Two ways to become a Georgian tax resident: count 183 days, or qualify as a high-net-worth individual

The statutory test is physical presence: you are a Georgian tax resident if you were actually in Georgia for 183 days or more in any continuous twelve-month period ending in the current tax year. Two details in that sentence matter more than people expect. It is any rolling twelve months, not the calendar year, so a stay split across new year can still take you over. And status is set separately for each tax period — days that made you resident in one year are not carried forward into the next, so residency is something you re-earn rather than keep.

The alternative, usually written up as the HNWI certificate, is often described as residency without setting foot in the country. The conditions published by advisers are narrower than that. You need either verified assets above GEL 3 million or annual income above GEL 200,000 in each of the last three years. On top of that you need a link to Georgia: property here worth at least USD 500,000, or a Georgian residence permit or citizenship, or at least GEL 25,000 of Georgian-source income in the year before you apply. Applications go to the Revenue Service, and the status is renewed annually rather than granted once.

A Georgian tax residency certificate is evidence for other tax authorities; it is not a shield against them. Many countries apply their own residency tests and tie-breaker rules in treaties, so holding a certificate here does not by itself end an obligation somewhere else. It is also not a residence permit — it gives no right to live in Georgia — and it is not the property-linked permit that foreign buyers ask about. Those are separate applications with separate criteria, and conflating them is the most common mistake in this area.

The 183-day test is long-standing and stable. The wealth-route thresholds are the part that moves, and the adviser pages that set them out openly date their figures — the ones above were published as the position in 2025, and the day-count rule was last reviewed by PwC in September 2026. If a decision of yours turns on GEL 3 million versus something else, confirm the current numbers with the Revenue Service or a Georgian tax adviser before you move money. Nothing in this piece is advice on your own position.