No Permit Rests on an Income From Abroad; the Nearest Thing Rests on a Flat Worth USD 150,000
Georgia has no passive-income residence category. Article 15 of the Law on the Legal Status of Aliens and Stateless Persons is a closed list of the residence permits Georgia issues, and as it stands after the amendments of 15 April and 25 June 2026 it has thirteen entries: work, study, family reunification, former citizen of Georgia, stateless person, special, permanent, spouse of a citizen of Georgia, investment, temporary for a victim of domestic violence, short-term on property, unlimited, and temporary for a person employed in information technologies. Not one of them turns on receiving an income, a pension or a remittance from outside the country, and none sets a monthly figure an applicant has to show. The two that a person living on foreign money can actually use are about property rather than income: the short-term residence permit in article 15(კ), for an alien who owns immovable property in Georgia other than agricultural land with a market value above USD 150 000 equivalent in GEL, extended a year at a time and ending the moment the ownership ends; and the investment residence permit in article 15(თ) at USD 300 000. The only income figure anywhere in article 15 is the USD 25 000 a year in subparagraph (მ), and that is remuneration for work in information technologies, not income from abroad.
At a glance
- A residence permit granted for income from abroad
- None among the thirteen types in article 15 of the Law on the Legal Status of Aliens and Stateless Persons
Read in the Georgian consolidated text of 25 June 2026. The list is exhaustive: article 15 opens by saying that the following types of residence permit are issued in Georgia.
- A minimum monthly income stated anywhere in article 15
- None stated in article 15 of that Law
The only annual figure in the article is the USD 25 000 remuneration in subparagraph (მ), which is pay for work in information technologies.
- Nearest route, by property
- Immovable property worth more than USD 150 000 equivalent in GEL
Article 15(კ) - subparagraph j in matsne's English. Agricultural land does not count, and the value is set by a certified assessor of a body accredited by the Georgian Accreditation Centre.
- Short-term permit duration
- Extended one year at a time, for as long as the ownership lasts
Article 16(1)(ვ) of the same Law. Its validity terminates if the alien's ownership of the property ends.
Requirements
- There is no income-based route: the question for a person living on foreign income is whether they own property in Georgia
- Short-term permit: ownership of immovable property other than agricultural land worth more than USD 150 000 equivalent in GEL, valued by a certified assessor accredited by the Georgian Accreditation Centre
- The permit ends when the ownership ends
Exceptions by origin
No exceptions recorded
Nothing we have read treats any nationality differently for this topic. The rule above applies to everyone.
What the law says
«კ) მოკლევადიანი ბინადრობის ნებართვა, რომელიც გაიცემა უცხოელზე, რომელსაც საქართველოს ტერიტორიაზე, საქართველოს კანონმდებლობით დადგენილი წესით აქვს საკუთრების უფლება უძრავ ნივთზე (გარდა სასოფლო-სამეურნეო დანიშნულების მიწისა), რომლის საბაზრო ღირებულება აღემატება 150 000 აშშ დოლარის ლარში ეკვივალენტს, აგრეთვე მის მეუღლესა და შვილზე/შვილებზე.»Our translation - not official
(კ) a short-term residence permit, issued to an alien who, in the territory of Georgia and under the procedure established by Georgian legislation, has ownership of immovable property (other than agricultural land) whose market value exceeds the GEL equivalent of USD 150 000, and also to their spouse and child or children.
