You can buy an apartment in Tbilisi, put a tenant in place, and collect rent from abroad – and still get tripped up by one simple thing: how Georgia (the country) taxes rental income for non-resident landlords. The numbers are often favorable. The execution is where people lose time, miss deadlines, or create avoidable risk.
This is a practical, operator-minded overview of what typically matters for non-resident landlords earning rental income in Georgia: what gets taxed, what rate structures you’ll see most often, and what records you need so compliance stays boring.
How Georgia taxes rental income for non-residents
Georgia taxes Georgian-source income. Rental income from a property located in Georgia is generally Georgian-source, regardless of whether you live in the US, the EU, the Gulf, or anywhere else.
That means non-resident status does not automatically remove Georgian tax obligations. What it changes is usually the scope of what Georgia can tax (your Georgian-source income, not worldwide income) and the way you practically manage filings and documentation while you’re not on the ground.
For most overseas owners, the “non resident landlord tax georgia country” question comes down to three operational realities:
First, you want the correct tax regime for rental income so you’re not overpaying.
Second, you want clean proof of income and expenses (even in simplified regimes, you still want defensible records).
Third, you want a repeatable monthly process – because the problem is rarely the tax rate. The problem is the inconsistency: partial payments, cash handling, unclear lease terms, missing bank references, and record-keeping that falls apart when you’re managing across time zones.
The rental tax regimes you’ll typically hear about
Georgia is widely known among investors for relatively straightforward taxation compared with many markets. In practice, landlords usually evaluate a simplified rental tax approach versus a more “standard” approach where income and expenses are accounted for more traditionally.
Which one fits depends on your goals, your property profile, and how you operate.
Simplified rental taxation (often used for long-term residential)
Many landlords aim for a simplified rental tax model when it applies, because it can reduce friction: fewer moving parts, clearer forecasting, and less debate about what qualifies as an expense.
The trade-off is that simplified approaches generally don’t care much about your actual expenses. If you’re furnishing a unit, doing upgrades, paying large HOA or building fees, or covering frequent repairs, a simplified tax may still tax the gross rent. That can be perfectly fine if your expenses are low and your rent is stable. It can feel painful if you just bought, just renovated, or you’re stabilizing a unit.
Standard taxation (income minus expenses)
If your operating costs are meaningfully high, you may explore a standard approach where expenses reduce taxable income.
The upside is obvious: real costs reduce taxable profit.
The downside is execution. Expense-based models require better documentation discipline. If your paperwork is inconsistent, in the wrong name, missing dates, or not tied back to the unit, then “tax savings” becomes a stressful guessing game.
This is why we push owners to decide upfront how they want to run the asset. If you want hands-off ownership, you still need a system that makes compliance automatic.
What counts as rental income, and what owners forget
At a minimum, rent paid by the tenant is rental income.
Where non-resident owners get surprised is the “extra” money that shows up during a lease:
If a tenant pays for utilities directly to providers, that’s usually not your income. If the tenant pays you and you pay the provider, the paper trail matters. If you mark up a utility payment, that markup can look like income.
If you collect fees (late fees, cleaning fees, pet fees), treat those as potentially taxable receipts unless your tax advisor confirms otherwise.
Security deposits are usually not income when collected if they are refundable. But the moment you retain part of a deposit for damage, that retained portion can become income-like from an accounting standpoint. Owners don’t plan for this. They should.
The simplest rule: collect money in a way that’s easy to explain later. Clear lease terms, clear invoices or receipts when appropriate, and a consistent rent ledger.
Residency, days in country, and why it can still matter
Many investors assume rental tax is the whole story. But residency can affect broader tax exposure, reporting expectations, and how a bank or counterparty treats you.
If you’re spending significant time in Georgia, you should confirm whether you could be treated as a tax resident under local rules. Even if your current intent is “I’m a non-resident landlord,” travel patterns change. Investors come for renovations, then stay longer. Or they visit more often once they own multiple units.
If you remain a non-resident, your focus stays on Georgian-source income and compliance around that. If you become resident, your tax picture may expand. This is not a reason to avoid Georgia. It’s a reason to track days and make intentional decisions.
