Three hundred and sixty-five. That is how many days a citizen of the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia or any EU country may spend in Georgia without applying for anything. Most countries measure a visitor's welcome in weeks. Georgia measures it in seasons, which is long enough to see its capital through a cold January, a wet May, a scorching August and the grape harvest at the end of September.
A year is long enough to learn Tbilisi properly. Below the walls of Narikala, a fortress first raised in the 4th century, the lanes of the old town are lined with wooden houses whose carved, open balconies hang over the street. At the foot of the hill, in Abanotubani, the "bath district", low brick domes rise out of the ground: the roofs of bathhouses sunk below street level and fed by the sulphur springs that gave the city its name, from tbili, warm.
Above it all, a gondola swings from Rike Park up to the fortress, and a funicular first built in 1905 climbs Mtatsminda to a park with a Ferris wheel at 770 metres, the highest point in the city. From the top, the whole city lies below you, old town, river and all.
The number is real, but it is narrower than the old nomad guides made it sound. It is a right to stay, and since 2026 it comes with two conditions those guides never mentioned: health insurance at the border, and a labour law that decides who may work. Get both right and Tbilisi is one of the easiest cities anywhere to spend a year with a laptop, at about $1,180 a month on our budget for one person in a central flat.
So who is it for? Tbilisi suits you if you work for a company or clients abroad and want a year, not a season, somewhere old, cheap and unlike anywhere else. It is a poorer fit if you plan to open a Georgian business for the famous 1% tax rate without also getting a work permit, or if August heat, grey winter air and an alphabet you cannot read would wear you down.
| Countries and territories whose citizens get a year visa-free | 91 |
|---|---|
| Insurance cover required at the border | at least $11,430 |
| Home broadband median, Georgia | 51.7 Mbps down, 50.5 up |
| One-bedroom, city centre | $700 a month |
| One-bedroom, outside the centre | $440 a month |
| Monthly budget, one person, central flat | about $1,180 |
| Meal in an inexpensive restaurant | about $10 |
| Metro and bus, 90 minutes | 38 cents |
| Metro and bus, unlimited for a year | $95 |
| Tax residence | 183 days in 12 months |
| Time zone | UTC+4, all year |
Visa list: Georgia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Fares: Tbilisi Transport Company. Speed medians come from the Ookla Speedtest Global Index (August 2026). Rent, meal and budget figures are the Numbeo data shown on our Tbilisi page. Prices are in US dollars at an exchange rate of 2.62 lari to the dollar on 1 August 2026.
What the 365 days cover
The rule comes from a government ordinance, and the foreign ministry's own entry for American citizens says they may enter and stay in Georgia without a visa for one full year. The same wording covers 91 countries and territories on the ministry's list, among them all 27 EU members, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea, Israel, Brazil, Mexico and South Africa.
Check your own passport before you plan around it, because the list has edges. Chinese citizens get 30 days at a time and 90 in any 180; Indian and Philippine citizens need a visa, which Indians can apply for online. If your country is missing, the year does not apply to you.
The first new condition applies from the moment you land. Since 1 January 2026 every tourist entering Georgia must hold health and accident insurance for the whole stay, with cover of at least $11,430, in Georgian or English, from a Georgian or a foreign insurer. The UK government warns that your airline may ask for it at check-in. For a year in Tbilisi that means a policy that runs for a year: a two-week travel policy will not cover month three.
What happens on day 366 is not written down. The rule grants a year and says nothing about the next one, so long-stayers leave, often for neighbouring Yerevan, and come back in. That only works if the officer at the border lets you in, and entry is never automatic: the same UK advice records British citizens refused entry over alleged links to political demonstrations and over unpaid fines. Plan a second year as something you ask for, not something you are owed.
Does the year let you work?
This is the part that changed in 2026. Since 1 March, a foreigner without permanent residence needs a "right to work" from the State Employment Support Agency to be employed by a Georgian employer, to hold a remote job with a local employer, or to be self-employed in Georgia. Working without one costs $762 for a first offence, and repeat offences cost more.
The law does not say in so many words whether it covers someone who lives in Tbilisi and works for a company or clients abroad. Lawyers quoted in an OC Media explainer read it as aimed at people in Georgia's own labour market, which would leave a foreign payroll outside it. The UK government reads it more widely: its travel advice says you need a work permit to work in Georgia, "including working remotely or running a business".
