Georgia's 2026 work authorization law: what digital nomads need to know

Since March 1, 2026, Georgia requires most foreign nationals, including freelancers and remote workers registering as Individual Entrepreneurs, to obtain formal work authorization from the Ministry of Labor before they can start working or apply for a residence permit. It's a new step in the process, not a new barrier, and it's filed through an online portal before your Public Service Hall application.

What changed

Until recently, a lot of digital nomads treated Georgia's residence process as a single step: show up, register as an Individual Entrepreneur, apply for a Temporary Residence Card. As of March 1, 2026, there's a step before that. Most foreign workers, employees and self-employed freelancers alike, now need a formal work authorization from Georgia's Ministry of Labor before they can legally work or move on to a residence permit application.

This isn't unique to Georgia. It brings the country in line with how most work-and-reside systems function elsewhere: authorization to work, then authorization to stay.

Who this applies to

• Foreign nationals taking up employment with a Georgian company
• Freelancers and remote workers registering as Individual Entrepreneurs
• IT professionals and specialists applying under the IT-specific permit track
• Anyone whose residence basis is tied to working or running a business in Georgia (this does not include students or family-reunification applicants, whose permits run on separate criteria)

What the process actually looks like

1. **Register your work basis**: an employment contract with a Georgian company, or your Individual Entrepreneur registration if you're self-employed 2. **Apply for work authorization** through the Ministry of Labor's electronic portal, before touching your residence permit paperwork 3. **Meet the income threshold**: for standard work permits, this is tied to a multiple of the official subsistence minimum; the IT-specific track instead looks at documented income over the past 12 months and prior sector experience 4. **Receive authorization**, then proceed to your Public Service Hall residence permit application within the standard processing windows (10, 20, or 30 calendar days, depending on the fee tier you choose)

Why this matters if you're already mid-process

If you entered Georgia before March 2026 and haven't yet filed for residency, this authorization step now sits in front of you. It doesn't retroactively invalidate anything, but it does mean the sequencing of your application has changed. The law includes transition deadlines running into 2027 for people already working here, so there's a window to get compliant rather than a hard cutoff, but the earlier you handle it, the less it collides with your TRC filing timeline.

Where people get stuck

• Filing the work authorization after starting the residence permit application, instead of before: this holds up the whole file
• Underestimating how much the portal relies on exact document formatting; small mismatches between your IE registration and your authorization application are a common rejection reason
• Assuming the authorization step is optional if you're "just freelancing," it isn't, if your legal basis for being here is work

We handle this for you

This is exactly the kind of sequencing problem that's easy to get wrong once and expensive to unwind. As part of your Digital Nomad bundle, we file your work authorization in the right order, ahead of your TRC application, and flag anything the portal is likely to bounce back before it happens, so you're not the one refreshing a government website wondering if it went through.