Georgian tax filing looks simple until the month you get it wrong. The forms are short, the portal is free, and plenty of foreign owners file for years without help. Then one missed VAT threshold or a late payroll return turns a small saving into a real penalty. DIY versus hiring an accountant in Georgia is a risk decision, not a cost decision. Here is how we size that risk.
What DIY bookkeeping actually means in Georgia
People use one phrase for three separate jobs, and they are not equally risky.
Recording is the first job: keeping a ledger or book of records so that every invoice, bank movement and expense has a home. Filing is the second: submitting the right declaration on the Revenue Service portal before the deadline. Positioning is the third: choosing which tax regime you sit in and watching the thresholds that move you out of it.
Almost everyone who says "I do my own books" means job two. Job three is where the money actually is, and it is the job that never appears on a to-do list until it has already gone wrong.
The filings that set your workload
Georgia runs on a monthly rhythm. Under the Tax Code of Georgia, most recurring declarations land on the 15th day of the month after the accounting month, which is unusually kind: one date, most months.
| Filing | Who files it | Frequency | Statutory deadline |
|---|---|---|---|
| Payroll and withholding return | Anyone paying salaries or withholding at source | Monthly | 15th of the following month |
| Profit tax return | Georgian LLCs taxed under the distribution model | Monthly | 15th of the following month |
| VAT return | Anyone registered for VAT | Monthly | 15th of the following month |
| Turnover return | Individual entrepreneurs with small business status | Monthly | 15th of the following month |
| Annual income or profit tax return | Persons outside the monthly profit tax regime | Annual | 1 April |
| Current tax instalments | Businesses on a calendar-year accounting period | Quarterly | 15 May, 15 July, 15 Sept, 15 Dec |
Those deadlines come from Articles 93, 153, 155 and 168 of the Tax Code. Annual financial statements are a separate track, filed through the state Reportal reporting portal rather than the tax portal, and we cover those in our guide to annual reporting deadlines in Georgia.
The 15th is the spine of the Georgian tax year. If you set one recurring calendar alert for your whole business, set it for the 12th of every month, so you have three working days of slack before anything is actually late.
Where DIY quietly costs money
The Georgian penalty regime has a feature that almost nobody notices, and it decides the whole question.
The penalty math scales with your revenue
File a return late by up to two months and the fine is 5% of the tax assessed on that return for each overdue month, capped at 30% of the tax due. Past two months, it is a flat 10%. Understate your tax and the standard fine is 50% of the understated amount, dropping to 10% if the understatement is under 5% of the declared figure and 25% if it is between 5% and 20%. Unpaid tax also accrues penalty interest of 0.05% for every overdue day.
Now the important part. Where the tax assessed on a return is zero, no late filing fine is imposed at all. A dormant company filing nil returns three months late owes nothing in penalties. A profitable company filing one month late owes 5% of a real number.
That is the honest answer to the DIY question. DIY risk is not constant. It is close to zero when you have no tax to pay and it climbs in direct proportion to your turnover. The moment your business starts working is the moment your self-filing stops being cheap.
The threshold you cannot un-cross
VAT is where self-filers get hurt. Once your taxable supplies pass GEL 100,000 across any 12 consecutive calendar months, you have two business days to apply for registration, and the VAT liability attaches to the very transaction that crossed the line, not to the date you noticed.
There is no grace period and no rounding in your favour, and multi-currency invoicing makes the arithmetic easy to get wrong. Our breakdown of VAT registration thresholds and rules walks through the rolling-window calculation.
The GEL 100,000 VAT threshold is measured over any 12 consecutive calendar months, not your financial year, and registration is due within two business days of crossing it. Backdated VAT on invoices you already issued without VAT comes out of your margin, because your clients are under no obligation to top up.
The regime you did not know you lost
Small business status taxes an individual entrepreneur's turnover at 1%, rising to 3% once gross income from economic activity passes GEL 500,000 in the year. Holders must maintain a special book of records prescribed by the Ministry of Finance. Breaching the conditions can cause the tax authority to cancel the status, and the Tax Code attaches a GEL 500 fine to that cancellation on top of the recalculated tax.