So there are two kinds of nomad here. Paid from abroad, with no Georgian contract, clients or business, you are outside the law's plain target, though not outside the UK's reading of it. Register a Georgian business, as many freelancers do for the tax rate below, and you are self-employed in Georgia: you need the right to work before you trade. The application goes through the labour ministry's portal, includes a video interview, and costs $76 for a decision in 30 days or $152 for one in ten working days.
If you want a stay where remote work is written into the permit itself, our comparison of digital nomad visas lists the countries that issue one.
The 1% rate, and the order of the steps
Tax follows the calendar, not your passport. You become tax resident in Georgia after 183 days in any continuous 12-month period, so a full year on the visa-free stay makes you resident. Residence is milder here than in most of Europe: Georgia taxes individuals at a flat 20% and exempts residents' income that has no Georgian source.
The catch is where the work is done. Services you perform while sitting in Georgia can count as Georgian-source income, and that is why so many freelancers take the small business route. An individual entrepreneur holding small business status pays 1% of turnover up to about $190,500 a year, and 3% above that. Some professions are shut out, among them legal work, audit and tax consulting, medical practice and architecture.
The status is not automatic. You register as an individual entrepreneur with the Revenue Service, apply for the status, and file a return every month, including months with no income. Since March the order matters: an individual entrepreneur counts as self-employed in Georgia, so you need the right to work before you start invoicing through the business. What you owe at home is a separate question, and our guide to how digital nomads are taxed covers it, including why an American files a US return wherever the 1% is paid.
Setting up a business in Georgia?
Our Tbilisi directory lists lawyers and visa specialists by the language they work in, each with the source for that claim.
Browse lawyers in Tbilisi →Which slope to live on
Tbilisi is strung along the Mtkvari river between hills, and where you live decides how much of your day is spent climbing. It also decides the rent: on our figures a central one-bedroom costs about $700 a month and one further out about $440, a wider gap than in most capitals. Long lets cost less than short-term listings, so a year's lease is where the saving is.
Sololaki and the old town: balconies and baths
Sololaki is one of the oldest neighbourhoods, built up in the first half of the 19th century on the slope of Mtatsminda, on land that had been the gardens of Georgian nobles. Below it lies Old Tbilisi, with the carved balconies, the churches and the baths. Living here puts the funicular and the cable car within a walk, and it puts tour groups on your doorstep: charming for a first month, tiring by the sixth.
Vera, off Rustaveli Avenue: the centre that works
Rustaveli Avenue runs for about 1.5 km from Freedom Square past the Parliament, the Opera and the Rustaveli Theatre before it becomes Kostava Street. Just beyond it, in Vera, Stamba has turned a 1950s publishing house into a hotel, cafés and event spaces, and the side streets are full of small cafés with sockets and wifi. For most people staying a year, this is the address to start from.
Vake: the green, expensive west
Vake is leafier and wealthier. Its park, opened in 1946, climbs by a wide staircase and a cascade of fountains to a war memorial on the ridge, with red sand on the paths, an open-air cinema and cafés. Rents sit at the top of the city's range, and the old town is a taxi ride away rather than a walk.
Chugureti and Marjanishvili: the factory across the river
On the left bank, a Soviet sewing factory on Egnate Ninoshvili Street reopened in 2016 as Fabrika, a hostel, studios, cafés and bars around a large courtyard a few blocks from Marjanishvili metro. Impact Hub's coworking space is inside. The streets around it cost less than Vera and are changing quickly, which suits someone who likes being near the new rather than the polished.
Saburtalo: where Tbilisi actually lives
Saburtalo is a large residential district of Soviet-era blocks and big supermarkets, with its own metro line into the centre. It is the cheap end of our range and the right choice for a long stay on a tight budget, when the rent matters more than the view from the balcony.
A working day, from the flat to the baths
Start with the connection, because it is better than the old buildings suggest. Georgia's median home line runs at about 52 Mbps down and, unusually, almost as fast up, with 5 ms of latency, so a video call and a large upload both go through. The median mobile connection is faster still, which makes a local SIM a real backup rather than a token one.
When the flat gets too quiet, Impact Hub at Fabrika and Terminal, a chain with several branches across the city, sell day passes and monthly desks; our city page carries their current prices. Lunch could be khinkali, dumplings of twisted dough filled with meat and spices. You bite the side and drink the juice first, so the dumpling does not burst.
