Travel insurance of 30,000 lari has been compulsory to enter Georgia since January

Since 1 January 2026, tourists entering Georgia are required to hold insurance covering medical expenses with a minimum of 30,000 lari. The policy may come from a Georgian or a foreign insurer, and it must cover the full period of stay in Georgia, including the arrival and departure dates. The legal basis is the Law of Georgia on Tourism, as set out in the text published by Georgia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and circulated by foreign missions in Tbilisi. This is a document requirement, not a fee: nothing is paid at the border, but nothing substitutes for the policy either.

The published exemptions are narrow: holders of diplomatic and special visas; holders of diplomatic, official, service and special passports; accredited diplomatic and consular staff with their accredited family members; people whose entry is governed by international treaties; and drivers engaged in international road freight and passenger transport. Everything outside that list is covered by the requirement. Note what is not exempt — property owners, long-stay visitors on the 365-day visa-free rule, and people arriving to attend to a purchase are all tourists for this purpose unless they hold something from the list above.

If you sell tours, transfers or private experiences to inbound guests, the practical risk is a guest arriving without cover and treating it as your oversight. A line in the booking confirmation stating the 30,000 lari minimum and that the policy must span the arrival and departure dates costs nothing and removes the argument. It is also worth being precise with guests about the figure: secondary sources circulating online quote a dollar amount instead, and a traveller who buys to a lower threshold on the strength of a tour blog may still be short. The lari figure in the ministry's text is the one that governs.

The published notice does not state the penalty for arriving without cover, and it does not describe how consistently the requirement is checked at each crossing. That silence is worth respecting in both directions: do not assume the rule is unenforced because you have not been asked, and do not promise a guest they will be turned back either. The Georgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs is the authority to check against before travel, because entry rules are amended more often than the guides that describe them.