Georgia to restrict granting of residence permits to foreign citizens

Georgia intends to restrict the issuing of residence permits to foreign citizens, Agenda reports.

Tbilisi Mayor Kakha Kaladze is calling on MPs to support amendments to the law ‘On the Legal Status of Foreigners and Stateless Persons’.

The current law says that a person can be granted the right of residence if he/she makes an investment worth at least 300,000 GEL (about $120,481/€103,057) or they buy real estate that is worth a minimum of $35,000.

The draft law increases the amount of the initial investment to $300,000. The same threshold for buying real estate would rise to $100,000.

Moreover, if a foreigner invests in Georgia, they will not receive permanent rights of residence: the permit will expire after five years and will only continue after that if they continue to invest in Georgia. At that point, they may be granted permanent residency.

Also, the current law says that if a foreign citizen gives his/her property to another foreigner, he/she also can be granted the right of residence. This in theory means that an unlimited number of foreign citizens can obtain residence permits through the same real estate, Kaladze said.

“We welcome foreign citizens and we are not against their getting an education, conducting legitimate economic activity, but the law and rules should coincide with the interest of our country”, he added.

The draft law reads that recently a total of 1,552 short-term residency permits were granted in Georgia based on the ownership of $35,000 worth of property.

More specifically, in 2016 only 328 permits were granted while in 2017 the number reached 1,173.