Crypto tax in Georgia: what the 0% income tax really covers

If you sell Bitcoin, USDT or any other coin in Georgia as a private person, Georgian personal income tax on the profit is zero. That isn’t a relocation agent’s sales line. It comes from a short Ministry of Finance decision from 2019 that you can still read on matsne.gov.ge, Georgia’s official legal database. But “0% crypto tax in Georgia” is a headline, not the whole answer. A salary paid in USDT, mining rewards, trading through a company, and what your home country thinks of all this are separate questions with separate answers.

This page walks through each of them, shows where the sources disagree, and tells you when it’s time to ask the Revenue Service or a tax adviser. It’s a plain-language explainer, not tax advice: the rules are short, but how they apply to you depends on details only you (and your adviser) know.

The rule behind the 0%: Public Decision No. 201

Georgia’s crypto tax treatment rests on one document: Ministry of Finance Public Decision No. 201 of 28 June 2019, “On the taxation of crypto-assets and operations of supplying computing power (capacity) for their extraction”. It was signed by the then minister Ivane Machavariani, published on matsne on 1 July 2019 and took effect the same day. When Georgia introduced its exchange-registration regime in 2022, the Tax Code itself was not changed, according to Andersen Georgia — so this decision is still the reference point.

It answers three questions:

• Income tax for individuals. Income a natural person receives from supplying crypto-assets is not Georgian-source income, because the transaction takes place in virtual space and has no location in Georgia. Georgian personal income tax therefore doesn’t apply. In practice that’s 0%.
• VAT on exchange. Exchanging crypto-assets for national or foreign currency is not a VAT-taxable supply. For VAT purposes, crypto is treated much like money.
• Mining. Supplying computing power to mine crypto is an electronically supplied service. There is no Georgian VAT if the customer is outside Georgia (with no permanent establishment or place of management here linked to the service), and VAT applies if the customer is in Georgia. Input VAT can be credited in both cases.

The key word is source. Georgia taxes individuals mainly on income that comes from Georgia, and many advisers describe foreign-source income of resident individuals as generally exempt (we didn’t verify the exact Tax Code article). Because the decision says crypto sale income has no Georgian source, it falls outside Georgian income tax regardless of where you are resident.

Who gets the 0%, and does residency matter?

Andersen Georgia’s reading is that the 0% applies to residents and non-residents alike, because it follows from the source rule rather than from your status. A digital nomad on a long stay and a Georgian citizen who has never left Tbilisi are in the same position when they sell crypto they hold personally.

Residency still matters for two reasons.

First, your other income. You become a Georgian tax resident if you spend at least 183 days in Georgia in any continuous 12-month period ending in the tax year (Andersen, February 2026; we couldn’t confirm the Tax Code article because matsne blocked access). Residents are taxed on Georgian-source income such as a local salary or rent.

Second, your home country. Georgian rules decide only what Georgia taxes. Moving here doesn’t switch off exit taxes, controlled-foreign-company rules or citizenship-based taxation — the United States taxes its citizens wherever they live, for example. If your home tax office still considers you resident, Georgia’s 0% may simply mean the whole bill goes there.

There is also a “high net worth individual” route to tax residency. Andersen describes it as assets above GEL 3 million or income above GEL 200,000 in each of the last three years, plus Georgian property worth at least USD 500,000, plus either a residence permit or GEL 25,000 of Georgian-source income. It’s useful mainly for people who can’t or won’t spend 183 days a year here but need a Georgian residency certificate for their home country. If you need a certificate, the Revenue Service is the body to ask.

Where the 0% stops

The 0% covers one thing: income you get from selling or otherwise supplying crypto you own, as an individual. Plenty of crypto income doesn’t fit that description.

Crypto salary

If your employer pays you in USDT or Bitcoin, that’s salary, and salary is taxable. Andersen Georgia’s March 2026 note is explicit: crypto received as wages or as payment for goods and services is ordinary taxable income. Georgia’s personal income tax on salaries is 20%. The fact that you later sell the coins tax-free doesn’t change how the salary itself is taxed.

There’s a second problem if the payer is Georgian. Under article 39¹ of the Organic Law on the National Bank of Georgia, payments with virtual assets are prohibited except where the NBG allows them for providing virtual asset services. Our reading is that a Georgian company paying wages in crypto runs straight into that ban. In practice, crypto salaries here usually come from foreign employers. Our crypto regulation guide explains the payment ban in more detail.

Freelancers and the 1% Small Business status

Georgia’s Small Business status is popular with freelancers: 1% of turnover up to GEL 500,000 a year, 3% on the excess, and the status is lost if you exceed the cap two years in a row. VAT registration kicks in above GEL 100,000 of taxable supplies in 12 months (Andersen, August 2026).

The catch is the excluded list. Financial services such as currency exchange and financial intermediation, consulting and licensed activities can’t use the regime. Crypto trading isn’t named. A crypto exchange business would almost certainly be excluded, since it’s a registered financial activity. Trading your own coins through an individual-entrepreneur registration is a grey area nobody has settled in writing.

