Georgia raised the price of residency-by-property to $150,000. Here's the honest math.

On 1 March 2026, Georgia raised the property value that qualifies a foreign buyer for a residence permit from $100,000 to $150,000. It is a 50% increase, and the first change to the threshold since it was set at $100,000 in July 2019.

If you have been told that buying an apartment in Tbilisi or Batumi "gets you residency," the rules just shifted under that pitch. Here is the honest version, with the fine print the ads tend to skip.

What actually changed

One number, and only one number, moved: the minimum certified value of property you need to hold to apply for the real-estate residence permit. Everything else about the route is the same as before.

Old: $100,000 of property (since July 2019).
New: $150,000 of property, from 1 March 2026.

The permit you get for it has not changed. It is a renewable one-year residence permit, not citizenship and not a passport. Hold the qualifying property and keep renewing, and the card becomes a pathway to permanent residency after six years of temporary permits.

The fine print most ads skip

This is where buyers get caught out. Four points matter more than the headline.

It is market value, not your purchase price. Eligibility is decided by a certified market valuation from an assessor accredited by Georgia's Unified National Accreditation Body, not by the figure on your sales contract. A developer telling you a unit "qualifies you for residency" is not the same as an independent appraiser certifying $150,000 of value. Those two numbers can diverge, and only one of them counts.

Non-agricultural property only. The route covers apartments, commercial units and houses. Foreigners cannot use agricultural land for this, and foreign ownership of agricultural land in Georgia is separately restricted, so the residence-permit path runs through built property, which is what most foreign buyers want anyway.

You can combine properties. You do not need a single $150,000 apartment. Multiple registered properties can be added together to reach the threshold, as long as each is properly registered and valued.

Family is included. A spouse and children can be covered under the same investment, at either the $100,000 or the $150,000 level.

If you already bought, you are mostly fine

If you obtained residency under the old $100,000 rule, you are grandfathered: current holders can renew without a new property appraisal, provided they keep ownership of the qualifying property. The higher bar applies to new applicants from 1 March 2026 onward. Buyers who had already completed purchase and full payment before the deadline qualified under the old standard.

What this permit is, and what it is not

Worth being blunt, because the marketing rarely is:

It is not citizenship and not a Georgian passport.
It does not grant Schengen or EU access. Georgia is not in the EU.
It is a legal, renewable right to live in Georgia year-round, free of the usual visa-day limits, with a six-year road to permanent residency.

There is also a separate, larger route for those who want it: the $300,000 Investor Visa, which grants an immediate five-year residence permit and accepts several investment types beyond a single apartment.

The tax picture (unchanged)

None of the reasons Georgia is attractive to hold property changed with this amendment. Rental income is taxed at a flat 5%, there is no capital gains tax on residential property held more than two years, and there is no inheritance tax. Foreign buyers face no surcharge and get 100% freehold ownership. Those are the fundamentals that make the property worth owning whether or not you ever file for the permit.

The Dila read

A 50% jump sounds dramatic, and for a pure "cheapest possible path to a residence card" buyer, it is. But that buyer was always our least favourite kind.

Here is the thing the threshold change quietly makes clearer: residency is a byproduct of a good property, not a reason to buy a bad one. A $150,000 apartment that does not rent well, sits in oversupplied stock, or carries a shaky title is a $150,000 mistake with a one-year card stapled to it. A $150,000 apartment that earns a real yield, holds a clean title and stays liquid is a good buy that happens to also clear the residency bar.

So the questions do not change. What does the certified valuation actually say, not the developer's brochure? Does the unit earn after costs, vacancy and the off-season? Is the title clean and the building delivered or deliverable? Get those right and the permit takes care of itself. Get them wrong and no visa makes it worth it.

If you are buying partly for the residence permit, get an independent appraisal before you sign, not the seller's number. That one habit is the difference between qualifying and assuming you qualify.

Sources: Legal.ge, IMI Daily, Global Property Guide. General information, not legal, tax or investment advice. Confirm current thresholds and requirements with a licensed Georgian adviser before acting.