Opening a Bank Account in Georgia as a Non-Resident: Which Bank Opens Remotely
Georgia does open accounts to non-residents, and some of them remotely. The narrow parts are who qualifies for the remote route, and the order the paperwork has to happen in.
Two banks matter here, Bank of Georgia and TBC. We compared them on the three things a non-resident cannot change afterwards: whether the money is protected and the account survives a compliance review, whether it opens from abroad at all, and what it costs to keep. On the first of those nothing documented separates them, so the choice comes down to the second, and there the account holder who describes opening at both remotely rates Bank of Georgia the easier, because TBC gates access behind a phone call with a personal banker while Bank of Georgia sends credentials by SMS.
The bigger filter sits earlier. Remote video onboarding is not offered to every passport, and you need a Georgian tax number before the bank appointment, not after. Getting that tax number from outside the country has one route in the sources we checked, and it is the same Power of Attorney route people take to avoid flying in.
The three banks non-residents actually use
Non-residents in Georgia effectively choose between two banks. A third, Credo Bank, comes up too, and the account holders who mention it disagree with each other.
| Bank | Protection and record, checked 14 August 2026 | Remote route | What account holders report | Package cost for non-residents |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bank of Georgia | Deposit insurance to 50,000 GEL per depositor, non-residents included. No documented freeze or closure pattern against non-residents found, and no regulator action on that point | Video KYC for its “Solo” product, offered to a restricted set of nationalities | Credentials sent by SMS, full account access within about 5 minutes of receiving the code | No foreigner package fee published on its current-account page |
| TBC Bank | Same cover, same 50,000 GEL cap. Nothing documented found either way on freezes | Power of Attorney, or its “TBC Concept” package | A phone call with the personal banker is required to activate access, described as hard to get through (accent, dropped connections, redials) | TBC Concept: 300 GEL a year for expat clients. TBC Concept 360: 500 GEL a year. Per TBC’s own tariff page, read 14 August 2026 |
| Credo Bank | Same cover, same 50,000 GEL cap. Nothing documented found either way on freezes | In person. No remote route reported | One account holder advises avoiding it, another replies that they are happy there. Two voices, no pattern | Platinum card reported at around 250 GEL a year, opened in person |
Ordered by protection and record first, as every comparison on this site is. Both halves of that column came back identical across the three, so access and cost decide the ranking underneath it. The deposit cover is identical by law: Georgia’s Deposit Insurance Agency, read 14 August 2026, states that all commercial banks and microbanks operating in Georgia are members, that deposits of residents and non-residents alike are insured, and that the maximum is 50,000 GEL for each depositor **in each bank or microbank**, with several accounts held at the same bank summed together before the cap is applied. On the record half, the sources checked on 14 August 2026 (National Bank of Georgia enforcement notices, the 2024 MONEYVAL follow-up report on Georgia, and the r/tbilisi and r/Sakartvelo threads on non-resident banking) documented no freeze or closure pattern at any of the three. That is a statement about the search, not a clean record. TBC’s prices come from TBC’s own tariff page, read 14 August 2026. The experience column comes from account-holder reports collected in July 2026, which show that something happened to someone and never how often. Credo’s card price is reported by Georgian advisory practices, not read on a bank tariff page.
The column that was supposed to separate the three is the one that refuses to. Which Georgian bank you pick does not change how much of your money is protected, because the 50,000 GEL cap is set nationally and applies to each depositor at each bank, roughly 18,000 dollars at the August 2026 rate. That turns the reliability question in Georgia into a question about how much you leave at any one bank, and in how many banks, rather than about which of the three you pick.
“Bank of Georgia and TBC both open accounts without a physical presence… I confirm that TBC Bank indeed require a call to give you access to your bank account. And this is super uncomfortable experience. Lack of good English from them, and if the call is cut they need to redial you. On the other hand Bank of Georgia does it in a very smooth way. They just send username and password by sms… within 5 minutes from receiving codes you have full access. Conclusion: If you do it remotely BOG (Bank of Georgia) is way better option.”One account holder on r/tbilisi, the only one found who describes using both remotely
That is one person, and it is worth being exact about it: the clearest first-hand comparison we found, not a survey. What makes it worth acting on is that the mechanism behind it is checkable. TBC’s remote route ends in a live compliance call in a second language. Bank of Georgia’s ends in an SMS. That difference is built into the two processes and does not depend on who was on shift.
