Almost everyone asking this question is a remote worker or a freelancer, and for almost all of them the answer is no. The Special Labour Permit that arrived on 1 March 2026 is a narrower instrument than its reputation. It reaches three situations, and sitting in a Tbilisi apartment invoicing clients abroad is not one of them. Below is a yes or no for the situations people actually write to us about.
The test is who pays you, and whether you want a residence card
The Special Labour Permit authorises a foreign national to perform labour activity in Georgia, and the regime built around it in March 2026 reaches for it in three places. The categories and the conditions attached to them sit in the Law on the Legal Status of Aliens and Stateless Persons.
- A Georgian employer takes on a non-Georgian national. The permit belongs to the employer, not to you. The company applies, on its own numbers, before the employment starts.
- An Individual Entrepreneur invoices Georgian clients. Who pays you is the factor, and Georgian companies and Georgian individuals paying your invoices put you inside the requirement.
- You apply for a work or IT residence permit. The labour permit is filed and granted first, and the residence permit application sits on top of it.
If none of those three describes you, there is nothing to apply for. A foreign national who registers an Individual Entrepreneur, works for clients outside Georgia and does not want a residence card needs no labour permit and no residence permit at all, indefinitely, on visa-free entry. That is not a loophole or a grey area. It is what the labour permit regime introduced in March 2026 actually regulates.
Why remote work for a foreign employer sits outside it
Run the three triggers against a normal remote worker's facts and every one of them comes back empty.
Your employer is in Berlin. It has no Georgian entity, no Georgian payroll and nobody on the books in Georgia, so there is no Georgian employment to authorise and no Georgian employer to apply. You are not an Individual Entrepreneur invoicing Georgian clients, because your only client is German. And if you are content on visa-free entry, the third trigger never arrives, because you are not applying for anything.
The confusion usually arrives from the tax side, where the source and residence of income genuinely do drive the answer. Immigration and tax are separate systems run by separate agencies on separate tests, and holding one status tells you nothing about the other. Being a Georgian tax resident does not create a labour permit requirement, and being a non-resident does not remove one.
This is also why Georgia has no digital nomad visa and does not particularly need one. Long visa-free entry gives you the stay. For work paid from outside the country, there is no second thing to apply for.
Worked examples
| Your situation | Labour permit needed |
|---|---|
| Salaried employee of a Georgian company | Yes, and your employer applies |
| Employee of a foreign company, working remotely from Tbilisi | No |
| Freelancer resident in Georgia with only foreign clients | No |
| Individual Entrepreneur on the 1% regime invoicing foreign clients | No |
| Individual Entrepreneur invoicing Georgian clients | Yes |
| Visitor on visa-free entry doing a week of consultancy for a foreign client | No |
| Foreign national on a Georgian company's payroll as a director | Yes, and the company applies |
| Shareholder who performs no work and takes dividends only | No, on those facts alone |
| Retiree living on a foreign pension | No |
| Anyone applying for a work or IT residence permit | Yes, and before the residence permit |
| Investment residence permit holder | No, exempt |
| Permanent resident | No, exempt |
The rows that need explaining are below. The ones that do not are the ones people never ask about.
The salaried employee of a Georgian company. The clearest case in the regime, and the only one where you are not the applicant. Your employer applies, which means the file turns on the company's numbers rather than yours: GEL 50,000 of annual turnover, roughly $19,000, per foreign employee, or GEL 35,000 for educational and medical institutions. Both figures come from Decree No. 317 of 9 July 2026. If your employer's turnover does not support the hire, the problem is on the company's side of the application and there is nothing you can fix from yours.
The remote employee of a foreign company. No, and this is the group that spends the most worry on the question for the least reason. There is no Georgian employer in the picture, so the first trigger has nobody to attach to. You can work this way for years on rolling visa-free entry without a single application. The answer changes only when you decide you want a residence card, at which point the labour permit becomes the first step of that plan rather than a condition of your work.
The freelancer with only foreign clients. No. The nationality of the people paying you is what matters, and yours are all outside Georgia. Register an Individual Entrepreneur for the tax rate if the numbers suit you, invoice abroad, and there is nothing further to file. Take on Georgian clients and the answer moves.
The Individual Entrepreneur with Georgian clients. Yes, and this is the trigger people miss because they are busy worrying about the one that does not apply to them. Once Georgian companies and Georgian residents are the ones paying your invoices, the permit is engaged and you apply on your own figures through the self-employed route and its two income tests. Where the line sits for a mixed book of Georgian and foreign clients is not something the rules settle, and it is the part of this we would rather look at with your invoices in front of us than guess at in public.
