Small-business status now starts the day you apply, not next month

Micro-business status is the no-tax tier, and it ends when annual revenue passes ₾30,000 or you take on staff. Apply for small-business status within fifteen days of that happening and the change is backdated to the day it happened: income earned before then stays under the micro rules and untaxed. Miss the fifteen days and small-business status starts only on the day you apply, while income from the start of that calendar year is taxed at the general 20% rate. That is the difference between 1% and 20% on several months of turnover, decided by a filing date.

Small-business status used to begin on the first day of the following month; now it begins on the application date. A voluntary application below the ₾30,000 line also takes effect from the application date, with earlier income staying under the micro rules. Cancel the status voluntarily and it ends on the first day of the month after you apply, and you cannot re-apply until the tax year after cancellation — so dropping it to suit one unusual year is not reversible on demand. Record retention was cut from six years to three, counted from the end of the relevant calendar year.

Monthly declarations remain due even when no tax is payable, and the order is explicit that a missing declaration does not count as a zero declaration. For a freelancer with uneven months — a tour guide in winter, a consultant between contracts — this is the quiet trap. Nothing is owed, nothing is filed, and the obligation is still unmet. Fixed-taxpayer status has a related dependency: it requires registration as an individual entrepreneur, and cancelling that registration revokes the status automatically.

The order was published on 6 February 2026 and took effect thirty days later, so a guide written before then describes a system that no longer exists in the same shape. The 1% rate itself and the ₾500,000 small-business revenue ceiling are long-standing; the timing mechanics around them are what moved this year. Anyone relying on the regime should confirm their own position with the Revenue Service or an accountant rather than with a guide of unknown vintage — this article included.