The passport filter on remote video KYC
Remote video KYC at Bank of Georgia’s Solo product is not offered to everyone. Two separate account holders describe the same limit, and Bank of Georgia does not publish the list.
“Last I spoke to Bank of Georgia about this, they will do remote account openings (via video KYC) for Solo but only for very few select nationalities. I don’t remember the list but it was mostly if you have a western passport.”An account holder on r/tbilisi
“Yes, but only if you have a strong passport. Canadian, American, specific EU countries, etc.”A second account holder on r/tbilisi
There is a mechanism underneath that, and it is written down even though the passport list is not. As described in the 2024 MONEYVAL follow-up report on Georgia and by Georgian legal practices, Georgia’s anti-money-laundering law puts customer due diligence duties on every commercial bank: identify and verify the customer, establish the purpose and nature of the relationship, and monitor it afterwards. Enhanced due diligence attaches to specific triggers, and one of them is the customer’s link to a high-risk jurisdiction. What banks build on top of that, the same practices say, is a country scoring model, where applicants outside the low-risk band face the enhanced version and can be declined at the bank’s discretion.
Nobody, then, is refused for holding a particular passport. They are refused, or never offered the remote route, because of the score attached to it, which from the applicant’s side is indistinguishable. If your passport is not in the low-risk band, the remote video path is unlikely to be offered no matter how clean your documents are, and the Power of Attorney route becomes the realistic alternative in the sources we checked.
The Power of Attorney route: real, but not the shortcut it sounds like
Both banks support opening through a notarised, apostilled Power of Attorney, where a local agent or lawyer completes the process for you. It works. The one account holder who describes using it calls it slower and pricier than it sounds, and TBC’s version still ends in the same activation call once the account exists.
“You can via a power of attorney. Not cheap, but it’s definitely easier if you go there in person… the bank personal banker needs to call you, and with accent and bad connection it’s not easy to understand and definitely go round in circles. Also the account you get is TBC concept, which for foreigners costs 50 lari a month.”An account holder on r/tbilisi
That last figure is worth reconciling rather than repeating. Read on TBC’s own tariff page on 14 August 2026, the expat prices are 30 GEL a month or 300 a year for TBC Concept, and 50 GEL a month or 500 a year for TBC Concept 360. Two things follow. The commenter’s 50 lari a month is the 360 tier, not the base package, so both figures are right and describe different products. And the annual price is a discount on twelve monthly payments, not a different way of quoting the same number: paying monthly costs 360 a year on the base tier and 600 on the 360 tier, so on either tier the annual charge saves two months.
What the remote route costs
The commenter stops at “not cheap”. Here is a published price list. These are the rates of one Tbilisi legal services provider, read on 14 August 2026, and they are the scale of the bill rather than a quote.
| Line item | Price | Time | Which side pays it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Account opening, remote via Power of Attorney | $490, plus $190 for each additional bank | From 14 days | Tbilisi. The page lists translation of the Power of Attorney into Georgian, a Georgian SIM registration, the bank assistance itself, the forms and the KYC as included |
| Account opening, in person with assistance | 590 GEL, plus 190 GEL for each additional bank | Within 5 working days | Tbilisi, and only if you want to be walked through it |
| Power of Attorney, drawn up locally | 590 GEL | From 1 day | Tbilisi. Not the line for the remote route: opening from abroad means signing the Power of Attorney at home |
| Notarised translation | 250 GEL per document, 120 GEL for a passport | From 1 day | Tbilisi, for anything beyond the Power of Attorney already covered above |
| Apostille | 190 GEL standard, 390 GEL accelerated | 8 days, or 1 day | These are Tbilisi rates. Your Power of Attorney is apostilled where it is signed, so this line is your own country’s price, not this one |
| Individual Entrepreneur registration | 290 GEL, plus 61 GEL state fee | Next business day | Tbilisi. The step that also produces the tax number |
Published rates of a Tbilisi legal services provider, read 14 August 2026. One firm’s list, not a market survey. The “which side pays it” column matters more than the numbers, because a price list written in Tbilisi quotes Tbilisi rates for steps that a remote applicant performs at home.
On that list the remote route is $490, and what the list does not price is the part you do at home: your own notary’s fee for the Power of Attorney and your own country’s apostille on it. It takes from two weeks. A trip opens the account in under a week, gets the tax number in the same visit, and avoids the Concept package fee entirely, so the real comparison is a flight against $490 plus your notary. That is a good trade from Istanbul or Yerevan and a much worse one from further out, which is the honest reason the remote route exists at all.
