Before opening a private tutoring centre, the decisive legal fact must be stated plainly: Georgia has no special licence or permit regulation for tutoring centres. The commercial provision of educational services falls under the general regime of the Law of Georgia on Entrepreneurs: the choice lies between an individual entrepreneur and an entrepreneurial company, registration is mandatory, and its procedure is precisely defined by the statute. On this page we explain which form is sensible when, what registration requires, and where the boundary runs between individual professional activity and an enterprise.
The Absence of Special Regulation — an Explanatory Fact
Educational legislation provides no special status for a private tutor as a separately regulated activity. A learning centre operating for profit is an ordinary business and functions under general enterprise legislation. This means there is no decision to “obtain a licence” — there is a decision about the legal form and the registration process.
The Concept of the Entrepreneur and the Legal Forms
Under Article 2 of the law, an entrepreneur is a natural or legal person who has an enterprise. An enterprise is an organised system for carrying out entrepreneurial activity, and entrepreneurial activity is a lawful, non-one-time, independent and organised activity carried out for profit. It is carried out in the form of an individual entrepreneur or an entrepreneurial company.
The statute itself rests on dispositive norms: the charter or a partners’ agreement of a general partnership, limited partnership, limited liability company or cooperative may lay down rules differing from the statute unless the norm is imperative, and the charter may also cover matters the statute leaves unregulated.
The difference lies in liability. An individual entrepreneur is not a legal person and is personally liable, with all of their property, to creditors for obligations arising from the activity. An entrepreneurial company is a legal person: the law recognises general partnership, limited partnership, limited liability company, joint-stock company and cooperative. For a tutoring centre the practical choice usually lies between the individual entrepreneur and the limited liability company.
What Does Not Count as Entrepreneurial Activity
Article 3 defines the liberal professions: the artistic, medical, advocacy, arbitration, mediation, notarial, auditing or consultancy activity of natural persons is not entrepreneurial. A separate rule concerns agricultural activity: it requires an enterprise form where at least 5 persons not belonging to the owner’s family are permanently employed.
For private lessons the boundary between individual professional activity and an organised enterprise is factual: one teacher working at their own contractual risk, and a centre that hires teachers, maintains premises and offers group programmes, sit in different regimes. Once the activity acquires the shape of an organised system, registration as an enterprise becomes unavoidable.
The Registration Duty and Procedure
Under Article 8, registration of an entrepreneur is mandatory and covers both state and tax registration, carried out by the registering authority. The entrepreneur is deemed created from the moment of entry in the registry, and the decision on registration takes effect upon placement on the unified electronic portal. The body defined by law is responsible for the accuracy of the submitted data, while the registering authority is responsible for the correspondence between the registered data and the registration documents.
Individual Entrepreneur or Limited Liability Company
Registration as an individual entrepreneur is governed by Article 11: a natural person submits a written application together with an identity document; the application contains the name, legal address, personal number and signature. This is the fastest and cheapest route for a small tutoring studio — at the price of personal property risk.
The limited liability company, defined in Article 123, is an entrepreneurial company whose capital is divided into shares and whose partners bear limited liability. The company answers to creditors with all of its property, but the partners’ personal assets are protected. For a centre with several partners or growth ambitions this is the sensible form. A non-commercial form exists as well, but it is governed by separate legislation and, as a rule, does not suit a profit-oriented centre.
Frequently Asked Questions
Below are the questions future centre owners ask most often, answered from the norms of the Law of Georgia on Entrepreneurs.
Does a tutoring centre need a licence?
No. No special licensing regulation exists for tutoring centres; the centre registers under a general entrepreneur form.
Individual entrepreneur or limited liability company?
The individual entrepreneur is simpler and cheaper but personally liable with all property; the company protects the partners’ assets and is more flexible for growth.
When do private lessons become an enterprise?
When the activity becomes a lawful, non-one-time, independent and organised system for profit — hiring teachers, maintaining premises, offering group programmes.
What does registration include?
Mandatory state and tax registration through the registering authority; the entrepreneur is deemed created from the moment of entry in the registry.
How We Help on Legal.ge
The lawyers of Legal.ge accompany the opening of a tutoring centre at every stage: we select the legal form according to your plans, register you as an individual entrepreneur or a company, draft charters and partnership agreements, and build the documentary foundation for relations with teachers. Contact us — and your centre will open under the right legal form from day one.