The income line that halves what you can borrow moves twice next year: 1,500 to 2,000 to 2,500 lari

Georgia's payment-to-income cap limits how much of a borrower's monthly net income can go to servicing loans. For lari loans the cap today turns on a single income line of 1,500 lari a month. Below it, total monthly loan payments may not exceed a quarter of net income. At or above it, they may reach half. The jump at the line is steep: on 1,400 lari the ceiling is roughly 350 lari of monthly payments, while on 1,500 lari it is 750.

The National Bank announced on 30 September that the income line for the stricter quarter-of-income cap will rise in two stages. From 1 February it goes from 1,500 to 2,000 lari, and from 1 September 2027 from 2,000 to 2,500 lari. A borrower on 1,800 lari net can presently commit up to 900 lari a month; from February that falls to 450. Someone on 2,300 lari keeps a 1,150-lari ceiling through February, then drops to 575 from September 2027. The regulator's stated reason for phasing it is to avoid a single abrupt shock to the market.

Roman Gotsiridze, a former president of the National Bank, argues the threshold should have stayed where it was, on the view that a higher nominal wage does not by itself mean a household is better off. The counter-case is that the line was set when average pay was lower, and that leaving it unmoved would gradually let half-of-income borrowing reach people the rule was written to protect. Average nominal monthly pay was 2,389.3 lari in the second quarter of 2026 on official figures, but the median is well below the average, so the two steps will catch a large share of salaried buyers.

If you are a salaried buyer in the 1,500-to-2,500-lari band and intend to borrow in lari, your approvable payment is larger now than it will be after February. That is an argument for getting the application in rather than waiting, provided the purchase itself stands up on its own terms. If you are selling a mid-market apartment that depends on mortgaged buyers, the pool of borrowers able to carry a given monthly payment narrows at each step. Separately, the loan-to-value rule for lari mortgages has allowed a 10% minimum down payment since February 2025, so the binding constraint for most buyers is income, not deposit.