Documents, and the one step people get in the wrong order
Whichever route you take, the paperwork is a passport, a completed application form, and a Georgian tax identification number. The tax number is the step that has to be finished somewhere else first, and the one account holder who mentions it spells out the order.
“I have BoG. You need a tax ID number before you can open an account. You can get one from the state office and then take it back to the bank and fill out the forms.”An account holder on r/Sakartvelo, banking with Bank of Georgia
Applying at the bank first and expecting the tax ID to follow is the mistake this warns about. The tax office comes before the bank appointment, not after. The remote equivalent is narrower than it sounds: the Revenue Service’s video-call registration for a personal TIN has to be completed from inside Georgia. The route to a Georgian tax number that works entirely from outside the country, in the sources checked on 14 August 2026, is registering as an Individual Entrepreneur through a notarised Power of Attorney, where the resulting IE identification code doubles as the tax number for every purpose.
So anyone hoping to sort the tax ID before setting foot in Georgia is choosing between flying in for the video call and using the same Power of Attorney route already covered above. Whether the tax number and the account can both be started from abroad is a country-by-country question: how those two steps split in Turkey sets out where each one has to happen.
On money at the counter, the honest answer is that we could not verify it. Bank of Georgia’s current-account page, read on 14 August 2026, publishes no opening fee, and the figures quoted by Georgian advisory firms do not agree with each other: one puts Bank of Georgia’s opening fee at 10 GEL, others give a 20 to 50 GEL range across banks, and another quotes 50 to 100 GEL specifically for non-residents. Budget under 100 GEL and ask at the counter. What is consistent across those same sources, though none of them is the bank’s own page, is that a standard personal current account carries no minimum opening deposit.
What gets an account refused, and what gets it reviewed later
This is the part that decides whether the account is worth having, and it is the same question in both directions.
The customer due diligence duties above are not a one-off at onboarding. The bank has to establish the purpose and nature of the relationship and then keep monitoring it, which means the file it opened on you stays open. Three inputs decide the refusal at the counter, and the same three trigger a review later: source of funds, the stated purpose of the account, and country risk.
Two things follow, and they are the reason to prepare rather than improvise.
- ✓
Bring the source-of-funds file to the first appointment, not to the review. Payslips, invoices, a contract, the sale document behind a lump sum. Georgian law firms writing for foreign applicants describe banks as free to decline without giving a reason, so a gap in the file tends to end the application rather than start a conversation.
- ✓
Declare the account’s real use, then use it that way. An account opened for personal living costs that starts receiving client payments no longer matches the purpose on file, and ongoing monitoring is precisely the duty that catches the mismatch. What we are describing there is the mechanism. How often it fires in Georgia is something we could not measure.
Both of those are work you do before the appointment rather than at it, and neither assembles itself from memory on the morning. Our Bank-Ready workspace walks through how to prepare documents and a residence history for a bank abroad, turning the guides on this site into a plan for your own situation: which sections apply to you, what evidence to have ready, and how to put the explanation into words before anyone asks for it. It prepares the file. What the bank does once it has the file is still the bank’s decision.
One limit worth stating plainly, because the alternative is implying a track record we do not have. Searching National Bank of Georgia enforcement notices, the 2024 MONEYVAL follow-up report on Georgia and the non-resident banking threads on r/tbilisi and r/Sakartvelo on 14 August 2026, we found no documented pattern of Georgian banks freezing or closing non-resident accounts, and no regulator action on that point. We are reporting what the search returned, which is not the same as a clean record.
The protection ceiling says the rest, and it points at a move rather than at a worry. The Deposit Insurance Agency’s wording is that deposits are insured up to the cap in each bank, and that several accounts held at the same bank are added together before the cap applies. Above 50,000 GEL the answer is a second bank, not a better one: the same money split between Bank of Georgia and TBC is insured twice, while a second account at the same bank adds nothing. Only what sits above the cap at any single bank is uncovered.
Whether that second bank should be Georgian at all is the separate question, and it is the one worth asking if Georgia is a stop rather than a base. Which neobank is least likely to freeze when you move countries covers the setup that keeps working after you leave.
Why non-residents want a Georgian account
The account is rarely the goal. The driver is Georgia’s Individual Entrepreneur route and its 1% turnover tax regime, and one condition of it reaches into the banking decision directly.
