Georgia launches Foreigners' Registry with biometric tracking on Sept. 1

The delta: from paper checks to a linked database

Georgia is folding foreigners into the same kind of centralized tracking it already uses for its own citizens. Until now, records on tourists, residents and workers sat scattered across border, labor and justice systems. Under amendments to the Law on the Legal Status of Foreigners and Stateless Persons, a single Foreigners' Registry run by the State Services Development Agency takes effect Sept. 1, 2026, alongside a separate Ministry of Internal Affairs database of foreigners staying without legal grounds.

Deputy Interior Minister Aleksandre Darakhvelidze told parliament the registry will allow "detailed accounting and control" of entry, registration and use of services, comparing it directly to the civil registry that tracks Georgian citizens' property, fines and debts. Biometric data, including fingerprints, feeds the system. The MIA's parallel database of irregular-status foreigners has actually been operating since Oct. 1, 2025.

Who gets caught and when

The registry sweeps in every category of foreigner, not just permit holders. Tourist entries get logged so overstays flow into the violators' database, which drives entry bans. Residents renewing permits face cross-checks against labor, business and property records that are already synchronized between the Justice and Labor ministries.

The bigger squeeze hit earlier. Since March 1, 2026, most foreigners doing paid work in Georgia, including remote workers earning from Georgia-based activity and contractors serving Georgian clients, have needed a work permit. Skip it and the penalties are steep: fines around 2,000 GEL per violation, doubled on repeat, plus deportation and re-entry bans of up to 10 years.

Labor migrants already on the Ministry of Labor's registry as of March 1 have until Jan. 1, 2027 to regularize their permits and residence documents. That transition window is the one hard deadline current holders can't miss. Anyone in that group who hasn't started the paperwork should file now, because from September the labor status and residence permit will be queried from the same unified system rather than reconciled after the fact.

What's still unclear

The government hasn't yet published the ordinances defining which agencies and service providers query the registry in real time, so the everyday friction points, banks, mobile contracts, notary transactions, aren't fully mapped. For anyone weighing a longer stay in Georgia, the safer assumption is that residence status will be checked more often and more automatically, than it was a year ago.