Some consultants say crypto received for services can count towards 1% turnover. That clashes with the NBG’s position that a Georgian legal entity or individual entrepreneur “is not authorised to receive payment with a virtual asset(s)” for goods or services (NBG FAQ). The compliant route is to invoice in fiat. If your client wants to pay from crypto, a registered exchange can convert it and, on the client’s instruction, send the fiat proceeds to a payment service provider or acquirer.

Mining: the sources disagree

For mining, Decision No. 201 settles VAT on computing power (see above). It is less clear about the coins an individual miner earns.

• Andersen Georgia says individual mining income is Georgian-source and taxed at 20% personal income tax, with the return due by 1 April of the following year.
• Nomos Georgia says Decision No. 201 does not rule on mining rewards and the position is “less settled”.

We can’t tell you which reading the Revenue Service applies, because we found no official ruling. If you mine at any real scale, get a written answer first. Our crypto mining guide covers electricity, free industrial zones and the crackdown on illegal power use in Svaneti.

Trading as a business

The decision talks about natural persons. Whether an individual entrepreneur or a company that buys and sells crypto as its business gets the same treatment is not answered anywhere we could find. And if you’re buying or selling crypto for other people, you’re no longer a private trader: you’re providing a virtual asset service and need registration with the National Bank. See VASP registration in Georgia.

Companies: profit tax only when you pay out

Georgian companies use an Estonian-style system. There’s 15% corporate income tax, charged only when profits are distributed; profit kept in the company or reinvested isn’t taxed. Dividends paid to shareholders carry a further 5% withholding tax. The profit tax is due by the 15th of the month after the distribution (Andersen, April 2026). Banks and some financial institutions follow a different regime; none of the sources we read put registered crypto exchanges in that group, but we couldn’t confirm it either way.

On VAT, exchanging crypto for money is outside VAT under Decision No. 201. Andersen adds that most core services of a registered exchange are VAT-exempt financial services, which also means no input VAT deduction, while some intermediary services may be taxable.

A few special regimes come up in conversations about crypto companies:

• Virtual Zone Person status gives IT companies (LLCs only) 0% profit tax on IT services and software supplied to non-residents, with 5% on dividends and 20% income tax on salaries. Whether blockchain development qualifies is unverified. A registered exchange probably can’t use it, because the law lets an exchange do nothing except virtual asset services.
• Free Industrial Zone companies are exempt from VAT, profit tax and property tax, which matters mostly to miners. A free-zone address does not exempt anyone from National Bank registration — the NBG said so plainly in October and November 2025.
• International Company status is often mentioned online; we haven’t researched it and won’t quote rates.

Reporting, CRS and what your bank will ask

This is where the honest answer is “we don’t know yet”.

Decision No. 201 says nothing about declaring exempt crypto income. If you file a Georgian return for other reasons — a local salary, rental income, a business — ask the Revenue Service how, or whether, to show crypto sales. We found no published guidance.

We also couldn’t confirm from primary sources whether, and how, Georgian banks or registered exchanges pass account data to foreign tax authorities under international exchange-of-information agreements such as the OECD’s Common Reporting Standard (CRS). The safe assumption is that your home tax office can find out about your accounts, and that you should report as your home rules require.

What we can say is what institutions in Georgia check:

• Registered exchanges must run KYCKYCKnow Your Customer: identity checks (passport, selfie, sometimes proof of address) that licensed services must run before you trade. on every business relationship and on any single crypto transaction above USD 1,000 / EUR 1,000 / GEL 3,000 (thresholds reported by Andersen; we couldn’t verify the AML Law article). They keep records for five years.
• Banks may ask where incoming money came from — the source of fundsSource of fundsDocuments showing where money came from (salary, sale of property, exchange statements). Georgian banks may ask for them on large crypto-related transfers. — and may freeze an account while they look into crypto-related transfers, especially money arriving from unknown individuals after P2P trades. No Georgian bank has published a crypto policy we could check; our guide to banks and crypto covers what’s known.

Keep records like you’ll need them

Even when no Georgian tax is due, records protect you three times over: for your home tax office, for your bank’s source-of-funds check, and if you ever need to prove that a payment wasn’t salary or business income. Here’s a routine that works.

When to ask rs.ge or a tax adviser

For a private person who buys crypto, holds it and sells it, Decision No. 201 is clear enough. Get a professional or official answer if any of these apply to you:

• You mine, or plan to, especially with your own equipment at home.
• You trade frequently or through an individual-entrepreneur registration or a company.
• You want to use Small Business status for anything crypto-related.
• You’re paid in crypto — salary, freelance fees or token grants.
• You earn from staking, lending or DeFi, which the decision doesn’t mention.
• You’re moving to Georgia from a country with exit taxes or citizenship-based taxation, or you may be tax resident in two places at once.
• You’re about to move a large sum into a Georgian bank or into property.

The official places to start are the Revenue Service and the Ministry of Finance. Ask for the answer in writing and keep it with your records. The decision itself is on matsne.gov.ge; check it for amendments before relying on anything you read, including this page. Since you’re dealing with large amounts, also read our notes on avoiding crypto scams in Georgia — “tax optimisation” offers are a common hook.

For the wider legal picture — what the National Bank regulates, why shops can’t take crypto, and which exchanges are registered — start with our guide to crypto regulation in Georgia or go back to the crypto in Georgia overview.