About this source
The official gazette and consolidated statute book of Georgia, a legal entity under public law under the Ministry of Justice. Every instrument lives at matsne.gov.ge/ka/document/view/<id>: laws, organic laws, Government resolutions, presidential decrees and ministerial orders, each page opening with a metadata block that gives the document number, the issuing body, the date of issue, the source and date of publication, the date of entry into force and the registration code, then listing every consolidated publication by date with its own publication index. Above the body of each page the site states which edition is being shown: კონსოლიდირებული ვერსია (საბოლოო) means the final consolidation, and a different line means it is not. Amending instruments are published separately and in full, each citing the registration code of the act it amends, so a schedule whose consolidation is paywalled can still be reconstructed from the original plus the amendments. Renders through Firecrawl without difficulty, including million-character statutes: the Georgian Tax Code comes back at 1,190,393 characters.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: Three things it must not be cited for. First, it is not free for everything: for some Government resolutions - resolution No 255 of 5 June 2015 on visa-free entry, and resolution No 36 of 21 February 2013 on universal health care - the site serves only the text as originally published and prints დოკუმენტის კონსოლიდირებული ვარიანტის ნახვა ფასიანია, that viewing the consolidated version is a paid service requiring registration and the purchase of a viewing right. A reading of such a page is a reading of the original, however many consolidations have followed, and must be labelled as one. Second, it publishes the consolidated law and not the reasoning: no explanatory memorandum, no case law, no ministerial guidance, and a great deal of Georgian immigration and tax practice sits in orders of the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Internal Affairs which it holds but which are not linked from the parent act. Third, the Georgian pages are the law and the English pages at the matching address are not the same document - see ge-matsne-en. Pages render statutes inside HTML tables, so stored text carries table pipes and <br> markers around the publisher's own words.
We re-read it every 90 days. More about this source
«j) a short-term residence permit to be issued to an alien who, under the procedure established by the legislation of Georgia, has the property right to an immovable thing within the territory of Georgia (except for agricultural land) with its market value exceeding USD 150 000 equivalent in GEL, and to his/her spouse and a child/children.»The English letter j is the tenth letter of the Latin alphabet and the Georgian კ is the tenth of the Georgian one. matsne's English relabels subparagraphs by position, so the letters do not transliterate: this is article 15(კ) in the text that governs.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The same publisher's English rendering of Georgian instruments, served at matsne.gov.ge/en/document/view/<id> - the same document id as the Georgian, so the two texts are one address apart. Where an English consolidation exists it is a full translation of that consolidation, with the same article numbering, the same amending-law footers and the same metadata block. For the Law on the Legal Status of Aliens and Stateless Persons the English kept pace with the Georgian through the amendments of 15 April and 25 June 2026, so the 2026 spouse permit and the interagency marriage commission can be read in both languages.
Standing:
Cannot be cited for: It may never be cited as the law, for four reasons found in the text itself. (1) It lags, silently to a reader who does not look up: on 11 October 2026 the Tax Code in English was the consolidation of 25 June 2026 while the Georgian was that of 30 September 2026, and the Organic Law on Georgian Citizenship in English was the edition of 7 March to 26 June 2025 while the Georgian was 25 June 2026. (2) The newest consolidation of a lagging instrument does not exist in English at all: the English page for Tax Code publication 246 and citizenship publication 12 carries no law, only 'Attention! The consolidation of the document is underway. You are not reading the latest version of the document.' (3) The default English address serves the last complete English edition under the line 'Attention! You are not reading the final edition', which is one line of body text above a million characters of statute. (4) Subparagraph letters are relabelled by alphabetical position rather than transliterated, so Georgian ფ becomes u, ჟ becomes p and თ becomes h - and the trap is live, because the Latin letter that a reader would reach for by sound lands on a different and sometimes repealed subparagraph: English article 99(1)(p) is Georgian 99(1)(ჟ), while Georgian 99(1)(პ) was deleted on 30 May 2018. It also mis-states one amending law's number, printing the law of 30 May 2018 as No 3591 in twelve places and as No 2391 in twelve others where the Georgian prints №2391 throughout, and it loses superscripts: article 21¹ appears as '211' and paragraph 6¹ as '61'. Cite it beside the Georgian, as a translation, never instead of it.
We re-read it every 120 days. More about this source
Practical notes
This is a negative finding read from one closed list. It says that the Law on the Legal Status of Aliens and Stateless Persons creates no income-based permit; it does not claim that nothing elsewhere in Georgian law could produce a similar result, and in particular the special residence permit in article 15(ვ) can be issued on the written initiative of a member of the Government, which article 17(4) exempts from the usual grounds of refusal.
A person living in Georgia on foreign income should read the tax record beside this one: article 104(1)(გ.ზ) of the Tax Code makes a cross-border service Georgian-source when the supplier is a Georgian resident, so 'income from abroad' and 'foreign-source income' are not the same category here.
