Georgia residence permit through marriage to a citizen

What exactly changed on 1 September 2026

The amendment was introduced by Georgian Law No. 1803 of 25 June 2026 and entered into force on 1 September. It consists of two parts, the second of which is more significant than the first.

The first part concerns timelines. A new sub-category has been added to the list of residence permit types: a residence permit for the spouse of a Georgian citizen, issued pending the grant of permanent residence. At the same time, the spouse has been removed from the description of permanent residence — permanent residence for a spouse is now granted only to the spouse of a Georgian citizen who has spent the previous five years in Georgia on the basis of this new permit.

The second part concerns procedure. A separate article has been added to the law setting out the rules for issuing this type of residence permit and for verifying the authenticity of the marriage. Previously, marriage authenticity was not verified as a separate procedure; it is now a standalone stage with its own authority, its own powers, and its own grounds for refusal.

A timeline ladder: one year, then two-year renewals, capped at five

The law describes the term of this residence permit in a single sentence containing three numbers. It is issued for one year. It is renewed each time for two years. The total duration may not exceed five years.

After five years, provided the marriage is intact, permanent residence is granted in accordance with Georgian law. In other words, the five years are not an open-ended wait but a legally defined path with a clear endpoint — one that must, however, be completed in full.

The practical point of the ladder is that scrutiny is repeated. One year, then two, then two — that is three visits to the authority over five years, each conducted under the same rules as the first. A marriage that exists only on paper has to be demonstrated not once, but three times.

The three-agency commission and its powers

An interdepartmental commission is established to review the application. The law explicitly names its composition: representatives of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Georgia, the State Security Service of Georgia, and the agency.

The commission’s powers are stated with equal directness. To verify the authenticity of a family relationship and the formation of a family, it may interview the spouses — separately or together. The spouses, in turn, are required to provide the commission with explanations, submit all available evidence and documents confirming the authenticity of the family relationship, appear before the commission on request and, where necessary, allow it to verify the information stated in the documents — including by visiting the place of residence, inspecting the premises and interviewing the relevant persons.

The phrasing ’separately and together’ is not accidental: interviewing spouses apart from each other is a classic tool for detecting sham marriages, and the law has enshrined it explicitly.

• Composition: Ministry of Internal Affairs of Georgia, State Security Service, agency
• Interviews may be conducted separately or jointly
• Spouses are required to submit all possible evidence of their family relationship
• Attendance before the commission is required upon request
• The check may be carried out at the place of residence, with an inspection and interviews with neighbours and other individuals

Refusal to cooperate is an independent ground for rejection

This is the provision that can lose you a case before anyone even evaluates the marriage itself. The law states: failure by the spouses to comply with the commission’s requirements, refusal to appear before the commission, refusal to allow inspection of the place of residence, or any other expressed refusal to cooperate with it constitutes grounds for rejecting the application for a residence permit for a spouse of a Georgian citizen.

Note that this is a standalone ground, not an argument in an assessment. The commission does not need to prove the marriage is fictitious — it is enough to record that you did not appear or did not grant access. Explanations such as ’I was away’ or ’I did not realise this was mandatory’ are not addressed by the law.

This leaves only one practical conclusion: contact details must work. The same law, effective 1 September, introduced an obligation to notify the agency immediately of any change in mobile phone number or actual address of residence — and this is precisely why. A missed summons to a commission looks like a refusal to cooperate.

If the marriage is deemed fictitious

The law addresses this scenario as well, and it goes beyond a migration matter. If the commission finds sufficient grounds to suspect a sham marriage, it refers the case materials to the investigative authority at the place of actual residence of the Georgian citizen, and sends copies to the Prosecutor’s Office of Georgia.

The review of the application neither continues nor is closed during this time: once an investigation begins, the application review is paused — until criminal proceedings are initiated or the investigation is closed. In other words, the case is on hold for a period determined not by the immigration authority.

A provision from another article of the law also applies: a foreigner’s right to stay in Georgia may be terminated if they entered into a fictitious marriage in order to obtain a residence permit. This means the consequences go beyond merely being refused status.

What the law did not say — and why we do not fill in the gaps

Law No. 1803 contains no transitional provisions for applications filed before 1 September 2026. Its dedicated transitional article addresses something else entirely: it requires the government to approve the rules for the commission’s operation and interview procedure, establish monitoring rules for holders of a student residence permit, and bring subordinate legislation into line with the law.

We could speculate about how an application submitted in August will be processed, but speculation has no place in a text like this. The honest answer: the law does not address this; the question is resolved under general rules and should be clarified with the agency before submission, not after.

The second question of the same kind is what happens to those who already obtained permanent residence as a spouse under the previous version of the rules. The new provision describes the granting of status, not the review of status already granted, and the law says nothing about review. That is an observation about what the text does not say, however — not a guarantee — and we are naming it as such.

How this relates to citizenship

Georgian citizenship follows a separate path under a different law, and marriage counts here too: the simplified procedure cuts the residence requirement from ten years to five for those married to a Georgian citizen. The matching number is deceptive — these are five years of residence under the citizenship law, not the same five years on the residence permit ladder.

There is a more important distinction. The permanent residence that five years of this status leads to is a foreign national’s status — not citizenship. Georgian citizenship requires renouncing your previous one: the presidential decree granting citizenship only takes effect once the relevant authorities have received proof that the applicant has relinquished their other nationality.

That is why the decision — permanent residence or a passport — is worth making at the start of the journey, not in year five.

Frequently asked questions

Verified September 11, 2026. The thresholds and amounts are tied to indicators that are reviewed annually — check the official source for your country before filing.