How to pay contractors in Georgia

How to choose: paying a contractor in Georgia

Georgian contractors are cheap to pay compliantly: the typical IE invoices you gross, handles its own 1% tax and receives foreign currency without controls. So the decision is less about legality and more about how much paperwork and risk you want to hand off. Five questions settle it.

1. One contractor or a team?

With one or two contractors on simple monthly invoices, the admin is a services agreement, a monthly invoice and a transfer. A direct SWIFT wire or a Wise transfer to the contractor’s Georgian IBAN covers it, and you keep the contract and invoices yourself.

From three or more contractors, or when people join and leave every quarter, the cost moves to onboarding, collecting invoices and chasing bank questions. Here a contractor platform that onboards, contracts and pays in one place starts to pay for itself.

If one or two: a payment rail plus your own templates. If a team: a contractor payouts or contractor management platform.

2. Does your finance team need documents behind every payment?

A US startup usually needs little beyond a contract, invoices and a W-8BEN. Payers whose accountants or auditors expect a signed act of acceptance for each period need that document generated every month and matched to the payment.

Georgian banks also ask for the contract and invoice behind incoming transfers, and the payment reference has to match those documents (justadvisors.ge, checked 2026-09-28). A platform that issues the contract, invoice and act from the same record removes most of those mismatches.

If you need acts and invoices per payout: a platform that generates closing documents, such as the CIS corridor specialists in the list below. If a contract and invoices are enough: any rail works.

3. Per-payout percentage or per-contractor subscription?

Contractor platforms price in two ways: a percentage of each payout, or a flat monthly fee per contractor. The break-even is simple arithmetic. A 3% fee on a $2,000 monthly invoice is $60; on $5,000 it is $150. A per-contractor plan at $29–$49 a month beats a 3% fee once the invoice passes roughly $1,000–$1,650, but check whether the subscription includes the transfer and FX, or whether those are charged on top.

Flat per-withdrawal pricing sits between the two: it favours a few large payments over many small ones.

If invoices are small or irregular: a percentage model. If you pay a steady team $3,000+ a month each: compare subscriptions, with transfer costs included.

4. What currency does the contractor want?

Georgia does not restrict incoming foreign currency, and contractors can keep USD or EUR accounts; only spending inside the country happens in lari (justadvisors.ge, checked 2026-09-28). A USD or EUR wire can sit in the contractor’s foreign-currency account until they choose to convert. Wise delivers GEL straight to a Georgian IBAN (wise.com, checked 2026-09-28). Some relocated developers ask for USDT; crypto intermediaries in Georgia must register with the National Bank (nbg.gov.ge, checked 2026-09-28).

If USD or EUR to a bank account: SWIFT or any platform with bank payouts. If GEL: Wise or a platform that converts. If stablecoins: a platform that lists crypto payout (Mellow, Solar Staff, EasyStaff, Kleos), with a contract and invoice kept as usual.

5. Do you need someone to carry classification risk?

Georgia’s IE model is cheap enough that most engagements stay contractor-based. The exposure appears when the relationship looks like a job: a single foreign client, an open-ended retainer, your hours and your tools. Our hiring guide covers how that gets tested.

If the engagement is project-based and multi-client: a payouts or management platform is enough. If one person works full-time for you only: a Contractor of Record. 4dev acts as Contractor of Record, the contracting party for each contractor, which reduces reclassification risk; Mellow, Deel, Remote and Multiplier also sell one. If you want to convert the contractor to an employee: an Employer of Record such as Deel, Remote or Multiplier.

Payout rails that work in Georgia in 2026

Sources: Wise (wise.com, checked 2026-09-28); Payoneer timing and fees (payoneer.com, checked 2026-09-28) and the missing GEL conversion (bauer-group.org, checked 2026-09-28); PayPal’s country table (developer.paypal.com, checked 2026-09-28); VASP registration, in force since 1 July 2023 (nbg.gov.ge, checked 2026-09-28); bank document requests (justadvisors.ge, checked 2026-09-28).

