"Georgia golden visa" is one of the most-searched phrases connected to this country's tax and residency system, and the first thing worth knowing about it is that Georgia does not call it that. There is no programme with that name in Georgian law. What exists is a set of residence permits available to people who invest in property or in a Georgian business, governed by ordinary immigration legislation, plus a separate and frequently misunderstood question about what any of that does to your tax position. Here is what the routes actually require, what changed in 2026, and the plain answer to the question that brings most people to this page: does buying your way to a residence permit make you a Georgian tax resident. It does not, by itself, and getting that wrong is expensive.
What Georgia actually calls this
"Golden visa" is a term journalists and immigration marketers apply globally to any programme that trades investment for residence rights, borrowed originally from Portugal's and Spain's schemes and now used loosely for dozens of countries with nothing formally in common beyond the label. Georgia's own legislation, the Law of Georgia on the Legal Status of Aliens and Stateless Persons, does not use the phrase anywhere. What it actually provides for is a residence permit issued on specific grounds, one of which is investment - in real estate or directly in a Georgian business - alongside entirely separate grounds such as employment, family reunification or education.
That distinction matters beyond pedantry. A residence permit is an immigration status. It governs whether you may legally live in Georgia and for how long. It says nothing on its own about which country taxes you, which is a completely separate legal question decided under Georgia's Tax Code rather than its immigration law. Conflating the two is the single most common and costly misunderstanding in this entire search category, and it gets its own section below rather than a caveat at the end.
The property-investment route, and what changed in 2026
Georgia allows a foreign national to obtain a residence permit by owning qualifying real estate, and the threshold for this has been raised three times since the route was introduced, most recently in 2026.
Following amendments passed in mid-2025, the minimum qualifying property investment rose from USD 100,000 to USD 150,000 (or its GEL equivalent), effective 1 March 2026, according to reporting on the change and consistent with the increase built into the law itself. Multiple properties can be combined to reach the threshold, agricultural land does not qualify, and the market value has to be established by an assessor accredited through Georgia's national accreditation body rather than simply the purchase price on the contract. This tier grants a residence permit that is renewable annually for as long as the property is retained, and it lapses if the property is sold. It is temporary by design, not a route to permanent residence on its own.
Property purchases completed before 1 March 2026 continue to qualify under the previous USD 100,000 threshold, including on renewal, for as long as the original property is retained. Anyone relying on the lower figure needed the purchase completed before that date; new applications now run on the higher threshold.
There is a second, higher property tier. A property investment of at least USD 300,000 qualifies for a longer, five-year residence permit under the law's investment-residence provisions, described in the next section, rather than the shorter annually-renewed permit the lower threshold produces. The two figures are not two prices for the same thing. They lead to different permits with different durations and different paths onward.
The business-investment route
The same USD 300,000 tier can be met through a direct investment in a Georgian business rather than real estate, made in accordance with Georgia's investment legislation. This is the route aimed at people establishing or backing an actual operating business here rather than buying property, and it leads to the same five-year investment residence permit.
Holding this permit is not a one-time test passed at the moment of investing. According to the Public Service Development Agency, which processes residence permit applications, holders of the investment-based permit have to confirm annual turnover from the underlying economic activity each year the permit is held: at least USD 50,000 in the first year, at least USD 100,000 in the second, and at least USD 120,000 in each of the third through fifth years, verified against Revenue Service records before each year's renewal. Failing to file that proof is a basis for the permit lapsing.
This route is a different question from simply registering and running an ordinary Georgian business, which is a separate, lower-threshold path covered elsewhere on this site. The investment residence permit is built for a specific, larger commitment with its own reporting obligations, not for a freelancer or small operator whose Georgian company happens to exist. If a Georgian LLC is the vehicle for the qualifying investment, it needs to be structured and capitalised with this permit's turnover tests in mind from the outset, not adjusted after the fact.
The permanent-residence route
Maintaining the USD 300,000-tier investment residence permit for its full five-year term, with the annual turnover or continued property ownership requirement satisfied each year, opens the door to what Georgian law calls a residence permit for indefinite stay - the closest equivalent to permanent residence in this system. This is the route the "permanent residence" language in golden-visa marketing is actually describing: not an immediate grant, but the reward for five years of a maintained, reported, higher-tier investment.
