The Legal Map of Fleet Fines — What Article 125 Establishes
For a transport company, road fines are not isolated episodes — they are a constant operational risk that raises questions across dozens of documents, deadlines and circles of liability. Article 125 of the Code of Administrative Offences is precisely the norm under which most fines on drivers are written, and knowing its sanctions exactly is the foundation of fleet budgeting. Otherwise the company pays more than it should — not only because of the violations themselves, but because of mismanaged deadlines and discounts.
Article 125 sets its sanctions part by part, and each must be counted separately: exceeding the established speed by more than 15 but not more than 40 km/h — 50 GEL; exceeding it by more than 40 km/h — 300 GEL; speeding committed by a person carrying out regular passenger carriage within municipal boundaries, intercity regular passenger carriage or international regular passenger carriage — 400 GEL; violating a road sign, a traffic controller or right-of-way rules — 100 GEL; violating the rules towards pedestrians — 40 GEL, and its repetition within 1 year — 150 GEL; disregarding a no-stopping or no-parking sign — 10 GEL, and within the administrative boundaries of Tbilisi municipality — 50 GEL; parking in a space designated for persons with disabilities — 200 GEL; driving in a lane designated for route vehicles — 100 GEL.
Separate note deserves the cases where liability reaches the enterprise directly: driving in violation of the rules for fixing a recognition sign provides for a fine of 50 GEL imposed on the driver or the enterprise. The aggravated compositions also matter for budgeting: speeding that created an accident situation — 400 GEL; speeding with light damage to property or a person's body — 600 GEL; organized blocking of a road in a city — 1 000 GEL together with a 1-year suspension of the right to drive; transit movement within the administrative boundaries of Tbilisi — 500 GEL. This list is not exhaustive — article 125 is far broader — but these compositions form the bulk of a fleet's fine mass.
The 20 Percent Discount and the 10 Calendar Days
Article 268¹ of the Code governs how the Ministry of Internal Affairs notifies a person of a fine: the information is sent as a short text message or by another technical means, if the person's contact details exist in the ministry's database, and at the same time the copy of the decision or fine ticket is published on the ministry's official website. Part 4 of that article creates the single most important financial lever: if the offender pays the fine within 10 calendar days of receiving the information, the amount of the fine is reduced by 20 percent. If the fine is not paid within that window, the person loses the right to use this discount, and the discount does not extend to the execution of decisions adopted in connection with a complaint.
At fleet scale this means: every fine must be monitored with day-level precision, because even one wave of tickets left beyond the 10 calendar days creates a loss of more than 5 percent of that budget line. No other reduction exists in this mechanism — the Code establishes 20 percent and 10 calendar days, and expecting a discount outside these conditions is faulty planning. Building the monitoring routine around this single window is the cheapest compliance investment a fleet can make.
30 Days, a Surcharge up to 500 GEL and a Six-Month Suspension
The basic payment deadline is set by part 1 of article 290 of the Code: the offender must pay the fine within 30 days of delivery of the copy of the decision or, where fined on the spot, of delivery of the fine ticket. Where the decision is appealed or protested, the running of this period is suspended until delivery of the notice that the complaint or protest has been left unexamined. If the last day of the period falls on a weekend or public holiday, the first following working day is counted as its last day.
Part 3 of the note to article 125 sets the next stage: after the period for voluntary execution expires, a surcharge is imposed on the person at double the amount of the fine, but not more than 500 GEL. Part 1¹ of article 290 then opens an additional window: for a violation under article 125, the offender has the right to pay the fine together with the surcharge within 30 days of the expiry of the period determined by part 1. If the fine or the surcharge remains unpaid within that period too, the offender's right to drive the vehicle is suspended for the term provided by the relevant article — under the note to article 125 this means suspension for 6 months. Once the suspension term expires, the driver's right is restored, and sitting an exam for restoration is not mandatory.
