting documents the form asks for. A passport with adequate remaining validity is the constant; the rest depends on purpose.
- Pay the fee online. The amount is shown at the payment step, and we publish no figure for it because it is set by the Ministry rather than by anything we can hold constant on a page.
- Wait for the decision. The law requires a short-term electronic visa to be issued no later than 5 working days after the application is submitted.
- Print the visa and carry it. It is an entry document. Have it on paper rather than on a phone that may be flat at a land border.
Two things belong on the same checklist even though they are not part of the visa. Georgia has required every visitor to hold insurance with a minimum of GEL 30,000 in cover since 2026, checked at the border, and what counts as a qualifying policy is not always what a card benefit provides. And an approved visa is permission to travel, not a guarantee of admission: the border officer still decides.
e-Visa, visa-free entry and a consular visa compared
| Visa-free entry | e-Visa | Consular visa | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Who it is for | Nationalities named in Ordinance No. 255 | Eligible nationalities not on that list | Anyone whose purpose or nationality falls outside the portal |
| Applied for | Nothing to apply for | Online | At a Georgian mission |
| Covers immigration purposes | No, it is not a visa at all | No, short-term only | Yes, including the D categories |
| Length of stay | Up to 365 days per entry | Up to 30 days single entry, or 90 days in any 180 on a multiple entry | As granted for the category |
| Decision time | Decided at the border | No later than 5 working days in law | Set by the mission |
The gap between the first column and the second is the single largest inequality in Georgian immigration, and it is worth naming plainly. A visa-free national gets a year on arrival with no paperwork. A visa national gets weeks, an application and a fee for the same trip. Nothing in the permit rules that follow distinguishes between them, but the opening move is completely different, which is why the route by nationality is where non-visa-free readers should begin rather than with the permit categories.
What an e-visa does not do
It does not authorise work. Since 1 March 2026 a Special Labour Permit is required to take a job with a Georgian employer, to trade as an Individual Entrepreneur with Georgian clients, or to apply for a work or IT residence permit. The entry document in your passport does not change that either way, and it applies to a visitor on an e-visa exactly as it applies to a visa-free arrival.
It does not create residence. Status comes from a residence permit granted by the Public Service Development Agency, on one of the established permit routes, and a short-term visa is not a step toward one.
It does not count toward permanent residence. That needs ten years of continuous temporary residence, meaning ten years of held permits. Short visits count for nothing.
It does not stretch. The permitted stay is the permitted stay, and going past it is an overstay with the same consequences as any other, including the illegal-presence database introduced in October 2025. What follows an overstay is heavier than the cost of leaving on time and returning.
If the short visit is really a move
Plenty of people apply for an e-visa because it is the only door available, intending to convert to something durable once they arrive. That plan is workable, and it needs to be built backwards rather than forwards.
Georgian law requires a residence permit application to be filed at least 40 calendar days before your lawful stay expires, and an application filed inside that window is refused review rather than assessed late. On a 30-day short-term visa, that arithmetic is brutal: the filing deadline can fall before you have unpacked. Documents that need an apostille from your home country routinely take longer than the whole visa.
So for most people whose purpose is immigration rather than a visit, the correct instrument is a D category visa applied for from home, with the evidence assembled before departure. Bring your nationality, your purpose and your dates to a free consultation and we will tell you which of the two you are actually in, including the cases where the honest answer is that a short trip is all you need.
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
- The e-visa is Georgia's short-term visa applied for online, and it gives the same entry right as a consular sticker.
- You need it only if your nationality is not named in Government Ordinance No. 255, checked here on 1 August 2026.
- The law requires a short-term electronic visa to be issued no later than 5 working days after submission.
- Single entry is capped at 30 days; a multiple-entry short-term visa caps presence at 90 calendar days in any 180-day period.
- Some eligible nationalities must also hold a valid Schengen or OECD visa or residence permit to use the portal.
- Work, study, family reunification and the property route are D category matters handled by a mission, not by the portal.
- Every visitor needs insurance with at least GEL 30,000 of cover, whatever the entry document says.
Frequently asked questions
Who needs a Georgian e-visa?
Nationals of countries that are not named in Government Ordinance No. 255, the visa-free list, and who appear on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs list of nationalities eligible to apply online. If your country is on the visa-free list you need no visa at all and the portal is irrelevant to you. Check the ordinance rather than a summary, and note the date you checked.
How long does a Georgian e-visa take?
The law requires a short-term electronic visa to be issued no later than 5 working days after the application is submitted. That is an outer limit set in legislation rather than a service promise, so build a buffer into travel plans and do not book non-refundable flights against the last day of it.
How much does a Georgian e-visa cost?
The fee is set by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and shown at the payment step of the application. We publish no figure, because a number copied onto a page ages badly and a reader plans around it. Take the amount from the portal itself at the moment you apply.
How long can I stay in Georgia on an e-visa?
A single-entry short-term visa is issued for the number of days requested, up to a maximum of 30. A multiple-entry short-term visa can carry up to five years of validity while limiting actual presence to 90 calendar days in any 180-day period. Neither resembles the 365 days a visa-free national receives on arrival.
Can I work in Georgia on an e-visa?
Not for a Georgian employer. Since 1 March 2026 a Special Labour Permit is required before a Georgian employer may take on a foreign national, and the entry document makes no difference to that. Working remotely for clients or an employer outside Georgia sits outside the permit regime, so an e-visa visitor doing that is doing nothing that needs authorising.
Is the Georgian e-visa the same as a D visa?
No, and the difference decides your whole route. The e-visa is a short-term visa for visits. The D category is the immigration visa, covering labour activity, study, family reunification and property ownership, and it is applied for at a Georgian diplomatic mission on a documentary file. The portal does not issue D visas.
Can I apply for a Georgian residence permit while on an e-visa?
You can file while you are lawfully in Georgia, but the timing rarely works. An application must be complete at least 40 calendar days before lawful stay expires, and anything later is refused review. On a 30-day visa that leaves almost no window, which is why applicants whose purpose is immigration should normally arrive on a D visa instead.
Do I need travel insurance as well as an e-visa?
Yes. Since 2026 every visitor must hold insurance providing at least GEL 30,000 of cover, and it is checked at the border rather than during the visa application. The visa and the insurance are separate requirements, and holding one does not evidence the other.
Does a Georgian e-visa guarantee I will be let in?
No. A visa is permission to travel to the border and ask; admission is the officer's decision, and it turns on your documents, your answers and your insurance on the day. Carry a printed copy of the visa, the insurance policy and evidence of where you are staying.
What happens if my Georgian e-visa application is refused?
You are not admitted on that application and you would need to address whatever caused the refusal before applying again, whether that is documentation, the supporting-visa condition or the stated purpose of travel. An unpaid fine for unlawful stay on a previous visit is itself a ground for refusing a visa, so old problems surface here rather than staying buried.
Can my family apply on the same Georgian e-visa?
No. Each traveller applies individually, including children, because a visa attaches to a person and a passport. Family members joining somebody who already holds Georgian residence status are in a different situation entirely, and that runs through family reunification rather than through a short-term visa.
