These are the tips from an Israeli resident, who works remotely for a German company and came to register a Sole Proprietorship in Tbilisi in order to save on income taxes.

Registration of Sole Proprietorship takes place in Tbilisi Public Service Hall. The process of registration takes about 30 minutes. I recommend coming by the opening, because there will not be any lines yet, and it will be easier and faster to get a good deal for an address in Georgia.

At the entrance to the public hall, a lot of people walk around with banners, these are just those who sell the “residency address”. Residency address is s required for registration of the individual entrepreneurs. The cost of an address varies from 30 to 100 GEL. I agreed on 60 GEL.

Once agreed on the cost of the residency address cost and paid, you can go inside the public hall with the person who sold you the residency address. This person knows Georgian and he will explain everything to the Public Service Hall employee. On your part you only need a passport and phone number (It’s better to have a local number. It costs 10 GEL), an email address and 55 GEL to pay state taxes. Then you have to wait about 5 hours. You can check the status of your application online. As soon as the status becomes Active, you can return to Public Hall and pick up your paperwork. Now you are the proud owner of a business in Georgia.

The next step is the bank. At first, I went to Bank of Georgia, but they said that it is POSSIBLE to open an account , but only the next day, as they will need various documents confirming that you are the owner of the business or have a share in it. I didn’t want to wait, so I went to the neighboring (second largest) bank – TBC Bank. There they issued me new business account in 30 minutes, and said that the card would be ready tomorrow. The bank has a convenient online banking in English, everything is simple and clear. You can use your account right away.

Why open a business in Georgia? This is the most interesting part. Taxes. Giorgi Tabuashvili, the head of the revenue service of the Ministry of Finance of Georgia, said that from July 1, 2018, a preferential tax scheme has started to operate, according to which the sales tax would be 1% instead of 5%. Tabuashvili noted that starting July 1, the status of small business in Georgia is given to individuals whose income for the calendar year is up to 500 thousand Lari (more than 203,9 thousand dollars), and not 100 thousand, as it used to be (about 40.8 thousand dollars) . Moreover, if the income increases, the person will retain the status of a small business for the next 2 calendar years.

Today, I spent 115 GEL on opening a Sole Proprietorship, made a deposit of 100 GEL to activate the account, spent 10 GEL on a SIM card with a local number and 2.1 GEL on a bottle of Borjomi and a hotdog. Total: 227.1 GEL. Sole Proprietorship is open, the account is open, I am satisfied.

P.S. I registered with my Israeli passport, but as my friend says, you can also register with any foreign passport.