Cryptocurrency License in Georgia

Georgia used to be the jurisdiction where crypto was simply unregulated — you registered a company, ideally in a free industrial zone, and started trading. Guides describing that arrangement are still online. They describe a country that stopped existing on 1 January 2023.

Since that date, anyone providing virtual asset services in or from Georgia must be registered as a Virtual Asset Service Provider with the National Bank of Georgia. This is not a notification or a formality. It is a supervised authorisation with substance requirements, fit-and-proper testing of management, a full AML/CFT programme and ongoing reporting — and operating without it exposes the company and its directors to fines, forced closure, frozen accounts and potential criminal liability.

The good news is that this made Georgia considerably more valuable, not less. A supervised registration from a central bank carries weight with banks and counterparties that an unregulated setup never did — and Georgia still delivers it faster and far more cheaply than any EU route. The relatively low price of electricity and the established mining infrastructure remain genuine advantages.

Private Financial Services has been building corporate and licensing structures since 1997. Below is what the Georgian regime actually requires in 2026.

What the Registration Covers

Regulated Activities

The National Bank defines a VASP as a person providing virtual asset services for the benefit of another person. The regulated activities are:

Exchange between virtual assets and fiat currency, between different virtual assets, or between virtual assets and financial instruments — including via kiosks and crypto ATMs;

Transfer of convertible virtual assets;

Safekeeping or administration of virtual assets, or of the instrument enabling control over them — custody and custodial wallets;

Portfolio management of virtual assets, excluding collective portfolio management;

Administration of a trading platform;

Initial coin offerings and related services.

Trading purely with your own funds as a client — including peer-to-peer — is not, by itself, a VASP activity.

The Hard Limit — Georgia Is Not the EU

A Georgian VASP registration does not passport into the European Union. Since the MiCA transitional period closed on 1 July 2026, serving or soliciting EU clients without a MiCA authorisation breaches EU law, and ESMA has confirmed this applies to third-country firms in both B2C and B2B contexts.

Georgia is a credible, supervised home base for global business outside the EU. It is not a route into the EU market. If the EU is your market, the answer is a MiCA licence through Lithuania or the CySEC route in Cyprus — and many groups run both structures in parallel. We build either.

Prohibited Models

Three restrictions rule out business models that work elsewhere, and they need checking before you commit:

Agency distribution is prohibited — you cannot provide services through third parties acting on the VASP’s behalf;

Lending in virtual assets is prohibited;

Anonymity-enhancing coins are prohibited under NBG Decree No. 94/04.

Requirements, Process and Costs

Requirements at a Glance

Legal form. LLC or JSC only. Sole traders cannot register as VASPs;

Minimum capital. None for an LLC. A JSC requires GEL 100,000, at least 25% paid at registration. Stablecoin issuance requires GEL 500,000;

Head office. Must be in Georgia — a physical office with a lease agreement. Virtual addresses are not accepted;

Director. At least one director resident in Georgia;

Responsible officer. Must be physically present in Georgia at least 14 days per calendar month. This is a real role, not a nominee signature;

Ownership. No citizenship or residency requirement for shareholders or beneficial owners. Foreign individuals and foreign companies can apply;

AML/CFT. A full programme built to Georgian law — KYC, transaction monitoring and suspicious transaction reporting to the Financial Monitoring Service;

Fit and proper. Management and key persons are assessed by the National Bank; clean criminal record certificates are required.

Timeframes and Costs

The National Bank works to a statutory decision window of roughly 60 days. Two to four months is realistic end to end, and most of the elapsed time is company setup and building the AML programme rather than the review itself. Claims of two weeks, or three working days with a personal visit, describe the pre-2023 arrangement and are no longer achievable.

The state fee is approximately GEL 5,000 — confirm the current National Bank schedule before budgeting. Even so, the cost of a licence in Georgia remains far below the cost of obtaining a European licence, where capital minimums alone run into five figures.

On the “No AML Officer Required” Claim

Older guides state that Georgia has no mandatory AML officer requirement. That is misleading. A VASP must appoint a responsible person for compliance and reporting, and that person must be in Georgia at least fourteen days a month. In practice the AML function is one of the two things the National Bank scrutinises hardest.

The other is the AML policy itself. The most common failure we see is a policy translated from another jurisdiction’s licence application. Georgian AML/CFT legislation has its own specific requirements, and the National Bank reads for them. The document has to be built for Georgia.

The Free Industrial Zone Question

This is the single most important correction to make about Georgia, because the outdated advice is still everywhere.

Georgia’s free industrial zones — Tbilisi, Kutaisi and Poti — offer genuine tax benefits: property tax exemption, no VAT or import duty on goods brought into the zone, no VAT on transactions between FIZ-registered companies, and no restrictions on capital repatriation. They remain relevant, particularly for mining operations.

But a FIZ licence does not exempt you from financial regulation. If a FIZ company carries on VASP activity, it must still register with the National Bank of Georgia and comply fully with AML/CFT law. The earlier arrangement — obtain a FIZ crypto licence in Kutaisi and avoid the National Bank entirely — no longer exists.

Any provider still selling that structure is selling you an unregistered-activity problem.

