Hire employees in Georgia using an Employer of Record

You've been interviewing for weeks. Finally found the right person in Tbilisi or Batumi. Now you need to actually hire them legally, and that's exactly where most companies hit a wall.

Georgia isn't part of the EU, so a lot of the "standard" playbooks for European hiring don't apply here. The country runs its own social security setup, its own tax rates, and its own rules on notice and severance. If you don't have someone on the ground who's already dealt with this, you're guessing.

Your three options

Option 1: Set up your own entity

• Cost: Significant upfront legal, registration, and accounting setup, plus ongoing annual maintenance
• Timeline: Several months minimum, once you account for registration, tax setup, and opening local payroll
• Complexity: Corporate tax registration (15% corporate tax rate), VAT registration (18% VAT rate), payroll infrastructure, and ongoing compliance filings
• Makes sense when: You're planning to hire 20+ people in Georgia long-term or need a permanent legal presence

Option 2: Hire contractors

• Cost: No entity setup, but you lose control over how the work relationship is structured
• Timeline: Immediate
• Risks: Misclassification exposure if the relationship looks like employment (set hours, exclusive work, ongoing supervision), plus potential back taxes and disputes
• Makes sense when: You need someone for a short project (under 6 months) or a narrow, specialized skill
• Note: Hire with Columbus also handles compliant contractor agreements and payments if this is the right fit

Option 3: Use an employer of record (recommended for most)

• Cost: From $179/month per employee (USD)
• Timeline: 2-3 days to get someone hired and on payroll
• Complexity: None on your end. We handle the contract, payroll, taxes, and compliance
• Makes sense when: You're hiring 1-50 people, testing the Georgian market, or building a team across several countries at once

Why most companies choose EOR here

The math is simple if you're hiring a handful of people. Entity setup involves legal fees, registration costs, and annual maintenance that can easily run into the thousands of dollars before you've paid a single employee. Compare that to $179/month per employee ($2,148/year) with an EOR, and entity setup only starts to make sense once you're hiring at real scale.

It gets more obvious when you're hiring in more than one country. Set up an entity in Georgia and another market, and you're now running two separate legal, tax, and payroll systems. An EOR gives you one point of contact for all of it: employment contracts, payroll runs, the 2% employer social security contribution, tax withholding, and staying current when Georgian labor law changes.

Say you're hiring 3 people in Georgia this quarter. That's $537/month through an EOR, versus a legal entity setup plus a year of local accounting and payroll administration before you've even made your first hire. For most companies below 20 employees, EOR wins on cost and speed.

Ready to hire in Georgia without setting up an entity or gambling on contractor status? Get started with Hire with Columbus.

What employment types can you use?

Before you draft an employment contract in Georgia, you need to decide: entity, contractor, or EOR. That decision shapes everything else, from how fast you can hire to how much risk you're carrying.

How can you hire in Georgia?

You've got three real paths into the Georgian market. Here's how they stack up.

Setting up your own entity means full tax registration, a local payroll system, and building HR infrastructure from scratch. It's the right call if you're planning a permanent, large-scale operation in Georgia. It's the wrong call if you just need to hire two or three people and see how it goes.

Hiring contractors feels fast because it is. You sign an agreement and start work the same week. The catch: Georgian labor authorities look at how the relationship actually functions, not just what the contract says. If your "contractor" works fixed hours, uses your equipment, and takes direction like an employee, you've got a misclassification problem, plus back taxes and legal disputes to sort out. Contractors also make sense for genuinely independent, short-term work, and Hire with Columbus can handle compliant contractor agreements and payments if that's your route.

Using an EOR puts Hire with Columbus in the legal employer seat in Georgia. We handle the employment contract, payroll, tax filings, and statutory compliance. You handle the actual job, the goals, and the day-to-day management. Five employees this way runs from $895/month total, with no incorporation costs and no months-long setup to worry about. For most companies testing the Georgian market or hiring a handful of people, this is the path that avoids the entity overhead entirely.