Losing 1% status mid-year is the single most expensive thing we see happen to self-filing freelancers. The tax difference dwarfs a year of accounting fees. Our explainer on Georgia's 1% small business status lists the activities and income types that disqualify you.
What hiring an accountant actually buys
Not data entry. You can do data entry.
What you are buying is threshold monitoring, regime selection, and a second name attached to the numbers. A working accountant watches your rolling 12-month turnover against the VAT line, checks that your activity still qualifies for whatever regime you sit in, and knows which expenses the Revenue Service will argue about before it argues.
You are also buying portal hygiene. The Revenue Service e-services portal supports sub-user permissions, so an accountant can file on your behalf without ever holding your main credentials. It also publishes a taxpayer behaviour rating built from your compliance record, which matters when you later apply for a bank facility or a tender.
One check before you sign anything: the state supervisory body maintains public registers of certified accountants and firms. Georgia does not restrict who may call themselves a bookkeeper, so the register is the fastest way to tell a qualified practice from a person with a spreadsheet.
The Revenue Service has announced that from 1 August 2026, persons entitled to use the simplified income and expense accounting method will no longer need to submit the book to the tax authority to be sealed. Confirm the current procedure before assuming it applies to you.
Comparing the four realistic setups
Most owners think the choice is binary. It is not. There are four workable setups, and the middle two are where most foreign-owned Georgian companies belong.
| Setup | Best fit | Realistic monthly time on you | What you still own | Typical failure mode |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Full DIY | Dormant companies, pre-revenue IEs, single-client freelancers | 1 to 2 hours | Everything | Missing a threshold nobody told you about |
| DIY plus an annual review | Steady, simple, single-currency income under the VAT line | 1 to 2 hours, plus one paid review | Recording and filing | Errors compound for 11 months before anyone looks |
| Outsourced monthly bookkeeping | Most operating LLCs, anyone with staff or VAT | 15 to 30 minutes | Sending documents on time | Cheap providers who file but never advise |
| In-house accountant | Companies with inventory, multiple entities or heavy payroll | Oversight only | Hiring and supervision | Paying salary-level cost for part-time work |
The time figures are our own estimate for a simple service business with one bank account and under 30 transactions a month. Inventory, cash or foreign payroll multiply them fast. For what each tier costs in lari, see our breakdown of accounting fees charged in Georgia.
The middle path most people should take
Split the three jobs rather than the decision.
Keep the recording yourself. No external firm will chase your receipts as well as you will, and software or a disciplined spreadsheet covers it. Our note on bookkeeping requirements for a Georgian LLC sets out the minimum you must retain.
Outsource the filing and the positioning. Those are the parts with statutory deadlines and statutory penalties attached, and a monthly retainer with a firm that also answers questions is the cheapest insurance a small Georgian company can buy.
The version of this that fails is hiring a firm that files silently and never tells you anything. If your provider has not asked you a single question in six months, you are paying for a submit button.
We research the accountants working in Tbilisi and rank the ones worth paying. Independently researched, re-checked quarterly, free to read.
See the ranked list
Switching from DIY to an accountant without losing your history
Handovers go wrong in predictable ways, so do these five things in order.
Grant portal access as a sub-user rather than sharing your main login. Export every declaration you have already filed, so the new firm can reconcile rather than guess. Pull bank statements from your company's opening date, and gather signed contracts and foreign invoices, because those drive VAT treatment and treaty questions. Finally, say out loud which regime you believe you are in and ask them to confirm it independently.
That last step catches more problems than the other four combined. Plenty of people discover during a handover that they were never in the regime they thought they were. If the answer turns out to be complicated, a specialist beats a bookkeeper, and we keep a separate list of tax advisors working in Tbilisi for exactly that.
If you have Georgian employees, move payroll on the same date. Salary withholding and the monthly return travel together, and splitting them across two providers creates gaps. Dedicated payroll providers in Tbilisi handle this standalone if your accountant does not.