Part 5 of the note to article 125 fixes the last important point: paying the fine, or having the fine replaced by suspension of the right to drive, does not release the person from paying the surcharge. Part 5 of article 290, in turn, builds the redemption mechanism: the decision on suspension is cancelled and the license is returned if the fine does not exceed 100 GEL and, before the suspension expires, the person pays double the fine and surcharge — or the fine exceeds 100 GEL and the person pays one and a half times the amount, but not more than 2 000 GEL. For a fleet this means that bringing a suspended driver back takes calculation and time — and that decision, too, must be driven by numbers and deadlines.
Video Enforcement — Who Pays the Fine and How the Ticket Travels
At fleet scale most fines are written from video recordings, and here the risk is distributed differently. Under article 290¹ of the Code, where an authorized officer of the Ministry of Internal Affairs does not issue a fine ticket at the scene for a violation under article 125 and the fact is recorded on video or photo, payment of the fine falls on the person to whom the vehicle registration certificate was last issued — where identification is by state plate — or on the user of a temporary plate. The ticket is delivered under the procedure of article 268¹, and the payment window is 30 days from delivery. When that expires, a surcharge is imposed; and if the fine and surcharge remain unpaid within 30 days of the surcharge, realization of the vehicle becomes possible — except where that person is not its owner.
Part 4¹ of the note to article 125 is of particular importance to fleets: where the holder of the vehicle cannot be determined at the time of the violation, administrative liability falls on the owner of the vehicle. In practice this means: every rental, handover or work assignment that is not documented returns the fine directly to the company. Municipal-circle tickets, in turn, are governed by article 290⁴: a ticket written, for example, for a stopping or parking violation is sent to the person's address of registration; if delivery fails, it is sent again between day 30 and day 60; and if the second delivery fails as well, the ticket is published publicly and is deemed delivered on the 30th day after publication. The payment window is 30 days from delivery, followed by a double surcharge and measures to secure payment.
How We Work with Fleets — Process, Representation, Structuring
At Legal.ge, the lawyers in our network serve fleets in a continuous support format built on three tracks. First, process: we review incoming tickets, control the 10-calendar-day discount window and the 30-day basic deadlines, and determine which fines are worth contesting and which are worth paying fast. Second, representation: we prepare complaints to the superior authority and to court — the right to appeal under article 271 belongs even to the injured party, the deadline under article 273 is 10 days from delivery, and appeal is free of state duty, but it does not automatically suspend execution, so the right selection of cases is decisive. Third, structuring: we help arrange relations with drivers and equipment providers so that the risk of an undetermined holder, and the misallocation of liability, never materialize.
One restriction deserves separate mention, established by part 4 of article 290 of the Code: it is prohibited to make officials pay fines imposed on them from the accounts of enterprises, institutions or organizations. This specific norm must be factored into the fleet's accounting scheme so that the company's assistance in paying a fine stays within a lawful frame. Our approach is built on exactly this kind of detail: not general advice, but management of every deadline and every amount.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much time is there to pay a fine with a 20 percent reduction?
10 calendar days from the day the information about the fine is received by short text message or through the official website of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Once this window passes, the right to the discount is lost.
What happens after a fine goes unpaid?
The fine must be paid within 30 days of delivery. After that period a surcharge accrues at double the amount but not more than 500 GEL. The fine with the surcharge can still be paid for another 30 days — beyond that, the right to drive is suspended for 6 months.
Who bears a video-recorded fine?
The person to whom the registration certificate was last issued, or the user of a temporary plate. If the holder cannot be determined — the owner, which in a fleet's case is often the company itself.
Can a suspended right be restored by paying?
Yes: for a fine of up to 100 GEL — by paying double, for a fine above 100 GEL — by paying one and a half times the amount, but not more than 2 000 GEL, before the suspension term expires. The license is then returned.
Can all drivers' fines be paid from the company's account?
Paying fines imposed on officials from an enterprise account is directly prohibited. In other cases it is a matter of internal arrangements, whose correct documentary framing is part of our structuring work.
How We Help at Legal.ge
At Legal.ge, the lawyers in our network support fleets on three levels at once: day-to-day processing — verification of tickets, control of discount windows and payment schedules; preparation of complaints against disputable fines and representation before the superior authority and in court; and the legal structuring of driver management, so that liability always sits in the right circle. Contact us — at the very first meeting you will receive a deadline and amount management scheme measured for your fleet at Legal.ge.