Employment contract types in Georgia

Once you've picked your hiring approach, you still need the right contract type underneath it. Georgian labor law recognizes a few main structures, and picking the wrong one creates headaches later.

Permanent contracts are what most companies use for full-time, ongoing roles. If you're hiring someone to be part of your core team indefinitely, this is the contract you want. It gives both sides clarity and it's what candidates expect for a "real" job offer.

Fixed-term contracts work for a specific project or a defined stretch of work, like covering a maternity leave or running a six-month product launch. Using fixed-term contracts repeatedly for a role that's actually permanent is a common shortcut companies try, and it's the kind of thing that draws scrutiny if the relationship looks permanent in practice. If the role has no real end date, use a permanent contract instead.

Part-time contracts cover reduced-hours arrangements. Part-time employees keep the same core statutory protections as full-time staff, just calculated proportionally to their hours.

Probation terms, notice requirements, and other contract specifics get set out in the individual employment agreement within statutory limits. Getting these details wrong is exactly the kind of thing that trips up companies drafting their own Georgian contracts for the first time.

Hire with Columbus drafts locally compliant contracts for whichever type fits your hire, permanent, fixed-term, or part-time, so you're not guessing at what Georgian law requires. You tell us the role and the arrangement, we handle the paperwork that keeps it compliant.

How does payroll and taxation work?

The minimum wage in Georgia is GEL 20 per month. That number looks like a typo, but it's the actual statutory floor, and it tells you the government isn't the one setting real-world pay here. The market does that, and the average monthly wage across Georgia sits at about GEL 867.

That gap matters when you're building an offer. You're not benchmarking against a minimum wage that means anything in practice. You're benchmarking against actual local salaries for the role and experience level you need.

Income tax

Georgia's personal income tax tops out at 20%. The facts we have don't give a full bracket breakdown, so treat this as the top-end rate on employment income and build your net pay estimates around it rather than assuming a flat rate applies to every income level.

Whatever the final number, income tax gets withheld and remitted by whoever runs payroll, whether that's your own entity or an EOR handling it on your behalf.

Social security contributions

Georgia's social security system is lighter than what you'll see in a lot of European countries. Both employer and employee contribute 2% each, and nearly all of that sits in one bucket: old-age, invalidity, and survivors coverage.

So the total statutory employer contribution on top of gross salary is 2%. That's a small load compared to many EOR markets, but it still needs to be calculated, withheld, and filed correctly every pay period.

13th month pay and bonuses

Georgia doesn't require a 13th or 14th month salary, and there's no statutory holiday allowance on top of base pay. Any bonus structure you offer is a matter of your own compensation policy, not a legal obligation.

What an employee actually costs you

Take a round illustrative salary of GEL 24,000 per year (about GEL 2,000 a month). Add the 2% employer social security contribution and here's what you're actually paying:

That's a modest markup compared to a lot of countries where employer contributions run 15-30% on top of salary. Georgia keeps this part simple, at least on paper.

Common payroll mistakes

• Assuming the GEL 20 minimum wage is a useful salary benchmark. It isn't. Price roles against actual market data instead.
• Treating the 2% employer SSC as the full cost of employment and forgetting leave pay, notice pay, or severance obligations that show up later.
• Getting income tax withholding wrong because the bracket structure isn't fully mapped out internally, leading to under- or over-withholding that surfaces at filing time.
• Assuming a 13th month bonus is required because it's common elsewhere. It's not mandatory in Georgia, but check your own offer letters so you're not accidentally promising one.

Doing this yourself vs. letting someone else handle it

Running payroll in Georgia on your own usually means hiring a local accounting firm, setting up payroll software that handles GEL calculations correctly, and having someone in-house track filing deadlines and contribution rates as they change. None of that is impossible, but it's ongoing work and the compliance exposure sits with you if something's filed late or wrong.

With Hire with Columbus: from $179/month per employee (USD), fully compliant. We calculate the withholding, remit the contributions, and handle the filings, so your finance team gets a clean invoice instead of a spreadsheet full of GEL tax logic to maintain.

