Georgia 365-Day Visa-Free Rule Explained: One Full Year of Stay

Who needs to read this

Georgia runs one of the most generous visa-free regimes in the world, a full year rather than the usual 30 or 90 days, and it works completely differently from the rolling-window rules travelers know. Read this if:

• You're a digital nomad or remote worker eyeing Tbilisi or Batumi as a long-term base
• You're resetting Schengen days and need somewhere to spend months at a time
• You're a US, UK, EU, Canadian, or Australian citizen planning anything longer than a holiday
• You're considering Georgian residency or business setup and want to understand the runway the visa-free year gives you
• You're a tax planner whose client is about to spend most of a year in Georgia without thinking about the Tax Code

How the rule works

Under Ordinance No 255 of the Government of Georgia of 5 June 2015, citizens of the listed countries "may enter and stay in Georgia without visa for one full year." The ordinance implements Article 10 of the Law of Georgia on the Legal Status of Aliens and Stateless Persons, which sets a default visa-free stay of 90 days in any 180-day period and then lets the government approve a list of countries whose citizens get a different period, namely the full year.

The essentials:

• The annexed list is long and includes the United States, United Kingdom, all EU member states, Canada, and Australia. EU citizens may enter with a national ID card instead of a passport.
• The allowance is one full year of stay per entry, not a day quota to budget across a window.
• Nationals of countries not on the list, but exempt from short-term visas on another basis, get the default 90 days in any 180-day period instead.
• Holders of visas or residence permits from countries specified by a separate ordinance can also enter visa-free for limited periods, a separate track from the one-year rule.

Counting the days

Counting is refreshingly simple: your permitted stay runs one full year from the day you enter Georgia, and there is no rolling window to reconstruct. The comparisons that matter:

• No day budget. Unlike Schengen's 90-in-180, you do not count days spent inside Georgia against an allowance; you watch a single deadline, entry date plus one year.
• The law defines the period of stay as calculated from the date you cross the border, so note your entry date and set the anniversary as your hard limit.
• A worked example: enter Georgia on 15 March 2026 and your visa-free stay runs through 14 March 2027. Trips out during the year do not extend that anniversary; a re-entry starts its own new term (see below).
• Days outside Georgia are simply days outside; they neither count against you nor bank anything for later.

Resets, extensions, and edge cases

A new entry generally starts a new one-year term, which is why Georgia has no equivalent of the Schengen overstay math, but the reset is administrative practice at the border rather than a spelled-out entitlement. What to know:

• Border runs: long-stayers commonly exit to Armenia, Turkey, or Azerbaijan and re-enter to obtain a fresh year. The published ordinance does not promise this, and admission is always at the officer's discretion, so serial same-day runs can attract questions.
• No in-country extension needed: with a year granted at entry, there is no tourist-extension procedure to file; people who want more permanence move to residence permits (work, study, investment, or short-term permits tied to real estate ownership above set value thresholds).
• Changing status: the Law on the Legal Status of Aliens lets eligible aliens apply for residence permits from within Georgia, the cleaner path for anyone whose life has actually moved there.
• Tax edge case: Georgia's tax residency day test (183 days in a rolling 12-month period) will usually be met long before the immigration year expires; immigration generosity does not defer tax consequences.

Overstays: consequences and enforcement

Overstaying the visa-free year is an administrative offence that Georgia enforces through fines and future entry refusal rather than dramatic removals. The mechanics under the Law on the Legal Status of Aliens:

• Aliens whose lawful stay has expired are obliged to pay the penalty established by legislation for unlawful stay, before or after leaving the country.
• Anyone who fails to pay the fine is refused a Georgian visa and entry until it is paid (Article 11 lists an unpaid unlawful-stay fine as a ground for refusing entry).
• Fine amounts are set in Georgia's administrative offences legislation and scale with the length of overstay; check the current figures before relying on them.
• Border control is electronic, so the entry date that starts your year is recorded and checked on exit; there is no stamp-reading ambiguity to hide behind.
• Serious or repeated violations expose you to expulsion proceedings under the Law's dedicated chapter.

Staying compliant

Compliance in Georgia is mostly about not letting an absurdly generous deadline sneak up on you a year after you stopped thinking about it:

• Record your entry date the day you arrive and set alerts well before the anniversary. iReside's Georgia Visa-Free preset tracks the days since entry and flags the approaching one-year mark.
• Plan the endgame early: exit, a considered border run, or a residence permit application, decided months before the deadline, not the week of.
• Keep proof of entries and exits (tickets, stamps) in case a border officer asks about your history of stays.
• Watch the tax clock separately: at 183 days of presence in 12 months, Georgian tax residency typically engages, deadline or no deadline.
• Do not bank on infinite border runs; each re-entry is discretionary, and refusal on the doorstep of a year-long life in Tbilisi is an expensive way to learn that.

Common mistakes

• Treating the year as a rolling day budget. There is no 365-in-730 window; it is one deadline, entry date plus a year. Counting "days used" misses how the rule works.
• Assuming the reset is a legal right. The fresh year on re-entry is standard practice, not promised text; officers can and occasionally do push back on serial runs.
• Confusing the one-year list with general visa-free entry. Nationals outside Ordinance No 255's list may only have 90 days in 180; check which regime your passport is actually on.
• Ignoring Georgian tax residency. The 183-day tax test triggers months before the immigration year ends; many nomads meet it without noticing.
• Letting the anniversary pass unwatched. With no interim renewals, there is nothing to remind you; the first reminder is often the fine at the border.
• Overstaying "because the fine is small." Unpaid fines block re-entry entirely, and an overstay record follows you into any future residence permit application.