The Process, Step by Step

Model review. What exactly you do, for whom, and where. This determines whether you are in scope at all, and whether any of the prohibited models affects your plan;

Company formation. A Georgian LLC or JSC, registered with the National Agency of Public Registry. Incorporation itself can be handled remotely under a power of attorney;

Substance. Physical office and lease, resident director, and the responsible officer arrangement. This is the step that cannot be done on paper, and the step where most applications are weakest;

AML/CFT programme. KYC and CDD procedures, risk assessment, transaction monitoring, sanctions and wallet screening, record keeping, and reporting lines to the Financial Monitoring Service;

Business plan and financial evidence. The National Bank expects a coherent plan and evidence that you can actually fund it, with a documented and legitimately sourced origin of those funds;

Cybersecurity and operational readiness. IT and cybersecurity policies are reviewed as part of the application — legal compliance and technical infrastructure are assessed together, particularly for custodial models;

Application to the National Bank. Corporate documents, ownership structure down to the natural persons, identification and criminal record certificates for directors and key persons, the AML programme, the business plan and proof of the state fee. All foreign documents must be notarised and apostilled;

Review. Roughly 60 days as a statutory window. Expect follow-up questions; a complete, well-prepared file is the main determinant of how long it actually takes.

Banking — the Real Bottleneck

Registration is achievable. Banking is the constraint, and it should be planned from day one rather than treated as an afterthought.

A Georgian company can open a current account with a local bank for administrative expenses. For operational crypto flows, the practical solution is frequently a combination: a Georgian account for operating costs, and regulated payment institutions or EMIs elsewhere for customer flows. Bank of Georgia and TBC both expect KYC-compliant, registered businesses — the VASP registration helps materially here, which is part of its commercial value.

We will not promise a guaranteed account. What we do is prepare a coherent application, match the profile to institutions that actually serve it, and run the banking track alongside the licensing track. A refused account blocks the whole project, and the alternatives in this market are limited. More on bank account opening.

Tax Policy

The tax system of Georgia was partly modelled on the tax system of Estonia, and approximately the same principles apply. Georgia’s treatment is genuinely favourable, and unusually, most of the headline claims hold up. The detail matters.

Individuals. Profits from buying, selling and exchanging crypto held as a personal investment are exempt from personal income tax for Georgian tax residents, under Ministry of Finance clarification No. 201/29062. One important exception: mining by an individual is treated as Georgian-source income and is not exempt. Tax residency generally requires 183 days of physical presence in any 12-month period, or qualification under the high net worth individual programme — being present for a few weeks does not create the exemption.

Companies. Corporate profits are taxed only on distribution, not as earned: 15% corporate income tax triggered on distribution, plus 5% dividend withholding at source. Retained and reinvested profits are effectively untaxed. Crypto-to-fiat and crypto-to-crypto exchange is VAT-exempt; related services such as technical consulting or equipment rental remain subject to the standard 18% rate. Reduced-rate regimes exist for qualifying IT and international companies, and the free industrial zone benefits may apply — whether any of them fits a VASP structure is a specific question, not a general one.

CRS — Common Reporting Standard

Georgia has implemented the OECD Common Reporting Standard, so financial account information is exchanged automatically. The assumption that nobody will know, which underpinned a great deal of pre-2023 structuring, no longer applies.

And the point most pages skip: low Georgian tax is not the same as low tax for you. Your own country of residence may tax the company through controlled foreign company rules, or treat it as resident where it is actually managed. We assess both sides before recommending anything.

Advantages of Cryptocurrency License in Georgia

Cost and speed against the alternatives

A state fee of a few thousand lari and a roughly 60-day decision window, set against MiCA’s five-figure capital minimums and twelve-month-plus timelines.

No minimum share capital for an LLC

Rare among supervised regimes. The National Bank will still expect evidence that you can fund the business plan you have submitted.

Estonian-model taxation

Corporate tax is triggered only on distribution, so profits can be retained and reinvested without a tax charge.

A credible supervisor

MONEYVAL confirmed Georgia’s compliance with FATF standards in February 2024, and its December 2024 follow-up upgraded Georgia’s rating on Recommendation 15 — the virtual assets recommendation — to Largely Compliant. That matters far more to a correspondent bank than any marketing claim.

And who it does not suit

Anyone targeting EU customers, anyone whose model depends on agency distribution or crypto lending, and anyone who cannot economically support a resident director, a real office and an officer in-country fourteen days a month. If the business cannot carry those costs, registration will not fix it — and we will tell you so before you spend money finding out.

Private Financial Services will provide the following services:

Preliminary analysis of the business model and scope assessment;

Georgian company formation, LLC or JSC, and structuring;

Registered office and substance arrangements;

AML/CFT policies and procedures built for Georgian requirements;

Full support through the National Bank registration process;

Payment of all state, notary and registry fees;

Banking and payment account introductions;

Ongoing legal, accounting and compliance support;

Stablecoin issuance advice under the 2026 National Bank rules;

Alternative jurisdictions, including MiCA licensing in the EU, where Georgia is not the right fit.

Tell us what your platform does, where your customers are and what your budget and timeline look like. We will tell you whether Georgia fits before you commit to anything.

If a cryptocurrency license in Georgia does not fit your business model, you can review other jurisdictions providing crypto licences, or see our full licensing services.