What benefits and leave are required?

Maternity leave in Georgia runs 26.1 weeks. Paternity leave, by contrast, is zero weeks under statute. That gap alone catches a lot of first-time employers off guard, so let's get into what's actually required.

Annual vacation

Employees get 24 days of paid annual leave per year. That's the statutory floor, not a suggestion.

Days typically accrue over the course of the year rather than dropping all at once on January 1. Whether unused days carry over or get paid out depends on what's written into the employment contract, so this is one area where your contract language matters as much as the law itself. Build carryover and payout rules into the offer letter up front so nobody's arguing about it in December.

Sick leave

Georgian law doesn't set a rigid statutory number of paid sick days the way some countries do. Sick leave terms, including who pays and for how long, are generally governed by the employment contract and internal company policy.

That means you need clear sick leave language in every contract you issue. Leaving it vague is how you end up negotiating individually with each sick employee, which nobody wants.

Parental leave

Maternity leave is 26.1 weeks. Pay during that period typically comes through a mix of employer policy and the social insurance system rather than a flat statutory percentage, so check the specifics before you promise a number to a candidate.

Paternity leave sits at 0 weeks statutory. If you want to offer new fathers time off, that's a policy choice on your part, not a legal requirement, and it's increasingly common as a competitive benefit.

Public holidays in 2026

Georgia has 17 public holidays a year. Employees who work on these days are generally entitled to premium treatment, so plan staffing around this list rather than around it.

Mandatory benefits

Georgia runs a defined-contribution pension scheme. Both sides pay in:

• Employer contribution: 2% (old age, invalidity, and survivors)
• Employee contribution: 2% (old age, invalidity, and survivors)

Neither side pays into work injury, family benefits, sickness/maternity, or health and long-term care funds through this scheme, based on the current contribution breakdown. There's no statutory 13th-month salary requirement in Georgia either, so if you're budgeting an extra month's pay, you don't need to for compliance reasons.

Optional and competitive benefits

Base statutory entitlements in Georgia are lean compared to a lot of European markets. That's exactly why competitive employers add on top:

• Private health insurance (a real differentiator, since mandatory coverage is limited)
• Paid paternity leave beyond the statutory zero weeks
• Extra vacation days above the 24-day floor
• Meal or transport allowances
• Performance bonuses, since there's no mandatory 13th salary to fall back on

Common benefit mistakes

The biggest one: assuming sick leave and vacation carryover work the same way they do back home. They don't, and Georgia leaves a lot of it to contract language, which means a sloppy contract is a compliance gap waiting to happen.

The second mistake is treating the 2%/2% pension contribution as the whole benefits cost. It's not, once you add competitive health coverage and any extra leave you offer to stay attractive in the local market.

The real cost of getting this right

Building this out yourself means hiring local HR expertise, running payroll and pension contributions correctly every month, and staying on top of contract language for leave and sick pay. Miss a pension contribution or misclassify leave terms, and you're looking at back-payments and potential penalties, on top of the reputational hit with your own team.

Hire with Columbus handles benefits administration, pension contributions, and leave tracking for $179/month per employee. No local HR hire, no guessing on contract language, no scrambling when someone asks about their maternity leave pay.

What are the compliance requirements?

You can't fire someone in Georgia without cause, notice, and a process that holds up if challenged. Get any piece of it wrong and you're looking at back pay, legal costs, or a court ordering you to reinstate the employee. Here's what the rules actually require.

Employment contracts

Georgian labor law expects employment relationships to be documented in writing, and a written contract is your best protection if a dispute ever lands in front of a court or the Labor Inspectorate. Verbal arrangements leave you exposed. If a dispute comes up, you'll have nothing to point to.

A solid contract should spell out job duties, compensation, working hours, and how either side can end the relationship. Skip any of these and you risk the contract getting interpreted against you, not in your favor, if there's ever a disagreement.

Hire with Columbus issues locally compliant contracts for every hire, so you're not guessing at what Georgian law expects a contract to say.

