FULL GUIDE: How to get residency by purchasing real estate

If you found this place on Google you probably already heard about it: in Georgia it is possible to acquire residency by investing into real estate.

The quick facts right away

  • The usual case is 100k USD for 1 year of residency.
  • You keep residency as long as you keep the property and keep renewing the residency.
  • Ideally purchase 120k+, to be on the safe side.
  • Residency does not mean tax residency
  • The process takes at least 1 month, better plan 2 months

In this post you will learn how to acquire residency by purchasing property. This post is written by me, who himself went through the process. For correctness, this post was checked by a lawyer (TODO: link to a page about Nino).

Benefits of Georgian Residency

Come into the country anytime, stay here without restrictions.

Use services of your embassy. E.g. get a new passport of your citizenship country, can be done from Georgia now (TODO: source).

Get an address: An address enables you to get a brokerage account, and other accuonts requiring proof of residency. When owning a property you automatically have a proof of address. No more getting sketchy utility bills by paying a friend. (TODO: write content about this?)

Path to tax residency: We will get to that later, but in order to get tax residency (TODO create page), you need to have income as well. However, having the normal residency is the first step you need to take.

Drawbacks

In general we cannot think of a real drawback of acquiring residency in Georgia. It basically does not come with any obligations. And if you decide to move, you just lose it, and/ow pick it up later.

However, there are drawbacks of purchasing property in Georgia. We will have a longer list here. In short: have these in mind:

  • Risk of lacking information transparency: Some people might use the words “getting ripped off”, but the outcome is the same: you overpay for something less valuable than you thought. This blog is made to help you mitigate this risk a bit – but in the end you need your own good judgement.
  • Risk of distance to your investment: If problems arise, or you want to sell your assets in Georgia, it will take longer and be more complicated.
  • Market risk: many people might say the property prices increase – but nobody is sure. Risk equals reward.

The process

Let’s get to it right away. Please note that this process is a bit more complete. There might be ways to hack it, but we believe in giving a realistic picture of how things play out in 80% of the cases.

Step 1: Move money to Georgia

In the end you will probably pay cash for your property. You don’t have to, but it’s the cheapest option. So think about how to move your money here.

Also note, that you don’t need to take this step before the second on. You can do them at the same time, or just do it later, if you are undecided if you really want to get residency here. Getting the money back out of Georgia is easy with Transferwise in case you need to pull back out.

The options we chose was the following:

  1. Open a bank account at TBS or BOG. You should do this in person. It’s most likely cheaper than doing it remotely, although it is possible.
  2. Get a personal banker (cannot recommend this enough)
  3. Wire the money to Georgia. Depending on the country of origin, this might cost 25 EUR flat, but maybe more. Make sure you have proof at hand, how you earned that money.
  4. Convert the money to USD, if you haven’t done that yet. If you think you are smart and can time the market, do so. Don’t use any banking app for that. Ask your banker

Step 2: Fly to Georgia

Again: this can be done remotely, and maybe you even want to purchase one of the flats we listed. You can also work with an agent(TODO), but we are honest here: only do these options if you have strong financial incentive to stay remote for a bit longer. Read why we don’t do this as a business in the section “how and why we list our flats(TODO)”.

It’s tempting to think you can do most of this remotely, but two things should always be considered:

  • If you want a visa debit card, you need to show up at the bank in person
  • To receive your residency card, you need to show up in person
  • If you decide on a property to purchase, you better do it in person

Once you are in Georgia, we recommend you get a tax number right away. This is easier in person, is free, and already gives you something official. This literally only takes you an hour and might save you time later.

Step 3: Do a lot of research / Work with an agent

Once you have access to the market, you need to do a lot of research.What you want to do is minimize spending, maximize future returns. This might be a no-brainer and totally obvious, but it’s the one thing you need to get right: Pay as little as possible and get something that yields and grows as much as possible in the next years.

I describe my process in our Property Research Guide in detail. This allowed me to not use an agent, but another local who helped met for a fraction of the cost. All this back when I was a complete rookie in real estate.

You can even go further and do the whole purchase process yourself and save on the agent cost. This is totally doable, and it works best if you speak Russian, have time, and/or have Georgian friends. Don’t expect to have an easy time, though. Make sure to know how to spot bad property, so you don’t settle on something wrong.

Once you have figured out who to work with or if you want to do it alone, then take 4-8 weeks to feel the market.

Step 4: Purchase

Before you hand off any money or sign anything: read our due diligence guide(TODO). You cannot skip this part!

We’ll describe the purchase process in Georgia in more detail, but in general it works like this:

  • You make a pre-purchase agreement with the seller of the property you chose. You can the deposit in bank transfer (say “private reason”).
  • You meet at the public service hall, sign an official English/Georgian purchase contract, and get the property registered in the next 1-4 days
  • You hand over the money
  • After 4 days you check the online registry to make sure it’s under your name

Step 4: Have your property valued

There are different methods to do that. Important is that you need to use an accredited valuer. You will pay between 40 – 400 GEL for this service.

The cheapest option is XXXXX (TODO), where you do it online with pictures and videos.

The valuing will get sent to you in digital, but you need a copy with an official stamp on it. Also, be prepared to have your property be valued only 80% of what you paid. Valuing can be lagging behind the market, and you don’t want to spend exactly 100k, and then end up with a 80k valued property – which will not get you the residency.

Step 5: Get all documents ready

Get those in print (if possible) and also digital

  • Translated passport (get 3 copies from an accredited translator)
  • The original of the valued property
  • Downloads + prints of your ownership documents of the cadastrial registry
  • Get passport photos. The best ones you can get at the public service hall. It comes with a QR code so the staff there can pull the data digitally as well.

Step 6: Apply online

Go to this website XXXXXXX, and submit all your information. Then you have to wait until they contact you in Skype. We recommend you to ask them every day / 2 days so they don’t forget about you. In my case it took 2 weeks of me putting pressure on them in Skype and facebook.

Eventually I got on a call with a very friendly woman from the service office. I paid with my credit card in the call (make sure to have it at hand!). In the call you can choose between 10 / 20 / 30 days. Faster is more expensive.

Step 7: Submit documents at public service hall

I have heard it’s technically possible to just send them in – but for me it was more of a hassle of going to the post office, than to book a slot and go to the public service hall myself. They take all documents, look at your passport again, and ask you when you want to have your card delivered.

Step 8: Receive the card

When I got my card I was a bit surprised: a delivery lady came down to my building, checked my passport, and then handed me the card. All done on the street.

To my knowledge, this is the only step where you need to be physically present in Georgia. Everything else might be possible to get done through a POA (Power of attorney), but we are not 100% sure. The regulations sometimes change and this year everything changed again due to Covid.

Step 9: Plan further steps

You probably have done this already way before, but just to make sure: You should know if you want to stay here, or leave. Leaving would mean you cannot claim tax residency, (unless you stay for 183 days). You can hack this by using the HNW rule. However, you should be sure about what you are doing and that the NHW rule can actually be applied to your case.

Once you rent out your flat, make sure to file income tax. Even many people do it by cash, that doesn’t mean you should. We believe in doing the right things, so go ahead and get informed about filing your income tax in Georgia.

Do you own a flat now, and want to rent is out? Make a plan for that as well. We will describe our setup of managing our properties from abroad (TODO).

If you have suggestions / questions / ideas – please write us at info@tbstips.com.