The lower, USD 150,000 property tier does not carry this path on its own. It renews annually for as long as the property is held, which is a genuinely useful and much cheaper route to lawful residence, but it is not built to convert into indefinite stay the way the higher tier is.
What a residence permit does not do: make you a tax resident
This is the correction the entire "golden visa" search category needs, stated plainly rather than as a footnote.
Holding any Georgian residence permit, including the investment-based one, does not make you a Georgian tax resident. Tax residency is decided entirely separately, under the Tax Code, by 183 days of physical presence in a rolling 12-month period, or by a distinct high-net-worth route that runs on wealth and income thresholds rather than immigration status. You can hold a five-year investment residence permit and spend six weeks a year in Georgia, which makes you a lawful resident for immigration purposes and, in most cases, nothing at all for tax purposes.
The practical consequence is significant. Georgia's most valuable feature for an actual tax resident is that foreign-source income goes untaxed here, a territorial system covered fully in Georgia's tax residency rules. That exemption only ever helps someone who meets the residence test set out in PwC's summary of Georgian tax residence: 183 days of physical presence in a rolling 12-month period, or the separate HNWI route. A property investor holding a residence permit but not crossing 183 days gets none of it: their worldwide income remains taxed exactly where it was before, under that country's own rules, and the Georgian permit changes nothing about that bill. We cover the same confusion from the other direction, registering a business without becoming resident, in 1% tax without living in Georgia, and the underlying point is identical: an immigration status and a tax status are decided by different tests, for different purposes, by different parts of the system, and holding one is not evidence of the other.
The reverse confusion is just as common and just as costly. Someone can become a genuine Georgian tax resident, by spending the days, without ever applying for or holding any residence permit at all, since the 183-day test asks about physical presence, not immigration status. The two questions run on entirely separate tracks, explored properly in tax residency versus legal residency.
If tax residency is actually the goal
For a wealthy applicant whose actual objective is Georgian tax residency rather than a right to live here, the investment residence permit is very often the wrong tool for the job, because it does not produce tax residency directly at all. What does is either the ordinary 183-day count, which requires genuinely living here, or the separate high-net-worth route, which grants tax residency based on wealth and income thresholds without a day requirement, run by the Ministry of Finance through its own application rather than through the immigration system covered on this page. That route is detailed in our HNWI tax residency guide, and it is worth understanding as a distinct application from anything discussed above before assuming a property purchase gets you there.
The two systems can be pursued together, and often are: an investor buys the qualifying property, obtains the residence permit for the right to be in Georgia long-term, and separately applies for tax residency through whichever route actually fits their day count or their wealth profile. Buying the property alone does neither the second job automatically.
Costs, timeline and the practical side
Processing an investment residence permit application through the Public Service Development Agency runs on tiered service fees depending on how quickly you need a decision, with faster processing costing more, on top of the underlying investment itself. The permit extends to a spouse, minor children and other qualifying dependants under the same investment, so a single qualifying purchase or business investment covers the whole family rather than requiring separate qualifying amounts per person.
Two practical points are worth planning around rather than discovering after the fact. First, the property valuation has to come from an accredited assessor, not the purchase contract price, and a property bought below its assessed market value can fall short of the threshold even if the price paid looks sufficient on paper. Second, actually operating in Georgia, whether that means managing a business investment or simply living in a purchased property part of the year, generally means opening a Georgian bank account, which runs its own separate compliance process regardless of which residence permit you hold.
For anyone weighing Georgia against another jurisdiction's investment migration programme, or thinking through this alongside a wider relocation, our country-by-country guides work through what each departure country actually requires before any of this changes your tax position there.
Who this route actually suits
The investment residence permit makes the most sense for people whose actual goal is a durable, legal right to spend meaningful time in Georgia, with family included, backed by a property or business asset rather than a visa that has to be renewed on short notice. It is a genuinely useful tool for that purpose, and it is a poor tool for someone whose real goal is a lower tax bill, because it does not deliver that on its own, at any investment size.
If your interest in this page started with the word "golden visa" and a hope that buying property quietly changes your tax situation, the honest next step is a straight conversation about what actually changes your tax position and what does not, before any money moves.
We'll separate the two questions properly: what residence permit route actually fits your investment plan, and whether becoming a Georgian tax resident is genuinely part of that plan or a different application entirely. Written summary included.
See what it costs
If the actual goal is running a business here rather than a formal investment-tier permit, our tax consulting service can also model whether a more ordinary registration route fits better than the investment permit's reporting obligations.
