The Core Criterion of Tax Residency
Article 34 of the Georgian Tax Code determines who is treated as a resident and who as a non-resident individual for tax purposes. Individuals are citizens of Georgia, citizens of foreign states and stateless persons. An individual is considered a resident of Georgia for the entire current tax year if he or she has actually stayed on the territory of Georgia for 183 days or more in any continuous 12-month calendar period ending in that tax year. The same status attaches to an individual who, during the tax year, stayed in a foreign country in the state service of Georgia. Residency is thus a tax-law concept and must not be confused with citizenship: a Georgian citizen may lose resident status, while a foreign citizen may acquire it.
A person who is not a resident under this article is regarded as a non-resident. The status is determined separately for each tax period, and the days that were counted towards residency in the previous period are not taken into account again when residency is determined for the following period. This makes careful multi-year planning of days spent in the country an essential part of managing one's tax position.
How Days of Presence Are Counted
The law contains a detailed counting regime. The time of actual presence includes the time the person stayed in Georgia and also the time spent outside Georgia specifically for medical treatment, a holiday, a business trip or studies. A day of presence is any day on which the person was in Georgia, irrespective of the duration of the stay, which means that even short visits are added to the cumulative count and can decide the outcome of the whole year.
At the same time, the law defines periods that are not counted as actual presence. These are the times when the person stayed in Georgia as a person holding diplomatic or consular status or as a family member of such a person, as an employee of an international organisation operating under an international treaty of Georgia, or as a person in the state service of a foreign country in Georgia or a family member of such a person, except for a citizen of Georgia. Time spent moving in transit from one foreign country to another through the territory of Georgia, and time spent in Georgia for medical treatment or a holiday, are likewise excluded from the count.