Two tracks that do not merge
The first thing to understand about settling in Georgia is that the famous 365-day visa-free rule and the residency system are separate tracks, and they do not feed into each other. You can live in Tbilisi for five years by cycling the visa-free entry, never holding a permit, and at the end of it you are no closer to permanent residency than the day you arrived. The clock that counts toward settlement only runs while you hold an actual residence permit.
That is not a trap so much as a fork. For a nomad who wants a cheap, low-tax base for a couple of years, the visa-free track is ideal and the residency rules below are irrelevant. For someone who wants Georgia to become a permanent home, the message is to get onto a residence permit early, because the six-year clock does not start until you do.
How permanent residency works
Permanent residency in Georgia sits at the end of a six-year runway. You first obtain a short-term residence permit on one of the usual grounds, work, a registered business or freelance activity, study, family reunification, or ownership of Georgian property valued at 150,000 dollars or more. Those permits come for 6 or 12 months at a time and are renewable. Reside lawfully on them for six continuous years, and you become eligible to apply for permanent residency.
The property route is the one most relevant to nomads with some capital, and the number matters. The qualifying threshold was raised to 150,000 dollars from the old 100,000 dollars, so any source quoting the lower figure is out of date. Buy qualifying property, hold the residence permit it unlocks, and those years count toward the six. The valuation used for residency is assessed rather than simply lifted from your purchase contract, so verify how a specific property would be appraised before treating a purchase as a guaranteed permit.
For business-based nomads, the residence permit can be tied to your Individual Entrepreneur registration and economic activity in Georgia, which links your tax setup and your residency setup into a single structure. That is clean when it works, but it is exactly the area touched by the 1 March 2026 work-permit reform, so the mechanics are in transition and worth confirming with a local specialist rather than assuming.
Citizenship, and the dual-nationality catch
Citizenship is a ten-year proposition, and it carries a condition that stops most nomads cold. Naturalization generally requires ten years of lawful residence along with demonstrated knowledge of the Georgian language, history, and the basics of Georgian law. The language requirement alone is substantial, given that Georgian shares nothing with the languages most arrivals speak.
The harder barrier is dual citizenship. Georgia does not freely permit it. Becoming a Georgian citizen can require renouncing your existing nationality unless you are granted a discretionary exception, which the state reserves for specific cases. For most people, giving up their original passport to gain a Georgian one is not a trade they would make, which is why Georgian citizenship is rarely a nomad's actual objective. The country is a superb place to reside. It is not, for most foreigners, a realistic second-passport play.
What this means for your plan
Be clear about the horizon you are planning for, because Georgia rewards that clarity. If you want one to three excellent years of cheap, low-tax living, ignore the residency machinery entirely and enjoy the visa-free track, with insurance in place and your entry dates noted. Settlement is simply not the point, and that is fine.
If you genuinely intend to make Georgia a long-term home, start the residency clock deliberately and soon. Pick the permit type that matches your situation, whether that is the property route, a business permit linked to your Individual Entrepreneur, work, study, or family, and accept that the six years to permanent residency only count once you hold the permit. Get current advice while you do it, because 2026 is a transitional year for exactly these rules. For how entry and the new work-permit regime actually function, read the visa page, and for the tax structure that usually sits alongside a residency plan here, the tax page covers the territorial system and the 1 percent regime.