Every tourist now needs 30,000 lari of insurance to enter Georgia

The embassy notice lists the details a compliant policy must state: the parties to it, the territory covered, the insured risks, the dates of coverage, the limits, and the premium with its payment terms. The sum insured must be at least 30,000 GEL, and coverage must run across the arrival and departure dates rather than starting the day after you land. The document can be physical or electronic, which means a PDF on a phone is acceptable, but it must be in Georgian or English. A policy written only in another language does not meet the stated requirement.

The notice lists the exemptions: holders of diplomatic and special visas; holders of diplomatic, official, service and special passports; accredited staff of diplomatic missions, consular offices and representations of international organisations, together with their accredited family members; people whose entry is provided for under Georgia's international treaties and agreements; and drivers engaged in international road freight or passenger transport. Everyone else arriving as a tourist is covered by the requirement.

The embassy text does not state any penalty for arriving without a policy, and it does not describe a purchase process at the border. That absence is worth taking seriously in both directions: it does not promise you will be turned away, and it does not promise you can buy cover on arrival. The practical conclusion for a traveller is to arrange a policy before departure and keep the document reachable offline, because a requirement with no published consequence is still a requirement a border officer can ask you to satisfy.

If you run a guesthouse, a private tour, or a short-let apartment, this is now part of the pre-arrival conversation. A guest who is refused entry is a cancelled booking, and a guest who was never told is a complaint. Adding one line to a confirmation email, insurance of at least 30,000 GEL covering your full stay, in Georgian or English, costs nothing and removes a failure mode you cannot fix from your end. The rule was adopted in late December 2025 and took effect at the start of January 2026, so it has been in force for a full season already.