Since 1 March 2026, foreigners without a Georgian residence permit who are physically self-employed in Georgia need a separate Special Labour Activity Permit before that income counts as legally earned. It is applied for at labourmigration.moh.gov.ge with a mandatory video interview, at 200 GEL for 30-day processing or 400 GEL expedited over 10 business days, with a 2,000 GEL fine for working without it. The transitional window for people already self-employed in Georgia before that date closed on 1 May 2026, so there is no grace period left to fall back on. The rule is published by Georgia’s Ministry of Labour and confirmed independently in KPMG’s international tax alert on it.
Registering the Individual Entrepreneur from abroad does not trigger this. Working from inside Georgia does. Everything else about the regime, the rate and its ceiling, the rule that decides which income qualifies, the excluded activity categories and the monthly filing, is in Georgia’s 1% tax and the four conditions. This piece stays on the banking side.
Residence by investment, and what it actually changes
There is a way around the Special Labour Activity Permit, and it is expensive. Georgia grants a temporary residence permit to real estate investors, and under the immigration law amendments passed in June 2025, the threshold rose from $100,000 to $150,000 on 1 March 2026, the same date the labour permit rule took effect. It is assessed on market valuation by an accredited appraiser rather than on the purchase price, and multiple properties can be combined toward the total. One transitional detail survives and is easy to miss: ownership registered before 1 March 2026 is still assessed at the old $100,000 threshold, even if the permit application is filed later.
A separate, higher $300,000 investor tier is reported as exempt from the Special Labour Activity Permit, grants a 5-year permit, shortens the path to permanent residency from ten years to five, and extends to a spouse and children under 18. Those figures come from immigration practices reporting the June 2025 amendments rather than from the text of the amendments, which we did not obtain.
The $150,000 route sits in a gap the sources do not close. The permit rule is written for foreigners without a residence permit, and on that wording a $150,000 residence permit should take you out of scope. But only the $300,000 tier is described as exempt in the sources checked on 14 August 2026, and nothing we found confirms the same for the $150,000 tier. If you are on the $150,000 route and actually working from Georgia, buy the permit anyway: 400 GEL is cheaper than being the test case for a reading.
What residency does change, and this is the part that belongs in a banking article, is the tax number. The Revenue Service’s video-call TIN registration has to happen from inside Georgia, so for a resident it is a local errand instead of a flight. We found nothing stating that a residence permit moves the country-risk score behind Bank of Georgia’s remote onboarding, and it would be a guess to say so: the score is attached to the passport, and the permit does not change the passport. For anyone weighing a 400 GEL permit against a six-figure property purchase, the permit is the cheaper problem, and the investment route only makes sense if the property was already the goal.
The sequence, step by step
The order is the whole game here. Done in this sequence, none of the steps blocks another.
Decide whether you are flying in
If your passport sits in the low-risk band, Bank of Georgia’s remote video KYC is the cheapest path and no trip is needed. If it does not, the Power of Attorney route is the alternative to a trip: $490 on the price list above, from two weeks, plus your own notary and your own country’s apostille on the Power of Attorney itself.
Get the tax identification number first
From inside Georgia the Revenue Service handles it, including its video-call registration. From outside, the route we found is registering as an Individual Entrepreneur by Power of Attorney, where the IE code doubles as the tax number. This step before the bank, never after.
Assemble the source-of-funds file before you apply
Contracts, invoices, payslips, the document behind any lump sum, and a straight answer on what the account is for. A refusal here comes without an explanation, so the file does more for the outcome than the choice of bank does.
Open at Bank of Georgia first, TBC as fallback
Passport, application form, tax number. Ask the opening fee at the counter: Bank of Georgia does not publish one and the advisory figures disagree. Keep TBC in reserve, because it opens too, but through the activation call, and its Concept package costs 300 GEL a year for expat clients before you have moved any money.
Add the labour permit only if you will work from Georgia
Registering an Individual Entrepreneur from abroad does not need it. Physically working from Georgia without a residence permit does, since 1 March 2026, at 200 to 400 GEL. Registering and working are two different questions, and only the second one triggers this.
Once the account is open, the running cost people underestimate is cash: our Georgia ATM fees guide covers which banks charge least on withdrawals and the currency-conversion prompt that costs more than any of them.
