Key Takeaways

  • Georgia’s low taxes, affordable labor, and strategic location make it an attractive market, but businesses must navigate local labor laws and tax regulations.
  • Using an EOR eliminates the need for setting up a local entity, handling payroll, or managing tax compliance, allowing companies to focus on operations.
  • Different EORs offer varying services, pricing, and support levels—businesses should assess their needs and choose a provider with strong local expertise.

What is a Georgia Employer of Record?

The Republic of Georgia, or just Georgia for short, is a small country that sits on the Black Sea and straddles the border between Europe and Asia. If you have an interest in doing business with this country, one of the best ways to ease yourself in is to hire employees through an Employer of Record (EOR). When you use an EOR, you’re able to avoid the difficult, time-consuming, and usually expensive process of incorporating an entity in Georgia and setting up a physical presence there.

Georgia EOR

Instead, this type of service provider helps you hire local workers by using its own registered business entity as their full legal employer. It contracts your workers directly and, therefore, takes on the legal responsibility for them and works to ensure that their employment is compliant with local laws. It also manages their HR needs, including payroll, benefits administration, tax payments, leaves, and more.

Georgia has a population of only 3.74 million people and a GDP of $35.91 billion. Economic growth has been substantial in the past decade and is expected to continue at 6.0% in 2025. The strategic location that Georgia occupies allows it to access both the Asian and European markets, and the country is in the process of joining the EU. While corporate income tax is a moderate 15%, the government offers reductions and even tax holidays in Free Zones to attract foreign investment. Labor is also highly affordable, with an average wage of around just $410/month and only 2% employer contributions to workers’ pensions. In this article, we’ll explain how partnering with the right Georgia EOR can help your organization gain the advantages of doing business in this country.

Table of Contents show

What is the Difference Between a Georgia EOR and a Georgia PEO?

Even if you’ve never heard of EORs before, it’s possible that you’re more familiar with PEOs or Professional Employment Organizations as they’re been around for decades. While EORs and PEOs share a lot of similarities and overlapping responsibilities, there is a major difference between these two types of service providers.

When you work with a Georgia PEO, you enter into a co-employment relationship that sees both your organization and the PEO taking partial responsibility for your employees. The PEO, like an EOR, will manage all of their HR concerns, pay their salaries, and withhold and pay their taxes and pension contributions. However, it won’t hire the employees for you. This is your company’s responsibility and that means you’ll need to own an entity in Georgia so you can legally employ local workers.

With an EOR, you don’t need an entity at all since the EOR’s entity is the party that enters into contracts with your workers and becomes their full legal employer in Georgia. While you’re the worksite employer responsible for managing their schedules and day-to-day tasks, the EOR is the legal employer responsible for compliance with all Georgian tax and labor laws. 

Both EORs and PEOs let you outsource HR, reducing your administrative burden significantly. PEOs also help you maintain compliance, but by hiring employees for you directly, EORs greatly reduce your level of risk.

Organizations that already own or are in the process of incorporating entities in Georgia can legally hire their own employees. In their case, working with a PEO to manage their employees makes good sense. However, companies that haven’t yet or may never incorporate entities in the country can partner with EOR to hire local staff. This is also a step many organizations take to gain a foothold in the Georgian market before making the big commitment of fully establishing themselves in the country.

Ready to get started with a Georgia EOR?

Let us handle the complexities of hiring, compliance, and payroll in Georgia while you focus on growing your team.

  • Hire employees in Georgia with a Georgia EOR
  • No local entity is needed
  • Pricing starts at USD 199 per employee
  • Remote People can also help you find the best talent in Georgia

👉 Get Your Customized Georgia EOR Proposal Today!

How Does a Georgia Employer of Record Work?

Working with an EOR in Georgia typically starts in one of two ways. Either a client has found workers they want to employ and requires a solution to help them, or they decide to hire workers in Georgia for strategic reasons and need to source them. In the latter case, they may work with recruitment agencies or, more conveniently, with an EOR that offers recruitment services. With talent sourced, clients can move on to work with EORs following these general steps:

Selecting an EOR service provider

Choose an EOR partner and engage it by entering into a service agreement that outlines your needs and the provider’s fees.

Negotiate contracts

Negotiate the terms of your workers’ salaries, benefits, and working conditions. When an agreement is achieved, the EOR will write these terms into legally compliant contracts.

Hire staff

Workers enter into these contracts with the EOR directly. The EOR becomes their legal employer while you act as their worksite employer.  

