Travel insurance for Georgia (the country) is mandatory from 2026

The short answer, because you probably just found out about this while booking: yes, it is real. Since 1 January 2026, every tourist entering Georgia (the country) must hold a valid health and accident insurance policy with coverage of at least 30,000 GEL — and that includes people who enter visa-free.

The checker above will tell you whether the policy you already have passes, in the time it takes to read your policy schedule. The rest of this page is what the rule says, where it comes from, and what to watch for.

Where the rule comes from

Two legal layers, and it helps to know both exist because the first one confuses people. Article 12 of the Law of Georgia on Tourism created the duty — a single sentence: tourists visiting Georgia shall have mandatory health and accident insurance. It technically entered into force on 1 June 2024, but its application was suspended until 1 January 2026, which is why nothing was checked in 2024 or 2025 and why older forum posts say the requirement "doesn't exist yet".

The operative detail — the minimum sum, the exemptions, what the policy must say — sits in Ordinance No 602 of the Government of Georgia, adopted on 26 December 2025 and in force from 1 January 2026. The ordinance itself is published in Georgian only; the English wording on this page follows the official statement of the same rules on the MFA's consular portal. Full citations are in the verified-sources panel at the bottom of the page.

What your policy must contain

This is where an existing annual travel policy can quietly fail. The rules are specific about what the policy document itself must state:

• the parties to the insurance contract
• the covered territory
• the subject matter of the insurance
• the commencement and expiration dates of the coverage
• the insured risks
• the amount of the insurance sum (the limits)
• the amount of the premium, and the place and terms of its payment

On top of the document contents:

• Minimum sum: 30,000 GEL. The floor is set in lari, so what that means in your own currency shifts with the exchange rate — a policy bought comfortably above the line is safer than one bought at it.
• Language: Georgian or English. A policy issued only in Arabic, Hindi, Russian or German does not meet the requirement as written, even if the coverage is generous. Ask your insurer for an English certificate — most large ones issue one on request.
• Dates: your whole stay, including both the arrival and the departure day. A policy that starts the day after you land, or lapses on the morning of your flight out, fails on dates alone.
• Format: paper or electronic. The PDF on your phone is fine.
• Insurer: Georgian or foreign. You do not need to buy from a Georgian company; your home-country insurer works if the policy meets everything above.

One boundary worth knowing: the insurance period this regime covers is capped at one year. If you are thinking in longer horizons than that, you are past the tourist rules — more on that below.

Who is exempt

The exemption list is short and almost certainly does not include you:

• holders of diplomatic and special visas
• holders of diplomatic, official, service and special passports
• accredited employees of diplomatic missions, consular offices, international organisations and equivalent representations in Georgia, and their family members who hold an accreditation
• persons whose entry to Georgia is envisaged by an international treaty or agreement of Georgia
• drivers engaged in international road freight and passenger transportation

Notice what is not on that list: visa-free nationals, e-visa holders, transit passengers, children, residents of neighbouring countries. If you are travelling as an ordinary visitor, you need the policy.

How it is checked

Possession of a policy may be checked at border crossing points by the Patrol Police Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. That phrasing matters: it is a check the border is entitled to make, not a promise that every traveller is asked every time. Planning around the chance you won't be asked is a poor trade against the cost of a compliant policy — and airlines have their own incentives to verify documents a destination requires before boarding.

Keep the policy where you can produce it: printed in your hand luggage, or as a PDF saved offline on your phone. In Georgian or English, remember — not just any language.

Entering from the Gulf or India

A lot of the people searching for this are flying from Dubai, Doha or India, often on an e-visa. The thing to understand is that the requirement attaches to entering as a tourist, not to any particular visa route. Visa-free, e-visa, consular visa — the insurance rule is the same for all of them, because it applies to every tourist regardless of nationality, visa or visa-free status.

Practically, that means two checks before you fly: the policy is in English (or Georgian — but English is what your insurer can actually produce), and the sum insured clears 30,000 GEL after conversion from dirhams, riyals or rupees at the current rate, with margin. A policy from a UAE, Qatari or Indian insurer is acceptable — foreign insurers are explicitly allowed — as long as the document itself meets the content, language and date rules above.

One honest note about the checker on this page: it accepts amounts in GEL, USD or EUR only. If your policy is denominated in dirhams, riyals or rupees, enter its USD or EUR equivalent — most Gulf and Indian policies state one on the schedule, and otherwise convert at today's rate before typing it in.

If this trip is really a scouting visit

Plenty of people reading this are not tourists in spirit — the "holiday" is a scouting trip for a move. The insurance requirement still applies to you on the way in, but note the one-year cap on the insurance period it contemplates: the tourist regime is not designed for staying indefinitely, even where visa-free rules are generous.

If that is you, three places to go next:

• How to move to Georgia (the country) — the step-by-step order that works, from apostilles to the tax portal.
• Living in Georgia (the country) — what the first year is actually like once the visiting version wears off.
• The residency checker — two minutes to see which residence permit, if any, your situation points at.

And if you are still at the "is this even for me" stage, start at the moving guide, which is the hub for everything above.

The honest summary

The requirement is real, in force, and broad: since 1 January 2026, essentially every tourist needs health and accident cover of at least 30,000 GEL, in Georgian or English, spanning arrival day to departure day, checkable at the border. It is also cheap to satisfy — this is standard travel insurance territory, not a specialist product. Run your existing policy through the checker above; if it fails, it will tell you exactly which rule it failed, and fixing it before the airport is a ten-minute job.