Your Georgian company gets an identification number the day it registers. Your tax identification number is a separate thing, issued by a separate agency, and confusing the two is how people end up with a registration certificate and no way to actually file a tax return. Here is what the number is, how it gets issued, and what happens when you need to use it outside Georgia.
What the Georgia tax ID number actually is
A Georgian tax identification number, generally shortened to TIN, is the reference number the Revenue Service uses for every declaration, payment and communication tied to you or your business. It is issued by the Revenue Service, not by the registry that creates your legal entity, and the two numbers are not always the same thing.
For an LLC or other legal entity, registration at the National Agency of Public Registry automatically produces an identification number, and that same number doubles as the entity's tax ID once the Revenue Service side of the registration completes. You do not apply for a separate number as a company; it is generated as part of registering the entity itself.
For an individual, it works differently depending on who you are. A Georgian citizen's personal number, the 11-digit figure on their ID card, is also their tax number, and no separate application is needed. A foreigner who is not a Georgian citizen and has no Georgian ID document gets a distinct 9-digit TIN, manually assigned by the Revenue Service specifically for tax purposes. It is not drawn from any identity document and carries no embedded personal information, unlike the citizen number.
TIN formats at a glance
Because "Georgia tax ID number" describes four genuinely different situations, it helps to see them side by side.
| Who | Number | Issued by | Separate application needed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Georgian citizen, natural person | 11-digit personal number, same as the ID card | Public Registry, at birth or first ID issuance | No |
| Foreigner, natural person, no Georgian ID | 9-digit TIN, generated for tax purposes only | Revenue Service | Yes, in person or by video call |
| LLC or other legal entity | Same as the registry identification number | National Agency of Public Registry, activated by the Revenue Service | No, generated at company registration |
| Individual Entrepreneur | Tied to the founder's personal number or foreign-national TIN | Revenue Service, alongside the IE registration | Alongside the IE registration itself |
The practical takeaway is that a company rarely needs to think about this at all, because the number arrives automatically. It is the individual foreigner registering without an existing Georgian ID who has an actual application to make.
Who actually needs one
Anyone registering an Individual Entrepreneur or an LLC needs an active TIN before they can file anything, which means before the business can legally invoice and be paid under the correct tax treatment. It also matters for people who never register a business at all: a foreigner buying property, opening certain accounts, or dealing with the Revenue Service for any other reason in Georgia may be asked for one.
If you are registering specifically to access Small Business Status, the TIN is the number your monthly declarations get filed against once the status is confirmed. Get the sequencing wrong here and you can end up with a valid registration certificate and no active tax record to invoice against, which is a genuine and avoidable delay.
Registering with the Revenue Service
If you are registering a company, this largely happens as a byproduct of the registration process itself: the registry step produces the identification number, and the Revenue Service registration that follows activates it for tax purposes and is where you apply for Small Business Status or any other regime you want.
If you need a personal TIN as a foreign individual, separate from a company registration, there are two practical routes. You can visit any Revenue Service branch in Georgia in person with your passport. Or, without travelling, the Revenue Service offers a video call service through its e-services portal specifically for a natural person without Georgian citizenship, where you provide your name, passport number, address and phone number over a live video call rather than in person. Either route is free; there is no government charge for issuing the number itself.
What you get back is not instant paperwork in the way a registration certificate is. Confirmation typically arrives as a notification in Georgian, followed by an SMS containing the login and password for your Revenue Service portal account. That SMS is worth treating carefully, because it is the only credential you get and it is what unlocks everything described in the next section.
Being issued a TIN and having working access to file a declaration against it are two different milestones. People who register remotely sometimes discover the credential SMS went to a number that is no longer reachable, or was never fully activated, and only find out when the first monthly deadline is already close. Confirm portal access works before you rely on it, not after the first filing is due.
Getting your rs.ge account working
Every declaration, every payment and every notice from the Revenue Service runs through rs.ge, the Revenue Service's own portal, once your TIN is active. The login and password issued after registration is what gets you in.
