Remittances fell 10% in September, and transfers from Russia dropped 80%

September 2025 was a strong month, around USD 318 million and up 12% at the time, which is part of why this September looks weak against it. But the composition has changed, not just the total. Russia at USD 7.86 million is a rounding error in a 286-million-dollar month, where a few years ago it was one of the largest single sources. What replaced it is the European Union, close to half the month's total, and the United States at USD 63.39 million and still growing.

Remittances are household income. They pay rent, they service mortgages, and they fund the deposits that first-time local buyers put down. A tenth less of them arriving in a month is not a crisis on a 286-million base, but it is the kind of pressure that shows up later in rent arrears and in how long a mid-market flat sits empty. For a landlord the useful response is not alarm; it is knowing which part of your tenant base is paid from abroad and in which currency.

Italy at USD 53.97 million, Germany at 30.64 and Greece at 27.57 are large Georgian working communities sending money home, and two of those three were up on the year. That makes the inflow more stable in one sense, since it rests on employment in several economies rather than on one neighbour's policy, and more exposed in another, since a European slowdown would hit several of these lines at once. Either way, anyone pricing Georgian household demand off assumptions about Russian money is working from a map that no longer matches the ground.