Individual Entrepreneur
The IE is Georgia's sole-trader registration. With Small Business Status you pay 1% on turnover up to 500,000 GEL a year, roughly 170,000 EUR. It is the simplest structure in the country, and the one most often sold without its conditions.
An Individual Entrepreneur is a natural person registered with the National Agency of Public Registry (NAPR) to run a business, for residents and non-residents alike. You get a personal Georgian tax number, a tax number for the IE and a legal address. Remotely it takes about seven working days for your notarised power of attorney to reach Tbilisi, then three to four days for registration, Small Business Status and the bank account. You only pay the notarisation upfront; the rest is invoiced once the documents have arrived. After that there are no renewal fees, except the legal address at €150 a year from year two. Small Business Status starts on the day of application since 7 March 2026.
Anyone can register an IE. The 1% status is the part with conditions: your activity must not be on the excluded list of Annex 4 of Resolution 415 (consultancy, management and marketing advice, legal, audit, architecture, medical and a few more), your turnover must stay under 500,000 GEL, and your income must be business income from Georgian source. Developers, designers, content producers and other executing professionals qualify; advisers generally do not. Read the full exclusion list.
Screening of your activity and country of residence, before anything is filed
Power of attorney, notarised and apostilled in your country, or in person in Tbilisi
Registration at NAPR and activation of the rs.ge tax portal
Small Business Status application, effective on the day of filing
Optional: IE business bank account (€275 alongside the setup)
Monthly return on rs.ge by the 15th, every month, including months with zero turnover
Service fee €890 for the standard case. Add €295 if you need online notarisation of the power of attorney, €275 for an IE business account, €845 for a personal account, and €300 to €600 for twelve months of accounting. A complete remote setup with a personal account and accounting lands between roughly €2,000 and €2,350 in service fees, plus state fees in GEL. Extra documents are quoted before work starts. The package builder shows your own estimate.
Choose the IE if you work alone, your activity qualifies, and your turnover stays under the ceiling. Choose an LLC if you reinvest profits, expect to pass 500,000 GEL, have partners or staff, or if your activity is excluded from the 1% status. Above the ceiling the IE pays 3% for the rest of the year and loses the status after two consecutive years.
Does an IE make me a Georgian tax resident?
No. Tax residence takes 183 days in Georgia in a rolling twelve months, or the high-net-worth programme. Until you have actually left your home country, it keeps taxing your worldwide income. Dutch residents can check what leaving involves with the LiteTax Exit-scan.
Can I run the IE from outside Georgia?
You can register it from anywhere. But the 1% applies to Georgian-source income, and article 104 of the Tax Code ties personal services to where the work is physically done. An IE that never works from Georgia may have no qualifying income at all.
Do I need a work permit?
Since 1 March 2026 foreigners need a right to work to run a business in Georgia, except, since 15 April 2026, when you work only for non-resident clients on activities outside Georgia. If you want a work residence permit, you need it anyway. Details on the residency page.