The portal is overwhelmingly in Georgian, which is the single biggest practical obstacle for a non-resident trying to run this themselves. There is no comprehensive English version of the working taxpayer interface, and the menu structure, the declaration forms and the payment screens all assume a Georgian-speaking user. We walk through what the screens actually look like, month by month, in the rs.ge portal guide, which exists specifically because so little English-language material covers this.
Two things worth setting up early once you have access: confirm you can actually log in with the credentials you were sent, and check whether you need to authorise anyone else, such as an accountant, to act on the account, since most non-resident business owners eventually hand the monthly filing to someone who can read the portal natively. Our accounting service takes over exactly this part.
Using the TIN abroad
The number itself does not stop being relevant once you leave Georgia, and this is the part most guides skip entirely.
Proving Georgian tax registration to a foreign bank. International banks running compliance checks on cross-border clients frequently ask for a tax identification number in every jurisdiction you have a registered presence. Your Georgian TIN is what you provide, alongside your registration certificate, when a foreign bank asks where else you are registered for tax.
Applying for a Georgian tax residency certificate. If you need to prove Georgian tax residency to a foreign tax authority, the certificate application itself is filed against your active TIN. Without one, there is nothing for the Revenue Service to issue a certificate against.
Invoicing foreign clients and platforms. Some foreign clients, and increasingly some payment platforms operating under their own reporting obligations, ask contractors and suppliers for a tax identification number as part of onboarding. A Georgian TIN is what you supply if Georgia is where you are registered and invoicing from.
Claiming treaty relief in your home country. Where a double tax treaty applies between Georgia and the country you are otherwise resident in, your TIN is part of the documentation a foreign tax authority expects when you claim relief or explain a Georgian registration on a foreign return. Georgia's treaty network, covering more than 55 countries, is published by the Ministry of Finance of Georgia, and which treaty applies to you depends on where you are actually resident, not just where you registered.
None of this requires anything extra from you beyond keeping the number and its supporting documents on hand. It is a reference number, not a certificate you renew, and it does not expire while your registration is active.
A concrete version of this: a freelance developer registered as a Georgian Individual Entrepreneur, invoicing a German agency, gets asked by the agency's finance team for a tax identification number to satisfy their own reporting obligations before they will process the first payment. The Georgian TIN is what goes on that form. Separately, if that same developer later wants to open a personal account at a bank in a third country, the bank's compliance team may ask where else they hold a tax registration, and the same number, alongside the registration certificate, answers that question. Neither situation involves the Georgian Revenue Service directly. The number simply travels with you as proof of where you are registered.
What the TIN does not do
It is worth being direct about the limits of the number, because it gets oversold in casual conversation. Holding a Georgian TIN does not make you a Georgian tax resident, which is a separate test based on physical presence, covered in Georgia tax residency. It does not by itself determine whether your income counts as Georgian-source, which depends on where the work is actually performed. And it does not override whatever your home country's own tax rules say about you, if you remain resident there. The number identifies you to Georgia's Revenue Service; it does not settle any question that another country's tax authority might ask.
What happens if your details change
The number itself does not change once issued, but what is registered against it can, and keeping that current matters more than people expect. If you change your registered address, your passport is renewed with a new number, or your name changes, the Revenue Service record needs updating to match, because a mismatch between what rs.ge holds and what your current documents say is exactly the kind of thing that stalls a bank's compliance check or a tax residency certificate application later.
The same applies if you move from holding a personal TIN as a foreign individual into registering a business. The two are linked to you but function as separate records, and neither update happens automatically when the other one changes. Treat any change to your personal documents as a prompt to check your Revenue Service record matches, rather than assuming it updates itself in the background.
Common problems people run into
A name mismatch. If the name on your TIN registration does not exactly match the spelling used elsewhere, on your passport, your bank account or your registration certificate, it creates friction every time a document gets cross-checked. Get the spelling consistent from the start.
Lost portal credentials. Because access is issued once, by SMS, losing that message or changing the phone number it went to is a real and recoverable but annoying problem. Recovering access takes a visit or a formal request rather than a simple password reset.