The founder drawing dividends. Most founders are two people at once. As a shareholder you own a thing, and a shareholding in a business genuinely run by other people engages nothing. As a director on your own Georgian company's payroll you are a non-Georgian national employed by a Georgian company, which is the first trigger exactly as written, and the company applies for you as it would for any other hire. A founder who works in their own Georgian company and takes no salary sits between the two, and that is a conversation rather than a rule.
The consultant on a short trip. A week of paid work for a client abroad is a week of paid work for a client abroad, wherever you happen to be sitting while you do it. No permit is engaged, and no minimum number of days matters, because the requirement was never counting days in the first place. If the person paying for that week is Georgian, the second trigger is in play and the trip is worth a conversation before you invoice.
Rental income from a Georgian flat. Your tenants are usually Georgian and the money reaches you from inside the country, which puts this closer to the second trigger than people expect. One apartment on a long lease in your own name is a different picture from six units run as a business through a registered Individual Entrepreneur. We flag it as unsettled rather than settling it in public, and the interaction between rental income and your permit is worth working through on your own facts.
The exemptions that actually exist
Because the permit reaches three situations rather than everyone, the word exemption does less work here than people expect. Two groups are exempt from the requirement where it otherwise bites hardest, as the prerequisite to a residence permit:
- Investment residence permit holders. The $300,000 investment route carries an exemption from work authorisation outright. For anyone comparing routes on cost, this is a real part of what the higher threshold buys.
- Permanent residents. Once you hold permanent residence, the separate authorisation falls away.
Three further groups sit outside the regime under their own rules: diplomatic and consular staff, accredited foreign journalists, and refugees and asylum seekers.
Now the things that are not exemptions, all of which we have been told confidently at least once:
- Holding a work residence permit. The labour permit is the prerequisite for it, not an alternative to it. A work residence permit application filed without one is refused rather than queued.
- Being a company director or the sole owner. A Georgian company with a non-Georgian national on its payroll is inside the first trigger whatever that person's title is.
- Being married to a Georgian citizen. That opens a family residence route and it shortens the naturalisation timeline. It does not move any of the three triggers.
- Tax status of any kind. Residency, non-residency, the rate you pay and where you file are decided on other tests by another agency, and none of them adds or removes a labour permit requirement.
- Length of stay. Living here for years neither creates the requirement nor removes it. What decides it is who is paying you and what you are applying for.
- Holding a Georgian personal number or a tax identification number. Both are administrative identifiers. Neither authorises anything and neither obliges anything.
What being wrong costs
The fines are GEL 2,000 on the individual and a separate GEL 2,000 on the employer, and both double on a repeat. Those are statutory lari amounts, so they do not move with the exchange rate. They land where the requirement lands, which in practice means companies with foreign nationals on the payroll and the staff themselves.
The penalty is not the real exposure. Where a residence permit sits on top of employment, unauthorised work undermines the legal basis of the permit, and a permit granted on a basis that turns out to be unlawful is a permit that can be revoked. An administrative fine turns into a question about your right to remain, which is a much more expensive problem and a slower one to fix.
Enforcement also changed shape in October 2025, when Georgia introduced an illegal-presence database, expanded biometric collection to fingerprints and palm prints, and widened inspection powers. The practical effect is that the state's picture of who is here and what they are doing is now assembled centrally rather than one counter at a time, and the penalties for working without authorisation are easier to apply than they were.
Government authorisation for labour activity in Georgia. Required to employ foreign staff, to trade as an IE with Georgian clients, or to apply for a work or IT residence permit.
See what it costs, from $450
The transition window, and who it is for
The window that closes on 1 January 2027 belongs to employers. A Georgian company that already had non-Georgian nationals on its payroll before 1 March 2026 has until that date to put permits behind them, and after it the ordinary fines apply to the company and the worker alike.
Because a decision takes up to 30 calendar days and every affected employer in the country shares one deadline, the practical filing date is autumn 2026 rather than December. If you employ nobody in Georgia and no Georgian company employs you, the date is not yours to plan around.
How we handle it
We run the assessment first, because the answer decides whether there is an application at all. Employees go through their Georgian employer, and the file is built on the company's turnover and filings. An Individual Entrepreneur with Georgian clients applies directly, and the file is built on business activity and receipts. Anyone who wants a work or IT residence permit applies for the labour permit first whatever their client list looks like, because that is the sequence the residence permit requires.