Key takeaways
- "Golden visa" is not a term Georgian law uses. What exists is a residence permit available on investment grounds, alongside other, unrelated grounds like employment or family.
- The property-investment threshold for the lower, annually-renewed permit rose to USD 150,000 (from USD 100,000) effective 1 March 2026, with earlier purchases grandfathered under the old figure.
- A USD 300,000 investment, in property or directly in a Georgian business, qualifies for a five-year residence permit with its own annual turnover reporting requirements.
- Maintaining the USD 300,000-tier permit for its full five years opens the route to a residence permit for indefinite stay, the closest equivalent to permanent residence in this system.
- Holding any residence permit, including the investment-based one, does not by itself make you a Georgian tax resident. That is decided separately, by the 183-day test or the HNWI route.
- Someone can become Georgian tax resident by physical presence alone, with no residence permit at all, since the two systems run on entirely separate tests.
- If Georgian tax residency, not just the right to live here, is the actual goal, the HNWI route or the 183-day count are the tools that produce it, not the investment residence permit on its own.
Frequently asked questions
Does Georgia have a golden visa programme?
Not under that name. Georgia's own law provides for residence permits granted on investment grounds, among several other grounds, without using "golden visa" anywhere in the legislation. The term is a global media and marketing label applied to Georgia's programme from outside, borrowed from schemes in countries like Portugal and Spain.
How much do I need to invest to get a Georgian residence permit through property?
As of 1 March 2026, qualifying real estate needs a certified market value of at least USD 150,000 for the lower, annually-renewed permit, up from USD 100,000 previously. A USD 300,000 property or business investment qualifies for a longer, five-year permit with a path toward permanent residence.
Does buying property in Georgia make me a tax resident?
No. A residence permit obtained through property investment is an immigration status, not a tax status. Georgian tax residency is decided separately, by spending 183 days or more in Georgia within a rolling 12-month period, or by qualifying through the separate high-net-worth route. Neither depends on holding any residence permit.
What is the business-investment route to a Georgian residence permit?
A direct investment of at least USD 300,000 in a Georgian business, made under Georgia's investment legislation, qualifies for the same five-year residence permit as the higher property tier. Holders must show annual turnover from the business, rising from USD 50,000 in year one to USD 120,000 by years three through five, to keep the permit.
Can I get permanent residence in Georgia through investment?
Yes, through the USD 300,000 tier specifically. Maintaining that investment residence permit for its full five-year term, with the annual reporting requirements met each year, opens the route to a residence permit for indefinite stay. The lower, USD 150,000 property tier does not carry this path on its own.
Is the USD 150,000 property threshold new?
Yes, effective 1 March 2026, raised from USD 100,000 as part of the third increase to this threshold since the route was introduced. Property purchases completed before that date continue to qualify, including on renewal, under the previous figure for as long as the property is retained.
If I get a residence permit through investment, will my home country stop taxing me?
Not automatically, and usually not at all just from holding the permit. Whether your home country still taxes you depends entirely on that country's own residency and exit rules, which are unrelated to a Georgian immigration status. Becoming a genuine Georgian tax resident is a separate step, and even that does not by itself end another country's tax claim.
What is the difference between this and the residence permit through running a business?
The investment residence permit described here is built around a specific, larger threshold, USD 300,000, with its own annual turnover reporting. Obtaining residency through simply operating an ordinary registered business in Georgia is a separate and generally lower-threshold route, aimed at a different kind of applicant.
Does the investment residence permit cover my family?
Yes. A qualifying investment covers the main applicant along with a spouse, minor children and other qualifying dependants under the same investment, rather than requiring a separate qualifying amount for each family member.
What happens if I sell the property after getting the residence permit?
For the lower, annually-renewed property tier, the permit lapses once the qualifying property is sold, since it depends on continued ownership. For the higher investment tier, continued compliance, whether through property ownership or the turnover thresholds, is what keeps the permit valid through its five-year term and beyond.
If I actually want to become a Georgian tax resident, is the investment permit the right route?
Not on its own. If genuine tax residency is the goal, the two routes that actually produce it are physically spending 183 days a year in Georgia, or qualifying under the separate high-net-worth route, which is a Ministry of Finance process distinct from the immigration system covered here. An investment residence permit can sit alongside either of those, but it does not create tax residency by itself.