Taxes in Georgia: the Honest Guide for High Earners

Let's start with the comparison that stings. Most Western European earners hand over 40%+ of their marginal income — in Italy, the top IRPEF rate sits at 43% above €50,000, plus regional and municipal surtaxes, even after the 2026 reform (L. 199/2025). If you run a business or a practice that bills well, you already know this on your own skin.

Georgia plays a different league. Here are the actual rates, per PwC Tax Summaries (January 2026) and the Georgian Tax Code.

The four rates that change the math

Personal flat tax: 20%. No brackets, no surtaxes. A Georgian tax resident's personal income is taxed at 20%, full stop. Georgia also applies a territorial principle: most foreign-source income of individuals falls outside the perimeter.

Small Business Status: 1% on turnover. A registered Individual Entrepreneur with SBS pays 1% on turnover up to GEL 500,000 a year (roughly €170,000). Not on profit — on turnover, with minimal bookkeeping. It's the regime I operate under myself.

Residential rents: 5%. Residential rental income is taxed at 5% with no deductions. In Italy, the flat rental tax starts at 21% and rises to 26% from the second short-let unit. On €100,000 of rent over ten years, the rate gap alone is worth €16,000.

Real estate capital gains: zero after 2 years. Sell after two years of ownership and the gain is untaxed. Sell earlier and you pay 5%.

The cases where it does NOT pay off

This is where the salesman usually changes the subject. I won't.

If you remain tax resident in your home country, the Georgian property typically enters your foreign-asset reporting, the income must be declared at home, and the double-tax treaty has to be applied correctly. Georgia stays interesting — but the math is completely different, and it must be done before the purchase, not after.

If your relocation is only formal, the problem has a name: sham residency. Tax authorities look at substance, not stamps. A badly executed residency move is worse than no move at all.

If you bill more than GEL 500,000, Small Business Status no longer covers you, and other structures come into play — from a Georgian LLC to the Estonian-style regime on reinvested profits (15% CIT only upon distribution).

The right sequence

Tax analysis → structure → purchase. Never the reverse. The most expensive mistake I see isn't buying the wrong property — it's buying the right property with the wrong structure.

A 45-minute consultation exists exactly for this: working out which scenario applies to your numbers. And if the answer is "stay where you are", you'll get it straight.