- consolidatesუცხოელთა და მოქალაქეობის არმქონე პირთა სამართლებრივი მდგომარეობის შესახებ
საქართველოს საკანონმდებლო მაცნე (Legislative Herald of Georgia) · consolidated to 2026-06-25
About this source
The official gazette and consolidated statute book of Georgia, a legal entity under public law under the Ministry of Justice. Every instrument lives at matsne.gov.ge/ka/document/view/<id>: laws, organic laws, Government resolutions, presidential decrees and ministerial orders, each page opening with a metadata block that gives the document number, the issuing body, the date of issue, the source and date of publication, the date of entry into force and the registration code, then listing every consolidated publication by date with its own publication index. Above the body of each page the site states which edition is being shown: კონსოლიდირებული ვერსია (საბოლოო) means the final consolidation, and a different line means it is not. Amending instruments are published separately and in full, each citing the registration code of the act it amends, so a schedule whose consolidation is paywalled can still be reconstructed from the original plus the amendments. Renders through Firecrawl without difficulty, including million-character statutes: the Georgian Tax Code comes back at 1,190,393 characters.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: Three things it must not be cited for. First, it is not free for everything: for some Government resolutions - resolution No 255 of 5 June 2015 on visa-free entry, and resolution No 36 of 21 February 2013 on universal health care - the site serves only the text as originally published and prints დოკუმენტის კონსოლიდირებული ვარიანტის ნახვა ფასიანია, that viewing the consolidated version is a paid service requiring registration and the purchase of a viewing right. A reading of such a page is a reading of the original, however many consolidations have followed, and must be labelled as one. Second, it publishes the consolidated law and not the reasoning: no explanatory memorandum, no case law, no ministerial guidance, and a great deal of Georgian immigration and tax practice sits in orders of the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Internal Affairs which it holds but which are not linked from the parent act. Third, the Georgian pages are the law and the English pages at the matching address are not the same document - see ge-matsne-en. Pages render statutes inside HTML tables, so stored text carries table pipes and <br> markers around the publisher's own words.
We re-read it every 90 days. More about this source
- publishesLaw of Georgia on the Legal Status of Aliens and Stateless Persons (matsne English translation)
Legislative Herald of Georgia, English translation service · consolidated to 2026-06-25
About this source
The same publisher's English rendering of Georgian instruments, served at matsne.gov.ge/en/document/view/<id> - the same document id as the Georgian, so the two texts are one address apart. Where an English consolidation exists it is a full translation of that consolidation, with the same article numbering, the same amending-law footers and the same metadata block. For the Law on the Legal Status of Aliens and Stateless Persons the English kept pace with the Georgian through the amendments of 15 April and 25 June 2026, so the 2026 spouse permit and the interagency marriage commission can be read in both languages.
Standing:
Cannot be cited for: It may never be cited as the law, for four reasons found in the text itself. (1) It lags, silently to a reader who does not look up: on 11 October 2026 the Tax Code in English was the consolidation of 25 June 2026 while the Georgian was that of 30 September 2026, and the Organic Law on Georgian Citizenship in English was the edition of 7 March to 26 June 2025 while the Georgian was 25 June 2026. (2) The newest consolidation of a lagging instrument does not exist in English at all: the English page for Tax Code publication 246 and citizenship publication 12 carries no law, only 'Attention! The consolidation of the document is underway. You are not reading the latest version of the document.' (3) The default English address serves the last complete English edition under the line 'Attention! You are not reading the final edition', which is one line of body text above a million characters of statute. (4) Subparagraph letters are relabelled by alphabetical position rather than transliterated, so Georgian ფ becomes u, ჟ becomes p and თ becomes h - and the trap is live, because the Latin letter that a reader would reach for by sound lands on a different and sometimes repealed subparagraph: English article 99(1)(p) is Georgian 99(1)(ჟ), while Georgian 99(1)(პ) was deleted on 30 May 2018. It also mis-states one amending law's number, printing the law of 30 May 2018 as No 3591 in twelve places and as No 2391 in twelve others where the Georgian prints №2391 throughout, and it loses superscripts: article 21¹ appears as '211' and paragraph 6¹ as '61'. Cite it beside the Georgian, as a translation, never instead of it.
We re-read it every 120 days. More about this source