Georgia Visa & Entry Requirements (2026)
Georgia has one of the most generous visa policies on Earth: citizens of the US, UK, EU/Schengen, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and dozens more — including Brazil, South Africa, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia — get visa-free entry for up to 365 days per calendar year, no application, no fee, no visa run. It's not universal, though: China's deal is a much shorter 30 days per visit, and travelers from India, Vietnam, the Philippines, and Indonesia need a Georgia e-Visa arranged in advance. The one thing that changed for 2026: since January 1, every foreign visitor, regardless of visa status, must carry travel medical insurance covering at least 30,000 GEL (roughly $11,000), checked at the border.
Georgia's visa deal is, without exaggeration, one of the best in global travel — a full calendar year, visa-free, for a huge list of nationalities, no paperwork required. But 'huge list' doesn't mean everyone gets the same deal: a few major markets, including China and India, work completely differently, and that's easy to miss if you're going by a generic 'Georgia is visa-free' headline. There's also a real, dated change for 2026 that a lot of travel content hasn't caught up to yet: mandatory insurance, checked at entry, for everyone. Here's the accurate, current version of all of it.
Last checked 15 July 2026 directly against Georgia's own official sources — the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Georgia (general visa and consular rules), the official Georgia e-Visa portal (for nationalities that must apply in advance), and the Legislative Herald of Georgia — the government's official gazette, which publishes both the visa-free country-list ordinance and, separately, Government Decree No. 602 (26 December 2025) that created the mandatory travel-insurance rule below — not just this page's own history. Visa and entry rules like these change with little notice — the insurance requirement itself is only months old — so we re-verify against those official sources every few weeks rather than trusting our own last edit. Spotted something that's changed since? Tell us and we'll fix it fast.
Visa-free stay by nationality
| Passport | Visa-free stay | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| United States | Up to 365 days per calendar year | No advance application, no fee — just show up with a valid passport. |
| United Kingdom | Up to 365 days per calendar year | Unaffected by Brexit — Georgia's visa-free policy is set bilaterally, not through EU arrangements. |
| EU / Schengen countries | Up to 365 days per calendar year | Same terms as the US and UK. |
| Canada, Australia, New Zealand | Up to 365 days per calendar year | Same terms as above. |
| India | Visa required — no visa-free entry | One of the biggest exceptions to Georgia's generous reputation: Indian passport holders need a Georgia e-Visa (or a full visa) arranged before arrival — there's no visa-free or visa-on-arrival option as of 2026. |
| China | Up to 30 days per visit (max 90 days per any 180-day period) | A mutual visa-exemption deal with China took effect in 2024 and has been fully in force in Georgia since February 2025 — it's real and current, but it's tourism-only and a fraction of the headline 365-day window, not the same deal other nationalities get. |
| UAE, Saudi Arabia | Up to 365 days per calendar year | Both Gulf states sit on Georgia's full visa-free list on the same terms as the US, UK, and EU — no e-visa or advance paperwork needed. |
| South Africa | Up to 365 days per calendar year | South African passport holders get the same full-year, no-paperwork deal as North American and European travelers. |
| Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, Chile | Up to 365 days per calendar year | Georgia's visa-free list runs deep into Latin America — these four get the same 365-day terms as the US/UK/EU group. |
| Malaysia, Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam | Malaysia: up to 365 days, visa-free. Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam: e-Visa required | Southeast Asia isn't one bloc here — Malaysian passport holders enter visa-free, while Philippine, Indonesian, and Vietnamese travelers all need to apply for a Georgia e-Visa online before flying. |
| Everyone else | Check the official list before booking | Roughly 90+ nationalities get some form of visa-free entry, but a meaningful number still need an e-visa or standard visa — confirm your specific passport on Georgia's official e-Visa portal or the Ministry of Foreign Affairs site. |
365 days a year is not a narrow tourist stamp — it's genuinely close to a year of residency-lite. You can rent an apartment, open a local bank account, and work remotely for a non-Georgian employer during that period. It does not, by itself, grant the right to take up local employment with a Georgian company — that needs a separate work permit.
New for 2026: mandatory travel medical insurance
Since January 1, 2026, every foreign visitor entering Georgia — visa-free or not — must present valid travel medical and accident insurance covering at least 30,000 GEL (roughly $11,000), for the full length of their stay, in Georgian or English, physical or electronic. It can be requested at air, land, or sea border crossings. A handful of categories are exempt (accredited diplomatic staff, certain treaty-based entrants, international freight/passenger drivers) — everyday tourists are not among the exemptions. Buy a standard travel insurance policy before you fly and keep proof of it accessible on arrival; this is a genuinely new rule as of this year and easy to miss if you're reading older travel advice.
Other entry basics
- Your passport should have a reasonable amount of validity left — check the current requirement for your nationality, as rules can vary.
- Border officers occasionally ask about onward travel or accommodation plans — having a hotel booking or return ticket handy smooths things along.
- The 365-day visa-free period is per calendar year, not a rolling 12 months from your entry date — worth knowing if you're planning a trip that spans a New Year's transition.
If you need more than 365 days
Long-term stays beyond the visa-free year typically require a Georgian residence permit, which has its own separate application process, income or investment thresholds depending on the category, and is a materially bigger undertaking than the visa-free entry most travelers use — worth researching well ahead if that's your actual goal rather than a standard trip.
Working remotely during your visa-free stay: the new 2026 wrinkle
Georgia introduced its first-ever mandatory work-permit system on March 1, 2026, requiring foreigners without permanent residence who perform paid work in Georgia to hold a 'right to work' approved by the State Employment Support Agency. The good news for most remote workers: based on the Ministry of Labor's own clarifications and an April 16, 2026 parliamentary amendment, digital nomads working from Georgia for a foreign employer — with no Georgian clients and no local business registration — are generally exempt. It's still a genuinely new rule with some grey area at the edges, so if remote work is the actual point of your trip, see our full digital nomads guide before you fly rather than assuming last year's advice still applies.
This is a change from how things worked before 2026, when the 365-day visa-free stay was widely treated as a blanket green light to work remotely for any foreign employer with zero paperwork. That's still broadly true in practice for most nomads — the exemption above covers the typical case — but it's no longer automatically true for every situation (freelancers invoicing Georgian clients, or anyone registering a local business, fall under the new permit requirement). When in doubt, a short consultation with a local immigration lawyer is cheap insurance against a fine that can run up to 2,000 GEL.