Remote work and tax
Working from Georgia for a foreign company: why it is Georgian income and how to structure it
The most expensive misconception among people who move to Georgia (the country): “my employer is abroad, the money lands in a foreign account, so Georgia has nothing to do with it.” The Tax Code sees it differently — it looks at where you physically were while you did the work. Below: how the territorial principle works, what it means in practice, and the three structures that exist legally.
Checked 4 September 2026. General information, not tax or legal advice — your own case deserves a separate look.
Chapter one
The territorial principle: where your chair stands
Personal taxation in Georgia is built on territoriality. A resident pays 20% only on income from Georgian sources; foreign dividends, interest, capital gains and rent from property abroad are generally not taxed here at all. That is the part people move for.
And immediately the second half, usually skipped in promotional write-ups. Work performed while you are physically in Georgia is Georgian-source income. It makes no difference that the client is registered in London, the contract is governed by English law, or payment goes to a third country. What matters is where you were when you did the work.
The logic is common worldwide: the source of service income is the place where the service is performed, and you perform it from wherever you are sitting. So “it arrives on a foreign card and I declare nothing” is not tax planning — it is a dispute with the Tax Code whose losing side is known in advance.
One line checks you: count how many days over the last twelve months you worked while inside Georgia. The income for those days is the subject of this conversation, whoever paid it and wherever it landed.
Chapter two
183 days: what changes before and after
You become a Georgian tax resident by spending 183 days or more in the country in any continuous twelve-month period ending in the tax year. Nothing has to be filed for it — the status follows from presence.
After 183 days, what changes is less your obligation on Georgian income than your position in the world. Residency gives you the right to a tax residency certificate — the document you use to explain to the country you left where you now pay. Without it, your former tax system often keeps counting you as its own.
Below 183 days the picture is not what many assume: Georgian-source income is taxed in Georgia for a non-resident too. The territorial principle runs both ways — residency widens your rights rather than creating a new obligation. A non-resident is taxed on the Georgian source alone; a resident adds treaties and the certificate.
The practical conclusion, checkable against a calendar: count the days. Their number decides not the rate on your work but the documents you use to explain yourself back home.
Chapter three
Three legal structures and what they cost
First: an IE with Small Business Status. You register as an Individual Entrepreneur, take the status and pay 1% of turnover up to ₾500,000 a year. Foreign clients become your clients and you invoice them from your IE — the commonest and cheapest structure for a freelancer, provided your activity is not on the exclusion list. Registration takes 1–2 business days and costs 400 ₾; the status starts on the 1st of the following month.
Second: an IE on the standard regime. The same relationships with clients, but tax at 20% of profit with costs deducted. The route for those the 1% is closed to, and for those whose costs outweigh the rate difference.
Third: stay an employee of your foreign employer. Legally possible, practically awkward. A foreign company with no presence in Georgia normally does not withhold Georgian income tax, so declaring and paying 20% falls on you personally, with the reporting. There is no Small Business Status here: the 1% is a regime for entrepreneurs, not employees. Many arrive at an IE after this arithmetic.
Separately: if your employer were a Georgian resident, a migration question would join the tax one — a foreigner without permanent residence needs a work permit to work with residents. That is its own subject, set out on the work permit for IEs page.
Chapter four
Double taxation: one careful page
Georgia has double-tax treaties in force with roughly 58 countries. We deliberately do not print the list: it changes, and the answer in your case comes from the specific treaty rather than a country’s presence in a list.
They work on a common principle: they allocate the right to tax income between two states and remove double taxation by credit or exemption. The key instrument on the Georgian side is the tax residency certificate: it shows the other country that you sit under Georgian tax jurisdiction. Then the details begin — type of income, your former status, how the country you left defines residency, possible exit-tax and controlled-foreign-company rules — and those decide the outcome.
Here we deliberately stop. Advice on a specific country means reading that treaty and the law of your former jurisdiction; giving it in general terms would be dishonest. On the assessment we set out which questions to ask and which documents to gather, and where another country’s law is involved we point you to a local specialist.
A checkable action: find out whether your former country has a treaty with Georgia, and how it determines tax residency. Those two facts move the conversation off theory.
Chapter five
A worked example in round numbers (an illustration, not a calculation)
Take a notional developer with $60,000 of annual income from foreign clients, living and working in Georgia for more than 183 days a year. The figures are rounded and only show the scale of the gap.
Option A — an IE with Small Business Status. Turnover $60,000 at 1%: roughly $600 of tax for the year. Costs are not deducted, declarations are monthly, and the turnover sits well inside the ₾500,000 cap.
Option B — the same income with no status. Georgian-source income at the ordinary 20% rate: about $12,000. On the standard regime documented costs come off the base and the figure will be lower — but the order of magnitude stays different.
The gap here is roughly $11,400 a year, and what creates it is not a trick but an application filed on time. The cost of arranging it runs to hundreds of lari, not thousands of dollars: 400 ₾ for IE registration with the status.
The caveats, without which this would be advertising: the sums are notional, the lari-to-dollar rate moves, your activity may be on the exclusion list, and with substantial costs the standard regime sometimes wins. We run both on your real figures before you pay.
Check yourself
Six questions before your first invoice from Georgia
- How many days over the last 12 months were you physically in Georgia — and did you cross the 183-day line?
- What share of the year’s work did you perform while you were here?
- Do you have a status to run this income through: an IE, an IE with Small Business Status, or something else?
- Does your activity qualify for the 1% — or is it on the exclusion list?
- Does your former country still treat you as a tax resident, and does it have a treaty with Georgia?
- Do you need a Georgian tax residency certificate — and do you know which conversation you need it for?
The first four answers are in your calendar and contracts; the last two are in the law of the country you left. We work through the first four and say honestly where a local specialist is needed.
Questions
Common questions about working from Georgia for foreign clients
No. What matters is where the work was performed, not the payment route or the recipient bank. Work done while you were physically in Georgia is Georgian-source income.
Not so. The 183-day line determines tax residency, while Georgian-source income is taxed for non-residents too. Residency adds rights — the certificate and treaty access — rather than creating an obligation from nothing.
Yes, that is lawful. But a foreign employer with no presence in Georgia normally does not withhold tax here, so declaring and paying the 20% falls to you personally. Small Business Status does not extend to employment income — the 1% exists only for entrepreneurs.
There is no separate tax regime for remote workers — only visa-free stay of up to a year for citizens of many countries and the ordinary source-of-income rules. Anything else is worth checking against the law.
A treaty allocates the right to tax income between two countries and removes double taxation. Exactly how depends on that treaty and on the rules of your former country. We show which questions to ask and which documents to gather, and for another country’s law we recommend a local specialist.
Related pages: IE registration with the 1% status, who is excluded from the 1% tax, work permit for IEs, residence permit in Georgia, tax guide.
The next step
Does the 1% tax fit you — we'll check on a free assessment
A guide can't see your passport, your client list or your calendar. One call maps these rules onto your facts: whether your work clears the 1% exclusions, whether the 183-day residency line helps or hurts you, what year one costs. Free, and specific.