Currency rules do not narrow this list. Georgia accepted the IMF’s Article VIII obligations with effect from 20 December 1996 and does not restrict payments for current international transactions (imf.org, checked 2026-09-28). Contractors may keep foreign-currency accounts without forced conversion; payments between parties inside Georgia must be made in lari (justadvisors.ge, checked 2026-09-28). The National Bank’s official rate is indicative and not obligatory outside cases set by law (nbg.gov.ge, checked 2026-09-28).

What the contractor needs to get paid

Almost every Georgian contractor you pay will be an Individual Entrepreneur (IE) with Small Business Status. Registration is digital and usually done within a day (ge.andersen.com, checked 2026-09-28), and neither residency nor citizenship is required for the IE or the status (ibccs.ge, checked 2026-09-28).

• Tax: 1% of gross turnover up to GEL 500,000 a year; turnover above the cap in-year is taxed at 3%, and exceeding it two years running cancels the status from 1 January of the third year. Without the status, an IE pays the standard 20% (ge.andersen.com, checked 2026-09-28).
• Excluded activities: legal, notarial, tax and audit consulting, advisory, financial, medical and architectural services, among others, don’t qualify (ge.andersen.com, checked 2026-09-28); IT freelancing typically does (filetax.ge, checked 2026-09-28).
• Filing: a monthly turnover declaration on rs.ge by the 15th of the following month (filetax.ge, checked 2026-09-28).
• What they send you: an invoice from the IE, in the contract currency, against a services agreement.

Classification, IP assignment and the contract itself are covered in our hiring guide.

Documents and tax on the payer’s side

Georgian withholding. In Georgia the duty to withhold sits with employers and with entities paying service fees to individuals who are not registered entrepreneurs, at 20% (ge.andersen.com, checked 2026-09-28). A foreign company paying an IE’s invoice from abroad pays the full amount; the IE declares and pays its own tax.

VAT. B2B services to non-residents are exempt from Georgian VAT and don’t count toward the GEL 100,000 rolling 12-month registration threshold (ge.andersen.com, checked 2026-09-28), so invoices to you normally carry no Georgian VAT. Any VAT on imported services is a question for your own jurisdiction.

US payers. Personal service income is sourced where the work is done, whatever the payer’s location (irs.gov, checked 2026-09-28). Work performed in Georgia is foreign-source: no US withholding and no 1099-NEC. Collect a W-8BEN from each contractor.

Keep on file: the services agreement, every invoice, proof of delivery or acceptance for the period, payment confirmations, and the W-8BEN where it applies. The same set answers a Georgian bank’s query about a transfer.

Where payments to Georgia break

• Purpose documents. Georgian banks check incoming transfers against a contract and invoice, and the payment reference must match them (justadvisors.ge, checked 2026-09-28). A reference that doesn’t fit the paperwork, such as “salary” against an IE services agreement or no reference at all, gives the bank a reason to hold the money.
• Sanctions screening. Georgia’s financial sector joined the international sanctions on Russia and Belarus (nbg.gov.ge, checked 2026-09-28). TBC blocks transfers to sanctioned banks, excludes the ruble from international transfers and can require Russia and Iran declarations depending on amount, currency and destination (tbcbank.ge, checked 2026-09-28). Links to high-risk or sanctioned countries are a standard refusal reason (justadvisors.ge, checked 2026-09-28). For a relocated contractor, this means a Georgian address, account and contract in their own name.
• Intermediary deductions. Under shared charges, correspondent banks take their fee out of the amount in transit. For scale, TBC charges its own customers an extra 20 USD / 30 EUR on outgoing international transfers to guarantee the full amount arrives (tbcbank.ge, checked 2026-09-28). Agree in the contract who bears these fees, or pay through a rail that shows the landed amount upfront.
• Account opening. KYC for a business account can take up to 10 working days (justadvisors.ge, checked 2026-09-28). A newly arrived contractor may not have a working IE account on day one.
• The GEL 500,000 cap and excluded activities. A contractor who crosses the cap pays 3% on the excess, and one whose activity falls on the excluded list, such as advisory work, pays 20% instead of 1%. Either change tends to come back to you as a rate increase, so ask how the contractor is registered before you sign.

For paying a team spread across several countries in the region, see our CIS payouts page.