---
title: "LGBTQ Rights"
url: "https://legal.ge/en/service/labor-and-employment-law-en/lgbtq-rights-619-en"
field: "Labor & Employment Law"
description: "LGBTQ employment rights in Georgia: orientation is a protected ground from the vacancy stage; triple fines for violations. Legal.ge."
reviewed: "2026-02-15"
updated: "2026-10-14"
publisher: "legal.ge"
---

# LGBTQ Rights

> Source: legal.ge, https://legal.ge/en/service/labor-and-employment-law-en/lgbtq-rights-619-en

Employment rights of LGBTQ persons in Georgia are anchored directly in the Labour Code: sexual orientation is expressly listed among the prohibited grounds of discrimination in the first part of Article 4, and this protection is not a judge-made doctrine of the kind developed in the United States under Title VII — it is written into the text of the norm by the 2020 amendments. This page examines LGBTQ protection specifically in the employment context: what is prohibited, how an employee proves discrimination, and what sanctions follow a violation under Articles 4, 2 and 78 of the Code. Reliance on foreign judicial doctrine is unnecessary in the Georgian system — the protection is carried directly by the Georgian Labour Code.

## Sexual orientation as a protected ground

The first part of Article 4 of the Labour Code defines discrimination as the deliberate or negligent distinction, exclusion or preferential treatment of a person on any of the enumerated grounds — and in that list, alongside sex, sexual orientation is expressly named. Differential treatment based on orientation is therefore deemed to deny or infringe equal opportunity or equal treatment in employment and professional activity, where it pursues or causes that result. Direct discrimination is unequal treatment compared with another person in the same or a similar situation; indirect discrimination is the application of a neutral provision, criterion or practice that places a person at a particular disadvantage, unless it is objectively justified by a legitimate aim and the means employed are necessary and proportionate to that aim.

The full text is available on legal.ge after signing in: https://legal.ge/en/service/labor-and-employment-law-en/lgbtq-rights-619-en

### Where is sexual orientation listed as a protected ground?

In the first part of Article 4 of the Labour Code, among the prohibited grounds of discrimination.

### When does protection begin?

Already in pre-contractual relations — at the publication of the vacancy announcement and at the selection stage.

### What follows a violation?

Under Article 78 — a warning or a triple fine; upon repetition within one calendar year — a double fine.