Once the route is settled, the labour permit application is filed with the Employment Promotion State Agency, then the residence permit, if you want one, goes to the Public Service Development Agency inside the window that approval opens. Two clocks run by two agencies that do not share a file, and both of them run against your lawful stay under the procedural rules on residence permits.
Key takeaways
- Three things trigger the permit: a Georgian employer hiring non-Georgian staff, an Individual Entrepreneur invoicing Georgian clients, and an application for a work or IT residence permit.
- Remote work for a foreign employer or foreign clients engages none of them, whatever your physical location.
- The residence permit is elective. Plenty of people run an Individual Entrepreneur on visa-free entry for years without one.
- If you do want a work or IT residence permit, the labour permit comes first and the application is refused without it.
- Investment permit holders and permanent residents are exempt outright; diplomatic staff, accredited journalists and refugees sit outside the regime.
- Fines are GEL 2,000 on the worker and GEL 2,000 on the employer, doubled on repeat, with revocation risk behind them.
- Employers with foreign nationals already on the payroll have until 1 January 2027 to regularise them.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need a work permit in Georgia if I work remotely for a foreign company?
No. The permit attaches to Georgian employers hiring foreign staff, to Individual Entrepreneurs invoicing Georgian clients, and to work and IT residence permit applications. A foreign employer with no Georgian entity is none of those, so there is nothing to apply for and nothing to regularise, however long you stay.
Does a Georgian residence permit let me work in Georgia?
Not by itself. The residence permit gives you the right to be in Georgia, and the work and IT routes are built on a Special Labour Permit granted first by a different agency. That is a sequencing rule for people who want those permits, not a requirement that everyone working from Georgia hold both.
Do freelancers need a Special Labour Permit in Georgia?
Only if their clients are Georgian, or if they want a work or IT residence permit. A freelancer invoicing clients abroad needs neither permit and can work that way indefinitely on visa-free entry. Where the permit is needed, you apply on your own figures, qualifying on GEL 50,000 of turnover or income of at least five times the subsistence minimum.
Can I do paid work in Georgia while visiting as a tourist?
Yes, if the people paying you are outside Georgia. Visa-free entry covers your presence, and work for foreign clients engages no permit however short or long the trip. Paid work for a Georgian client is the case that changes the answer, and that one is worth checking before you invoice.
Do I need a Georgian labour permit if I only take dividends from my company?
No, on those facts. Owning a shareholding in a business run by other people engages nothing. What does engage the requirement is being on a Georgian company's payroll, and most founders end up there, at which point the company applies for the permit exactly as it would for any other member of staff.
Who is exempt from the Special Labour Permit in Georgia?
Investment residence permit holders and permanent residents are exempt outright, including from the residence permit prerequisite. Diplomatic and consular staff, accredited foreign journalists, and refugees and asylum seekers sit outside the regime under separate rules. Everyone else is decided by the three triggers rather than by an exemption list.
Does being a tax non-resident in Georgia exempt me from the labour permit?
The question does not connect. Tax residency is decided by the Revenue Service on a 183-day presence test, and the labour permit is decided by who employs you, who pays your invoices and what you are applying for. Neither answer moves the other in either direction.
What is the fine for working in Georgia without a Special Labour Permit?
GEL 2,000 on the individual and a separate GEL 2,000 on the employer, both doubled for a repeat. It applies where the permit was required and absent, which in practice means Georgian companies with unpermitted foreign staff. The larger risk is indirect, because unauthorised work undermines the basis of a residence permit and puts revocation on the table.
Do I need a labour permit in Georgia if I am married to a Georgian citizen?
Marriage does not change the answer either way. It opens a family residence route and shortens the naturalisation timeline to five years, and it neither creates a labour permit requirement nor removes one. If a Georgian company employs you, the permit is required for that employment whoever you are married to.
I have lived in Georgia since 2023. Do I need a work permit now?
Length of residence does not decide it. If a Georgian company employs you, the permit is required and your employer files it, with the transition window for existing staff closing on 1 January 2027. If you have spent those years invoicing clients abroad, nothing about the March 2026 regime applies to you.
Does an Individual Entrepreneur in Georgia need a Special Labour Permit?
Only if the clients are Georgian, or if the Individual Entrepreneur wants a work or IT residence permit. Individual Entrepreneur registration is a tax and business structure and it neither creates nor satisfies an immigration requirement. Invoicing foreign clients on the 1% regime engages no permit at all.
