🔍 Open company in Georgia – Tbilisi
If you are on this page is that you have thought to open a company in Georgia, Tbilisi. But surely, before taking the first step, you need to know all the requirements to incorporate a company in this country. Congratulations, you are in the right place to know in detail all the steps to take to set up a business in the country of the Caucasus.
You have to know that company formation in Georgia is a simple process and you will only need one day to have your company registered. However, it is important to define the legal form of your company, since depending on the legal personality you will have different obligations and responsibilities.
💼 Types of companies in Georgia
Georgian legislation provides for the possibility of registering the following legal forms:
- Limited liability company;
- Joint stock company;
- Cooperative;
- General partnership;
- Limited partnership;
You can also register as a self-employed person or open a subsidiary.
Whatever you choose, company formation and the costs will be the same. Likewise, there are no minimum capital requirements, so you will not have to worry about this issue either.
✅ Requirements to register a company
You have two possibilities to incorporate your new company in the commercial register: by going to Georgia yourself or through a representative.
In the second case you will need to send Power of Attorney and your identification document to your representative so that he can make all the necessary arrangements on your behalf. Both Powers of Attorney and your identification document must be apostilled or legalized depending on your country of origin.
Forming a corporation in Georgia is done at the National Agency of Public Registry of Georgia where you must provide a series of documents.
Documents needed to set up a company
The documents to be provided are:
- Application for company formation;
- Your identification document (passport or residence card)
- The company charter signed by you and your partners;
- A document that certifies the possession of the establishment where the company will have the fiscal domicile. You may not have any property in Georgia, at least for the time being. Therefore, what you will have to provide is the consent of the owner of the property where you domicile your company.
- If the company is registered through a representative in Georgia, Powers of Attorney must be duly notarized or legalized, as indicated above.
- Proof of payment of the registration fee. The cost of company incorporation in 1 working day is 200 GEL (about 58 euros); in 2 working days it is reduced to 100 GEL (about 29 euros).
The registration certificate is issued in Georgian, in case you want to have it also in English, you will have to pay 20 GEL more (5,8 euros).
In addition to the documents mentioned above, the National Agency of Public Registry of Georgia may additionally require any documents/information essential for making decisions related to registration.
🏢 Company’s registered office
When you see that you need the consent of the owner of the establishment where you want to domicile your company, surely you have thought about it and how do I get an address? Well, dont worry, most of the advisors already offer this service which costs between 50 and 80 GEL a year (15-23 euros/year). Contact me right now, I will get it for you free.
🇬🇪 ¿Why start a business in Georgia?
Georgia is one of the countries that stands out for its ease of doing business, which in turn offers many competitive advantages. Among them we can highlight:
- Strategic location. The country constitutes a link between Europe and Asia due to its geographical position;
- Georgia has Free Trade Agreements with many countries, such as Turkey, Armenia, Azerbaijan or Iran. But above all we can highlight USA, China, Switzerland, Norway or Iceland;
- Attractive tax system for its simplicity and low tax rates:
- Ease of opening both a personal and corporate bank account;
- There is no minimum capital required to form a company;
- Ease of obtaining the residence permit or nationality;
- Possibility of buying properties through the company;
- Reliability, efficiency and confidentiality of the banking system;
📌 Preferential tax regimes
If you have chosen Georgia to open a company it will not be because of its nature or its culture. It will surely be because of its ease of doing business, its labor flexibility, its simple tax system and low tax rates. But theres more. Georgia also offers preferential tax regimes that give you the ability to reduce your tax bill to a minimum or to zero. If your goal is to have a technology company, a transportation and logistics company or financial institution, Georgia and in particular these special regimes are for you. You can choose one of them depending on the activity you are engaged in:
- Free Industrial Zones in which the international commercialization of goods is not taxed.
- Free storage companies. In this case, tax benefits are offered to companies engaged in the international transport of goods.
- Virtual Free Zone. If your sector is that of new technologies you have the opportunity to take advantage of this opportunity, which reduces to zero the taxes to be paid.
- International finance companies also enjoy tax benefits in Georgia. These entities are exempt from paying income tax and securities and dividends taxes.
💡 Clarifications
- The company name, i.e. the name of the company, is defined using the Georgian alphabet. You can also specify the name in another language. But the main condition is that the name of your company contains the components of the Georgian alphabet; that is, the letters chosen in another language must have correspondence in Georgian.
- Although there is no capital requirement, I recommend that you provide the amount needed to set up a business in Georgia. If this capital is not fixed in the company charter, you may have to deal with unnecessary formalities in the future.
- If you plan to obtain the status of Technology Company granted by the Ministry of Finance, you must specify in the company charter the activities to which your company will be dedicated.
- You already know that to register a Joint Stock Company (JSC) in Georgia you need to carry out the same procedures that to register a Limited Liability Company. Even in none of the cases you have the obligation to set a minimum share capital. But we can highlight three differences of a Joint Stock Company compared to other legal forms: 1) when you create a JSC, in the certificate of the commercial register the names of the shareholders do not appear; 2) in the case of having an JSC in Georgia with less than 50 shareholders, you must keep an internal register of the information regarding the shareholders and if there are more than 50 shareholders this register must be carried out by an external entity; 3) when you open a new bank account for your Joint Stock Company, the bank will ask you for this list of the companys shareholders.