Not realising a company's TIN and an individual's TIN are different things. If you hold Small Business Status as an Individual Entrepreneur and later register an LLC as well, you end up with two separate TINs, two separate portal accounts, and two separate monthly obligations. Neither replaces the other.
Assuming the number alone means you are compliant. A TIN is necessary but not sufficient. Monthly declarations, filed by the 15th including in months with no income, are what the number actually obligates you to. Having a TIN and never filing against it is one of the quieter ways penalties accumulate.
We register the entity, get your tax identification number active with the Revenue Service, and set up working rs.ge portal access, so nothing sits half-registered while you wait.
See what it costs
If you are earlier in the process and have not registered yet, the full registration sequence covers where the TIN step fits relative to the registry and the bank account. If you are past registration and specifically stuck on Revenue Service access, that is exactly the gap a remote company registration engagement is built to close.
Key takeaways
- A Georgian TIN is issued by the Revenue Service, separate from the identification number the registry produces when your company is created.
- For an LLC, the registry-issued number becomes the tax number once Revenue Service registration completes. For an individual foreigner, the Revenue Service assigns a distinct 9-digit number.
- Registration is free, and foreigners can complete it via a video call service without travelling to Georgia.
- Confirmation arrives as an SMS with rs.ge login credentials, which is the only access you get, so verify it works early.
- The TIN gets used abroad for bank compliance checks, tax residency certificate applications, invoicing platforms, and claiming treaty relief.
- Holding a TIN does not replace the obligation to file monthly declarations against it.
Frequently asked questions
What is a Georgia tax ID number?
It is the reference number the Revenue Service uses for all tax filings, payments and correspondence tied to an individual or a business. It is issued separately from the identification number the National Agency of Public Registry produces when a company is registered, though for legal entities the two end up being the same number once Revenue Service registration is complete.
How do I get a Georgian tax ID number as a foreigner?
You can visit a Revenue Service branch in Georgia in person with your passport, or use the Revenue Service's video call service to register remotely as a natural person without Georgian citizenship. Both routes are free, and confirmation arrives as an SMS with your rs.ge portal login details.
Is there a fee to get a Georgian TIN?
No. Issuing the tax identification number itself carries no government charge, for either an individual or as part of registering a company.
Is my company's registration number the same as its tax ID?
Generally yes. For an LLC, the identification number issued at registration becomes the tax identification number once Revenue Service registration is complete, so a company does not receive two unrelated numbers.
What is the difference between my personal ID and my TIN if I am a Georgian citizen?
For Georgian citizens, the 11-digit personal number on the national ID card is also the tax identification number, with no separate application needed. Foreigners without a Georgian ID document instead receive a distinct 9-digit TIN assigned specifically for tax purposes.
Can I register for a TIN without visiting Georgia?
Yes. The Revenue Service's video call service lets a foreign national without Georgian citizenship register remotely by providing identifying details over a live video call rather than attending in person.
How do I access the rs.ge portal once I have a TIN?
Login credentials, a username and password, are sent by SMS after your registration is processed. That message is your only access credential, so it is worth confirming you can log in successfully well before your first filing deadline.
Why is the rs.ge portal so hard to use as a foreigner?
It is overwhelmingly in Georgian, with no comprehensive English version of the working taxpayer interface. This is the main practical reason non-resident business owners hand monthly filing to an accountant rather than run the portal themselves.
Do I need my Georgian TIN for anything outside Georgia?
Yes, several things: proving your Georgian tax registration to a foreign bank running compliance checks, applying for a Georgian tax residency certificate, providing it to foreign clients or platforms that require a tax ID for their own reporting, and claiming treaty relief in a country that has a double tax treaty with Georgia.
What happens if I lose my rs.ge login details?
Recovering portal access after losing the SMS, or after changing the phone number it was sent to, generally requires a formal request or a branch visit rather than a simple online reset. Keeping the original credentials somewhere safe avoids this entirely.
Does having a TIN mean I am tax compliant?
No. A TIN is what makes filing possible, not a substitute for actually filing. Monthly declarations are due by the 15th regardless of income, and holding an inactive TIN with no filings against it is one of the more common ways penalties build up unnoticed.