RELOVA JOURNAL

Blog/Published April 15, 2026 · Updated September 19, 2026

How to Move to Tbilisi: The Complete First-Week Setup Checklist for 2026

By Anna Moore

Tbilisi first week checklist 2026 guide with visa routes, cost bands, neighborhood picks, timelines, and practical setup steps for expats planning a confident 2

Tbilisi first week checklist 2026 is a fixed order: SIM → short stay → central bank branch → neighborhood walk → long lease. Skip the local number and you will not open a bank account—SMS codes will not hit a foreign phone. Longer setup context: Tbilisi digital nomad setup, Moving to Tbilisi, Move to Georgia 2026.

Day-by-day first-week sequence

  1. Day 1 — SIM. Buy from Magticom, Silknet, or Cellfie (airport or any shop) with your passport—registration is mandatory. Expect about 5 GEL for the SIM plus a 15–40 GEL/month data pack.
  2. Days 1–3 — temporary housing. Arrive with 1–2 weeks of Airbnb/short-term already booked. Do not sign a long lease sight-unseen from abroad.
  3. Days 2–5 — walk neighborhoods. Vera (walkable, cafés) and Vake (more family-oriented) remain the main expat picks; also sample Saburtalo.
  4. Same window — bank account. Prefer a central TBC Bank or Bank of Georgia branch (district offices more often refuse foreigners without clear reason). Bring passport, local number, ideally 6–12 months of home-bank statements, and a lease if you have one. AML checks tightened in 2026—“passport only” is no longer a sure thing. Plan 30–60 minutes in branch.

Banking, leases, IE registration, and insurance

After you pick a district, hunt long-term rentals on SS.ge and local Facebook groups — these two sources dominate the Tbilisi rental market far more than international listing sites, so plan on browsing in Georgian or using a translation extension. If you will operate locally as a freelancer, register Individual Entrepreneur + Small Business Status (1% turnover tax up to 500,000 GEL/year) at a Public Service Hall with your passport and a legal Georgian address, which you generally need a signed lease to provide — another reason the housing step has to come before the registration step in the sequence. From 1 March 2026, work-permit rules affect Georgian-company employment, and IE registration may involve extra checks as a result — confirm the current requirements before you file rather than assuming last year's process still applies. Foreigners cannot use Georgia's public health system, so private insurance is not optional — buy cover from day one, with entry guidance often citing a minimum of GEL 30,000 in coverage.

Compressed into a single sequence: Day 1 is the SIM card (passport plus roughly 5–40 GEL); days 1–3 run on pre-booked temporary housing while you get oriented; days 2–5 is when the bank account gets opened once you have both the local number and, ideally, a lease or at least a firm address; the first one to two weeks is neighborhood scouting across Vera, Vake, and Saburtalo before committing to a long-term lease via SS.ge or Facebook groups; and IE registration and health insurance sit alongside that timeline as needed rather than strictly after it — insurance in particular should be arranged before or immediately upon arrival, not after the first week is over.

A few practical notes make the sequence run more smoothly. Bring more cash than you think you need for the first few days — while cards work at most established merchants, smaller shops, taxis, and some short-term rental hosts still prefer cash, and you don't want a payment failure blocking your SIM purchase or first grocery run before your bank account exists. Keep physical photocopies of your passport's photo page on you; several first-week errands, from SIM registration to viewing apartments, ask for a copy rather than just a glance at the original. And treat the first week's temporary housing as genuinely temporary — resist the pressure to sign a long lease from a listing photo alone, since in-person viewing routinely reveals issues (noise, building condition, actual walk time to amenities) that photos hide, and Tbilisi's rental supply is generally deep enough that a few extra days of searching rarely costs you the best units.

One sequencing trap worth avoiding: don't try to open a bank account before you've secured at least a temporary address you can document, since branches increasingly ask for some form of address proof alongside the passport and phone number, and a hotel or Airbnb booking confirmation is usually accepted as a stopgap if you haven't signed a lease yet.

Plan it on Relova: See Georgia's visa options, tax rates, and cost of living → for a structured breakdown you can compare against other destinations.

See real salaries: What people actually earn in Georgia →

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