Double taxation: Georgia taxes, then your home country asks questions
Non-resident owners commonly ask: “If I pay tax in Georgia, do I also pay tax back home?”
It depends on your home country’s rules and whether there’s a treaty or foreign tax credit mechanism available. US taxpayers, for example, often need to report worldwide income, which can include foreign rental income. Paying tax in Georgia may or may not reduce what you owe in the US, depending on how it’s classified, documented, and reported.
The operational takeaway is simple: don’t treat Georgian compliance as separate from your home-country reporting. Keep clean annual statements, lease copies, and proof of taxes paid. If your CPA asks for support in April, you want to send a tight package, not a folder of screenshots.
The compliance stack that keeps you safe (and calm)
Tax stress usually comes from missing data, not from high rates.
A well-run non-resident rental in Tbilisi should produce a basic compliance stack automatically:
A signed lease that matches the real cash flow (term, rent amount, payment schedule, deposit terms).
A rent ledger that shows billed rent, paid rent, and dates.
Bank proof for rent receipts whenever possible. Cash creates questions. Questions create delays.
Receipts for repairs and maintenance, clearly tied to the unit, with dates and vendor identification.
A year-end summary that your home-country accountant can read without decoding local practices.
If you manage this yourself from abroad, the hardest part is not knowledge. It’s speed and coordination. Vendors respond in Georgian time, tenants message at night US time, and small issues turn into missing paperwork.
Common mistakes we see from overseas owners
Some mistakes are small but expensive over time.
One is running the property “semi-formally” – no clear lease updates, rent amounts that change midstream, or payments sent to a friend’s account. You can get away with it until you can’t. And when you can’t, you’re rebuilding history.
Another is mixing personal and property expenses. If your card statement includes furniture, groceries, and repairs, you’ll struggle to prove what relates to the unit.
A third is treating vacancy like a tax strategy. Vacancy is usually just lost income. A tax bill that’s slightly higher because you earned more is not your enemy. Unstable occupancy is.
When professional management actually improves tax outcomes
Good management is not “we’ll remind you about taxes.” It’s running the property in a way that makes taxes straightforward.
That means tenant screening that reduces turnover and disputes (disputes create messy deposits and unplanned repairs).
It means consistent rent collection methods and follow-up (late rent creates partial payments and unclear months).
It means maintenance coordination with proper documentation (random handymen paid in cash don’t leave a paper trail).
If you want hands-off ownership, your goal should be predictable cash flow and a clean audit trail, month after month. That’s how you protect returns.
If you’d rather not run the process yourself from overseas, a local team like Property Management Georgia can handle tenant placement, rent collection, maintenance coordination, and the record-keeping discipline that makes cross-border compliance far easier.
A realistic decision framework for non-resident landlords
If you own one stabilized unit with modest expenses and simple long-term rent, a simplified rental tax approach is often attractive because it’s easy to forecast. You’ll usually care more about keeping the unit occupied and the tenant reliable than about squeezing deductions.
If you’re furnishing new units, renovating, or scaling a small portfolio, you may lean toward a structure that recognizes expenses more directly. But you should only do that if you’re confident your documentation will be consistent across every vendor and every month.
And if you’re somewhere in the middle – one unit now, two more next year – plan for scale early. The tax regime is one choice. The operating system is the bigger one.
What to prepare before you rent your unit out
Before you list the apartment, get your basics tight: confirm how rent will be collected (bank transfer is usually the cleanest), ensure the lease language matches your real-world policies, and decide who holds documents and how they’ll be shared with you.
Also decide what “hands-off” means. If you want to approve every repair, you’ll be involved weekly. If you set clear repair authorization thresholds, your unit will run smoother and your paperwork will still be complete.
A well-run non-resident rental in Georgia should feel calm. You should see rent arrive on schedule, maintenance handled without drama, and a clean monthly record that makes tax time a formality. That’s the standard you should hold your property to – because the market is competitive, and the owners who win are the ones who run their assets like businesses.