Probation periods

Georgia doesn't fix a single mandatory probation length in the way some countries do. Probation length is set out in the employment contract itself, and it needs to stay within what the labor code allows.

During probation, termination rights are generally more flexible than after it ends. Once probation is over, the employee gets full statutory protections around notice and termination cause, so treat the end of probation as a real checkpoint, not a formality.

Working time

The average Georgian employee actually works around 41.4 hours a week. That's not a legal ceiling, it's what people are logging on the ground, and it's a useful benchmark when you're setting expectations for a new hire.

Standard working time, overtime treatment, and rest breaks are governed by the labor code. Keep accurate time records for every employee. If a wage or hours dispute ever comes up, your records are what you'll be judged on.

Notice periods

Georgia sets a statutory minimum notice period that applies broadly, rather than a sliding scale by tenure.

Contracts can specify longer notice than the statutory minimum, but they can't specify less. If your contract is silent, the statutory minimum applies by default.

Termination process

Termination in Georgia needs a valid basis, whether that's redundancy, performance, or misconduct. You should document the reason, give the required notice (or pay in lieu), and settle any outstanding severance before the employee's last day.

Skipping documentation is the single most common mistake employers make here. If a former employee challenges the dismissal, an employer with no paper trail is in a much weaker position than one with a documented process.

Severance pay

Severance is owed on terminations that don't stem from the employee's own misconduct. This runs alongside notice, not instead of it, so budget for both when you're planning a termination.

Data protection

Georgia has its own personal data protection framework, separate from the EU's GDPR but built around similar principles: consent, purpose limitation, and secure handling of employee records. That means payroll data, ID documents, and performance records all need to be stored and shared with care, not passed around on a shared spreadsheet everyone can access.

Common compliance mistakes

• No written contract: leaves you with no defense if an employee disputes pay, duties, or termination terms.
• Skipping notice or severance: employers who terminate without the statutory 4.3 weeks of notice or severance expose themselves to back-pay claims.
• Undocumented termination reason: courts and labor inspectors expect a paper trail. No documentation makes a dismissal much easier to challenge.
• Sloppy employee data handling: mishandled personal data can trigger complaints under Georgia's data protection framework.

Hire with Columbus runs every contract, termination, and payroll record through Georgia's employment rules before anything goes out the door, so none of this lands on your desk as a surprise six months in.

What has changed recently?

Three tax rates got locked in for 2026, and if you're running payroll in Georgia, they're worth writing down.

Tax rates confirmed for 2026

As of January 21, 2026, Georgia's corporate tax rate sits at 15%. Personal income tax tops out at 20% on a progressive basis, and VAT holds at 18%. None of these are surprises if you've hired in Georgia before, but the government re-confirmed them at the start of the year, so treat them as the current baseline for 2026 budgeting rather than assuming last year's numbers still apply.

Leave and retirement figures updated for the year

A few employment terms got refreshed as of January 1, 2026:

• Annual leave: 24 days, up from whatever your old contract templates might say if they're a year or two out of date.
• Public holidays: 17 days per year, which is a lot compared to many countries you might be used to hiring in.
• Retirement age: 65 years, confirmed for 2026.

If your HR templates were built for an earlier year, this is the moment to check them against these numbers before you send an offer letter.

Maternity and paternity leave, as of February 2026

Georgia's maternity leave entitlement stands at 26.1 weeks as of February 23, 2026. Paternity leave remains at 0 weeks under statute, so if you want to offer new fathers time off, that's a policy decision on your end, not a legal requirement.

What this means if you're hiring now

None of these changes require you to do anything dramatic, but they do mean outdated templates or last year's cost estimates could be wrong. If you're running payroll yourself, double check your contracts and pay calculations against these 2026 figures before your first hire starts.

This is exactly the kind of detail an EOR is built to track for you. With Hire with Columbus, these updates get baked into contracts and payroll automatically, so you're not the one responsible for noticing a rate changed on January 21st.