Key takeaways
- DIY risk is proportional to your tax bill, because Georgian late-filing fines are a percentage of the tax assessed and a nil return carries no fine.
- The monthly rhythm is the 15th of the following month for payroll, profit tax, VAT and small business turnover returns.
- Crossing the VAT threshold is the classic self-filer failure, and registration is due within two business days of crossing it.
- Losing a preferential regime mid-year costs more than several years of accounting fees.
- Splitting the work usually beats an all-or-nothing choice: record yourself, outsource filing and regime advice.
- Hand over portal access as a sub-user, never your main credentials.
Frequently asked questions
Can I legally do my own bookkeeping in Georgia?
Yes. Georgian law does not require a company or an individual entrepreneur to engage a licensed accountant to prepare or file routine tax declarations. You can register on the Revenue Service portal and file everything yourself. The legal responsibility for accuracy stays with you either way, which is the real argument for hiring help.
Do I need an accountant for a Georgian LLC?
Not as a legal requirement, but most operating LLCs should have one. An LLC files a monthly profit tax return, plus payroll returns if it has staff and VAT returns once registered, which is twelve to thirty-six deadlines a year. Our honest take on whether you need an accountant at all goes through the cases where you genuinely do not.
What happens if I file a Georgian tax declaration late?
A delay of up to two months triggers a fine of 5% of the tax assessed on that return per overdue month, capped at 30% of the tax due. Beyond two months, the fine is 10% of the tax assessed. Unpaid tax accrues penalty interest at 0.05% per day. If the tax assessed on the return is zero, no late-filing fine applies.
Is the Georgian Revenue Service portal available in English?
Yes, the e-services portal at eservices.rs.ge offers an English version alongside the Georgian interface, though coverage is not identical and some forms, notices and help text still appear only in Georgian. Most self-filers manage routine declarations in English but hit Georgian-only screens on anything unusual.
At what point does hiring an accountant pay for itself?
Roughly when your monthly tax liability exceeds a month of accounting fees, because that is the point where a single 5% late-filing fine costs more than the service. In practice the trigger is one of three events: your first employee, your first foreign client invoice, or approaching the VAT threshold.
Do I need an accountant to keep 1% small business status?
No, but the status has conditions that are easy to breach without noticing. Certain activities and income types fall outside it, and gross income above GEL 500,000 moves the rate from 1% to 3% for the rest of the calendar year. Cancellation carries a GEL 500 fine under the Tax Code, on top of recalculated tax. Confirm your activity with a professional before assuming it qualifies.
What is the penalty for missing the VAT registration threshold?
There is no single headline fine. The cost is that VAT liability attaches from the transaction that crossed GEL 100,000, so the Revenue Service can assess VAT on invoices you issued without it, plus penalty interest on the unpaid amount. Because clients rarely agree to pay VAT retroactively, that assessment comes straight out of your margin.
Can an accountant file on my behalf without my password?
Yes. The Revenue Service portal supports sub-user permissions, so you can grant a firm scoped access under its own credentials and revoke it later. Share your main login with nobody. If a provider asks for your primary password instead of a sub-user, treat that as a signal about how they handle everything else.
Do I still need an accountant if my company is dormant?
Usually no, and this is the clearest DIY case in Georgia. A dormant company still files, but the returns are nil, and nil returns carry no late-filing fine under the Tax Code. Filing them yourself for a few minutes a month is entirely reasonable. Revisit the decision the month you issue your first invoice.
Can I switch accountants or go back to DIY mid-year?
Yes, there is no lock-in and no filing that has to wait for a year end. Collect your submitted declarations, bank statements and source documents before you end the relationship, not after. Revoke the outgoing firm's portal access on the same day you grant it to the new one.
Which is cheaper overall, DIY or hiring an accountant in Georgia?
DIY is cheaper for dormant entities and low-revenue freelancers with a single income stream. Hiring becomes cheaper once the expected cost of one error exceeds the annual fee, which happens earlier than most owners expect. Start with our ranked list of accountants in Tbilisi and ask two firms for a fixed monthly quote.