Onboard

Provide orientation, training, and access to files and tools for your new employees. The EOR will collect their personal and banking information to add them to its files and your payroll.  It will also arrange salary payments and register them with the Georgian Department of Revenue (DoR) and the Pension Agency (PA).

Manage payroll, taxes, and benefits

Provide the EOR with time and attendance data each pay period using either your EOR platform’s built-in tools or by importing data. The EOR will use this data to run payroll. It will withhold the employees’ income taxes and remit them to DoR and also calculate 2% of their salaries for you to contribute to their pensions with the PA. Finally, it will pay the employees their net salaries.

Maintain compliance

The EOR will monitor changes in local laws and make changes to employees’ contracts or administrative procedures as necessary. It also reports to the DoR and the PA on your behalf.

Terminate workers

To terminate workers, notify the EOR of your intentions and reasons for doing so. It will judge their legality and assess whether notice periods and severance pay will be required.

What Labor Laws Apply to Hiring in Georgia?

Georgians generally work 40-hour weeks. There is no limit or mandated rate for overtime, but workers must be paid more than their normal wages, and their overtime rate must be included in their contracts. While the national minimum wage is only 20 Georgian Lari (GEL)/month (roughly 7 USD), this wage is far below the average and has little effect on real salaries.

Workers are entitled to at least 24 days of paid annual leave as well as 15 public holidays per year. They can also take up to 15 working days of unpaid leave. Contracts can be oral or in writing and can be permanent or fixed-term. To terminate a worker for reasons other than gross misconduct, employers must provide workers with one month’s notice and pay one month’s wages in severance.

What Are the Benefits of a Georgia EOR?

There are several advantages your organization can gain by engaging an EOR and hiring employees in Georgia. These include:

  • Quick market entry without needing to establish a separate legal entity
  • Streamlined HR and legal processes in an emerging market with growth potential
  • Reduced risk for non-compliance issues
  • Affordable workforce with low salaries and social contributions

Request a Georgia EOR Proposal

Ready to simplify your hiring process in Georgia? Let us handle the complexities of compliance and payroll while you focus on growing your team.

Get Your Customized Georgia EOR Proposal Today!

What are the Downsides of a Georgia EOR

There are also disadvantages to consider before you choose to hire Georgian workers through an EOR, including:

  • Recurring service fees for Employer of Record providers
  • Limited direct control over daily HR decisions and local workforce management
  • Reliance on the EOR’s quality of service to keep workers happy
  • Challenges with transmitting company culture

How to Choose a Georgia EOR

You have many options for a Georgia EOR partner, and the choice may be overwhelming. To help you save time, we recommend you consider these main criteria when comparing service providers:

Cost

Once you set your hiring budget, you’ll need to find an EOR with fees that don’t exceed it. However, many providers add extra fees for services you assume are included. Be sure to obtain full, transparent quotes before you make your final decision. 

Services and features

Look at the complete range of services that are on offer and choose the ones your organization needs, like additional benefits administration and recruitment. Likewise, look at the features you’ll want to use to manage your team efficiently and effectively. Once you know what you want, look for a provider that offers everything you require.

Local expertise

Hiring in Georgia is different from in all other countries. EORs that have experience hiring here will offer valuable experience and expertise that will help them successfully manage your employees and ensure compliance with local laws. You can look at online reviews or even request references from past clients to verify a provider’s experience in Georgia.

Support

Different providers offer various levels of support for clients and employees. Look for an EOR that offers advice and consultation from HR, tax, and legal experts to maintain compliance with local laws. For your employees, choose an EOR that gives them access to their own profiles for self-management, and that also has a reputation for excellent support for their HR concerns.

Engage a Georgia Employer of Record

To engage a Georgia EOR, you’ll need to choose your partner and typically enter into a service agreement with it. This agreement should detail the EOR’s service obligations and your financial responsibilities. You’ll then need to provide it with the names of the workers you wish to employ in Georgia so it can onboard them, typically within just a few days.

At the same time, you’ll normally be provided with a contact like a customer success manager (CSM) who will help you implement and learn to use the EOR’s platform. From there, you can get your employees to work while the EOR manages their pay and benefits going forward.

Engage Remote People as an Employer of Record

With its strategic Eurasian position and business-friendly environment, Georgia can be an excellent market to do business in. To get started hiring Georgians, you’ll need an EOR partner that’s best suited to your organization. To simplify and expedite matching with the ideal EOR, contact Remote People for tailored solutions in the Georgian market.