Getting around costs almost nothing. One fare of 38 cents buys 90 minutes of unlimited travel on the metro, buses and minibuses, paid with a Metromoney card or a bank card; paying cash on a bus loses the 90 minutes. A 30-day pass is $15. And for a stay built on the 365-day rule, there is a pass built for it: a year of unlimited travel for $95.
At five o'clock you could walk down to Rike Park and ride the cable car up to Narikala for 95 cents, then follow the fortress path down into Abanotubani. The bathhouses rent private rooms, and an attendant will work you over with a rough mitt, the kisa, before a soap wash and a rinse. On a January evening, with the lows below freezing, it is the best hour of the day.
Evenings run late. A supra, the Georgian feast, is steered by a tamada, the toastmaster, and the wine on the table may come from a qvevri, the clay jar that UNESCO has listed as intangible heritage since 2013. After midnight the techno clubs take over. The best known, Bassiani, has its dance floor in a disused swimming pool inside the Dinamo Arena.
Twelve months, four different cities
The point of a year is that you get every season, and Tbilisi's are sharp. January averages highs around 6°C with nights below freezing; the city is quiet and the baths are at their best. May is the wettest month, green and changeable.
August is the hottest, with average highs around 30°C and warm nights, and heat waves push well past that. Plan the hard work for the mornings or an air-conditioned desk, and use the long evenings. Late September brings rtveli, the grape harvest in eastern Georgia, and in October Tbilisoba, a festival first held in 1979, fills the old town with open-air concerts of traditional music and dancing. If you can only take half the year, take late April to June and September to October: mild days, long light and the harvest.
What a year in Tbilisi costs
On our one-person budget, twelve months in a central one-bedroom come to about $14,160: rent, food, transport, internet and the rest of an ordinary life. The lean version, in a cheaper district and cooking more at home, is about $11,040.
Two costs sit outside that basket: the year of insurance you now need at the border, and, on the small business route, the right to work and twelve monthly returns. Neither changes the verdict. For a capital city, this is a cheap year, and our roundup of the best European cities for nomads shows what the alternatives further west cost.
Before day one
Buy the insurance for the whole stay, in English. Decide which kind of nomad you are, and if you want the 1% rate, get the right to work before you invoice a single client. Once you land, buy a Metromoney card and put the annual pass on it, and count your days, because day 183 makes you tax resident. If routine care comes up, our list of doctors in Tbilisi by the language they speak is the place to start. Then take the cable car up to Narikala and look at the city you have a year to learn.
See the whole picture for Tbilisi
The full cost table, the neighbourhood notes, coworking spaces and all 13 of our category ratings, on one page.
Open the Tbilisi city guide →Frequently Asked Questions
How long can a digital nomad stay in Tbilisi without a visa?
One full year, if your country is among the 91 on the Georgian foreign ministry's list, which includes the US, the UK, Canada, Australia and every EU member. Chinese citizens get 30 days at a time, and Indian and Philippine citizens need a visa.
Do I need a work permit to work remotely from Tbilisi?
Since 1 March 2026 you need a "right to work" to work for a Georgian employer or to be self-employed in Georgia, including as an individual entrepreneur. Whether it covers work for a foreign employer is not spelled out; the UK government's advice says it does.
Is travel insurance mandatory for Georgia?
Yes. Since 1 January 2026 tourists must hold health and accident insurance for the whole stay, with cover of at least $11,430, in Georgian or English. Airlines may ask for it at check-in.
How does Georgia's 1% tax work for freelancers?
An individual entrepreneur with small business status pays 1% of turnover up to about $190,500 a year and 3% above it, filing monthly. You must register and apply for the status, and since March 2026 you also need the right to work before you trade.
How much does it cost to live in Tbilisi as a digital nomad?
About $1,180 a month for one person in a central one-bedroom, or about $920 in a cheaper district. A central one-bedroom rents for about $700 a month.
Which Tbilisi neighbourhood is best for digital nomads?
Vera, near Rustaveli Avenue, is the practical centre. Sololaki and the old town have the balconies and the baths, Vake the parks, Chugureti the Fabrika complex, and Saburtalo the lowest rents.
Is the internet in Tbilisi good enough for remote work?
Yes. Georgia's median home connection runs at about 52 Mbps down and 50 up with 5 ms latency, and mobile data is faster still, so a local SIM makes a solid backup.
