Cryptocurrency in Georgia: regulation, taxes and licences
In short. Crypto is legal to hold and trade in Georgia, and a private person who sells their own coins owes no income tax on the gain. The Ministry of Finance settled that in 2019: income from supplying crypto has no Georgian source, so Georgian income tax does not reach it. Companies pay 15%, and only when profit leaves the company. Serve other people and you cross a line, because the National Bank requires you to register first.
- PERSONAL TAX
- 0%on selling your own coins
- COMPANY TAX
- 15%only when profit is paid out
- EXCHANGE TO LARI
- No VATtreated like changing money
- VASP REGISTRATION
- RequiredNational Bank, since July 2023
- STABLECOIN ISSUE
- Written consentfrom the National Bank, in advance
- LEGAL TENDER
- Nono shop has to accept it
Who regulates crypto in Georgia
Two institutions split the work, and you fall to one or the other depending on whom you serve.
The Revenue Service decides what a private person owes, which since 2019 has been nothing on the gain from selling their own crypto. The National Bank of Georgia supervises everyone who serves other people: exchanges, custodians, brokers, trading platforms. It keeps a public register of those providers and has told citizens in plain words to avoid firms missing from it.
Parliament never passed a dedicated crypto law here. Legislators folded the rules into the anti-money-laundering statute instead, which put the National Bank in charge rather than a securities regulator.
What a private person pays
Nothing on the gain. That answer holds for most readers, and the reasoning behind it shows where it stops.
The finance ministry issued clarification 201/29062 on 28 June 2019. Its logic is narrow: crypto held by an individual carries no Georgian source, so income from supplying it falls outside Georgian income tax. The same document puts the exchange of crypto for lari or another currency on the same footing as changing money, which keeps it outside VAT too.
You get the exemption when you sell your own coins. Sell other people's, run a venue, or trade at a volume and rhythm that reads as a business, and the Revenue Service puts you in the entrepreneur category, where the exemption no longer reaches.
What a company pays
Fifteen percent, charged when the company distributes profit.
Georgia copied the model Estonia made famous: keep the money inside the company and you owe nothing, pay dividends and the 15% falls due. A mining operation buying machines out of retained profit, or a trading firm compounding a balance, can go years without paying. Every Georgian company works under that rate. Nobody wrote a separate crypto regime on top of it.
Registration at the National Bank
Since 1 July 2023, you cannot provide virtual asset services to other people without registering.
The National Bank set up the regime with Order 94/04 of 13 June 2023. It reaches exchange between crypto and money, transfers, custody, portfolio management, running a trading platform, lending against crypto, and initial coin offerings. Owners and managers pass fit-and-proper tests, and applicants show the National Bank their head office, their software and a working anti-money-laundering system before the bank looks at anything else.
Mine for yourself, buy and sell your own coins, and none of this touches you, because the whole regime keys on whether someone else relies on you.
Stablecoins got their own rule in 2026
Governor Natela Turnava signed Order 52/04 on 6 March 2026, setting out how a registered provider may issue a stablecoin.
Two things follow from it. Issuers now have a framework for the offering and the services around it, and the National Bank must give written consent before anyone offers a stablecoin in Georgia. Someone not yet on the register has to get there first.
Why people move here for it
Cheap electricity built the mining industry, and the zero rate on personal gains kept the people who ran it. Both survived the registration regime that tightened everything around them, and that survival is the interesting part: the state regulated the businesses and left the private holder where they were.
One caution belongs here. The exemption rests on a ministerial clarification, not on a line in the tax code, and a minister who issued it can issue another.
Allowed
- Buy, hold and sell crypto as a private person, with no income tax on the gain
- Exchange crypto for lari or another currency without VAT
- Mine for yourself without registering as a service provider
- Deal with providers listed on the National Bank's public register
Restricted
- Serving other people without registration at the National Bank, since July 2023
- Issuing a stablecoin without the bank's written consent, given in advance
- Paying in shops: crypto is not legal tender and acceptance stays voluntary
- Trading as a business rather than for yourself, which moves you into company tax
How the rules took shape
The Ministry of Finance issues clarification 201/29062: an individual selling crypto owes no income tax, and the exchange sits outside VAT.
The National Bank approves Order 94/04, the registration rule for virtual asset service providers.
The rule takes effect. Serving other people without registration becomes prohibited.
Order 52/04 sets rules for stablecoin issuance and requires the National Bank's written consent in advance.
Worth knowing
In mountainous Svaneti household electricity has been free since the 1990s, and by 2019 mining was so widespread that utility crews went door to door disconnecting rigs by hand.
Common questions
Do I pay nothing at all on crypto profit?
As a private person selling your own coins, nothing. The 2019 clarification treats that income as having no Georgian source, which puts it beyond Georgian income tax. Serving other people, or trading through a company, falls under different rules.
What does a company pay?
Fifteen percent, and only at the moment it distributes profit. Money kept inside the company stays untaxed, which is why mining operations that reinvest can go years without paying.
Can I run an exchange from Tbilisi?
Only after registering with the National Bank. That requirement has been in force since July 2023, and providing the service without it is prohibited.
Is mining taxed?
Mining for yourself needs no registration and no service-provider status. Build it into a business and you register one, after which company rules apply.
Can I pay with crypto in a shop?
Not by right. Crypto is not legal tender in Georgia, so every seller decides on their own.
Sources
Related reading
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Updated 20.08.2026 · this is reference material, not investment or tax advice