FAQ
Which Georgian bank is easier to open remotely, TBC or Bank of Georgia?+–
Bank of Georgia, on the evidence available. One account holder describes opening at both remotely: Bank of Georgia sent credentials by SMS and gave full access within minutes, while TBC required a compliance phone call with a personal banker that the same person found hard to get through. That is one report rather than a survey, but the difference is built into the two processes: one route ends in a call, the other in a text message.
Can any nationality open a Georgian bank account remotely?+–
No. Two account holders describe Bank of Georgia’s remote video KYC for its Solo product as limited to a short list of nationalities, and Bank of Georgia does not publish that list. Georgian legal practices describe the same filter as a country scoring model built on the enhanced due diligence that the anti-money-laundering law attaches to high-risk jurisdictions. Either way, applicants outside the low-risk band are more likely to need the Power of Attorney route or an in-person visit.
Do I need a Georgian tax ID before opening a bank account?+–
Yes, and it has to come first: get the tax identification number before your bank appointment, not after. The Revenue Service’s video-call registration for a personal TIN has to be done from inside Georgia, so from abroad the route we found is registering as an Individual Entrepreneur through a notarised Power of Attorney, whose IE code doubles as the tax number.
What does opening a Georgian account remotely actually cost?+–
On the published rates of one Tbilisi legal services provider, read on 14 August 2026, the remote Power of Attorney route is $490, from 14 days, and that page lists the translation of the Power of Attorney, a Georgian SIM, the bank assistance, the forms and the KYC as included. What it does not cover is the part you do at home: your own notary’s fee for signing the Power of Attorney and your own country’s apostille on it. In-person opening with assistance is 590 GEL within 5 working days. On top of either, TBC Concept is 300 GEL a year for expat clients and TBC Concept 360 is 500 GEL a year, per TBC’s own tariff page read the same day, while Bank of Georgia publishes no foreigner package fee.
Is my money protected in a Georgian bank as a non-resident?+–
Yes, and the cap applies at each bank. Georgia’s Deposit Insurance Agency states, on its own site read on 14 August 2026, that all commercial banks and microbanks operating in Georgia are members of the system, that deposits of residents and non-residents alike are insured, and that the maximum is 50,000 GEL for each depositor in each bank, roughly 18,000 dollars at the August 2026 rate. Several accounts at the same bank are added together before the cap applies, so splitting deposits across two Georgian banks doubles the covered amount while a second account at the same bank does not.
Is a Power of Attorney the easiest way to open a Georgian account remotely?+–
It is a real option and sometimes the only one, but the account holder who describes using it calls it more expensive and no less frustrating than expected, since TBC’s version still ends in the same compliance call. A trip opens the account, gets the tax number and avoids the package fee in the same week, and whether that beats $490 depends mostly on where you would be flying from.
Do I need a work permit to work from Georgia under Small Business Status?+–
Since 1 March 2026, yes, if you are physically self-employed in Georgia without a residence permit. The Special Labour Activity Permit is separate from and comes after the tax registration, costs 200 GEL for 30-day processing or 400 GEL expedited, and working without it carries a 2,000 GEL fine. The transitional window for people already self-employed before that date closed on 1 May 2026.
Is there any way to avoid the Special Labour Activity Permit entirely?+–
Through Georgia’s residence-by-investment routes, at a cost far above the permit itself. The $300,000 investor residence permit is reported as exempt. The $150,000 real estate permit, which rose from $100,000 on 1 March 2026, grants residency, but the sources checked on 14 August 2026 do not confirm the same exemption for it, so the safer move on that route is to buy the permit anyway.
Written by Daniel Hart, who covers neobanks, account freezes and cross-border banking for neobankfit. Based on TBC’s own published tariff for expat clients, Bank of Georgia’s current-account page and Georgia’s Deposit Insurance Agency (all read 14 August 2026), the published rates of a Tbilisi legal services provider, first-hand account-holder reports from r/tbilisi and r/Sakartvelo, Georgia’s anti-money-laundering customer due diligence duties as described by Georgian legal practices and the 2024 MONEYVAL follow-up report on Georgia, the Ministry of Labour rule on the Special Labour Activity Permit cross-checked against KPMG’s international tax alert, the Revenue Service’s TIN registration rules, and immigration practices reporting the June 2025 amendments on investor residence permits.
This article is general information, not legal or financial advice. Rules, fees and tax thresholds change and depend on your nationality, account and provider entity. For your situation, check current terms and consider a qualified adviser.
