Georgia travel insurance: the mandatory 30,000 GEL rule, and real plans from $39.27

Yes. Georgia travel insurance became mandatory on 1 January 2026: every tourist entering the country must hold health and accident cover of at least 30,000 Georgian lari, roughly $11,430, valid for the whole stay and readable in Georgian or English.

The rule is easy to misread, so here is the precise version. It has nothing to do with a visa application. Georgia is visa-free for nationals of more than 90 countries, who may stay up to a year without applying for anything, and those travellers carry the insurance duty exactly like everyone else. The obligation itself sits in Article 12 of the Law of Georgia on Tourism, and the operational detail sits in Government Resolution No 602 of 26 December 2025.

Article 12 is not a brand new text. It entered into force on 1 June 2024, was then suspended, and the suspension ran until 1 January 2026. That single clause is why 2026 is the honest date to quote: the wording existed earlier, the obligation only started biting this year.

Now the part almost nobody says out loud. 30,000 lari is a very low bar. Every plan we priced for a Georgia trip carries a medical ceiling between roughly $280,000 and $570,000, which is 25 to 50 times the legal floor, and the cheapest of them costs $39.27 for eight days. Complying with the Georgian rule is trivial. Choosing cover that genuinely matches a trip into the Caucasus is the real decision, and the rest of this page is built around that second question.

Updated September 2026. Every price below is a real quote captured on 2 September 2026 and shown in US dollars.

Georgia travel insurance must cover health and accident risks for at least 30,000 Georgian lari, run for the entire stay including the arrival and departure days, and be presentable in Georgian or English, on paper or on a screen.

One requirement is regularly missed, and it is about the document rather than the cover. Resolution No 602 lists seven pieces of information your certificate must actually contain. A one line confirmation email is not enough.

• The parties to the insurance contract
• The territory covered
• The subject matter of the insurance
• The commencement and expiry dates of cover
• The insured risks
• The sum insured, meaning the limits
• The premium amount, and the place and terms of its payment

Check your certificate against that list before you fly, and download it rather than relying on airport wifi to open an email. Every plan compared below issues a certificate in English immediately after purchase.

Georgia travel insurance is required of every tourist entering the country, whatever their nationality and whether or not they needed a visa. The exemptions are a short, closed list of diplomatic and professional cases.

The relationship with visas is almost the opposite of what people assume. Holding a visa does not create the duty, and travelling visa-free does not remove it. In fact the only visa holders who escape the requirement are those on diplomatic or special visas. An ordinary British, American, Canadian or EU passport holder arriving visa-free for two weeks of hiking is squarely inside the rule.

• ✕
  Diplomatic and special visa holders : the only visa categories carved out of the requirement.
• ✕
  Diplomatic, official, service and special passport holders : exempt by the passport they travel on, not by their itinerary.
• ✕
  Accredited mission staff : employees of diplomatic missions, consular establishments and international organisation offices, plus accredited family members.
• ✕
  Persons entering under an international treaty : where a treaty or agreement signed by Georgia governs their entry.
• ✕
  International transport drivers : drivers engaged in international road freight and passenger transport.

One grey area deserves a straight answer. The Law on Tourism defines a tourist as a visitor staying at least one night and no more than a year, and it defines a visitor with no overnight stay separately, as an excursionist. The insurance duty is written against the first category. In practice, if you are sleeping in Georgia you are inside the rule, and a cross border day trip sits in a category the text does not clearly reach. Carrying cover anyway costs a few dollars and removes the argument entirely.

Every Georgia travel insurance plan in our comparator clears the 30,000 GEL minimum by a wide margin, with medical ceilings from roughly $280,000 to $570,000, so the choice comes down to your age, your trip length and the activities you have planned.

Recommended for youA. Fruchard · Co-Founder & Travel Insurance Expert

Which plan we would actually take to Tbilisi

You land in Georgia knowing that if you end up in a Tbilisi hospital the bill is handled directly, and that if the Caucasus is where things go wrong, getting you out is paid at cost rather than capped. That is what Go Explore + buys for $86.50 for eight days: roughly $570,000 of medical and hospital cover, repatriation at actual cost, and eligibility right up to age 80, which matters because several cheaper plans stop long before that.

If you want the cheapest thing that satisfies the border officer, WorldSecure Basic does it at $39.27 for eight days with about $340,000 of medical cover, but it only sells up to age 39. Between the two, WorldSecure Platinum at $65.40 is the one to look at if you are skiing at Gudauri or want the option to add cancellation, because it is the only plan here offering both a cancellation and an extreme sports option.

One honest caveat that applies to all of them: the 30,000 GEL floor is not the number to optimise. It is 25 to 50 times below what every one of these plans already provides, so pick on ceilings, age limits and activity cover, not on legal compliance.

A. Fruchard, Co-Founder & Travel Insurance Expert at HelloSafe

Go Explore +Insured by MGEN

From$86.87

Included coverage

International emergency medical expenses$570,000

Emergency medical evacuation & repatriationActual costs

Direct billingIncluded

Search & rescue$6,800

See the 17 guaranteesGet a quote

Personalized quote · no commitment

WorldSecure PlatinumInsured by MGEN

From$65.67

Included coverage

International emergency medical expenses$340,000

Emergency medical evacuation & repatriationActual costs

Direct billingIncluded

Search & rescue$5,700

See the 17 guaranteesGet a quote

Personalized quote · no commitment

Safe StartInsured by Mutuaide

From$82.86

Included coverage

International emergency medical expenses$570,000

Emergency medical evacuation & repatriationActual costs

Direct billingIncluded

Search & rescue$5,700

See the 17 guaranteesGet a quote

Personalized quote · no commitment

Real quotes captured on 2 September 2026 for one traveller aged 34, 8 days in Georgia, departing 2 November 2026, resident in the United Kingdom, shown in US dollars. HelloSafe data. Every plan listed carries a medical ceiling far above the 30,000 GEL minimum Georgia requires at the border. The comparator re-prices automatically for your own country of residence and currency, and the plan list itself changes with it.

Georgia travel insurance costs from $39.27 for a solo traveller on an eight day trip, rising to about $209 for a family of four on the top cover plan, with age and trip length driving far more of the price than the destination itself.

The pattern worth noticing is the age cliff. At 34 you can choose from six plans. At 68 two of them stop selling to you, and at 75 only three remain. If you are travelling later in life, read our guide to travel insurance for senior citizens before you filter on price, because the cheapest plan at 34 is simply unavailable at 70. For the broader picture across destinations, see how much travel insurance costs.

Georgia travel insurance excludes high altitude activity above 3,500 metres, recently hospitalised pre-existing conditions, planned treatment and off-piste skiing where it is prohibited, and it can impose a waiting period if you buy the policy after you have already left home.

We read the binding terms rather than the marketing sheet. These are the exclusions that matter most for a Georgia trip specifically.

• ✕
  High mountain above 3,500 metres : this is the one that bites in Georgia. Kazbek, the Tetnuldi ridges and serious Svaneti routes go well above that line, and the standard wording excludes them.
• ✕
  Off-piste snow sports where prohibited : relevant at Gudauri, where the off-piste terrain is the reason many people go.
• ✕
  Pre-existing conditions recently hospitalised : illnesses or injuries diagnosed or treated and hospitalised in the six months before departure are excluded, including any worsening of them.
• ✕
  Planned hospitalisation and non-emergency care : the cover is for a medical emergency, not for treatment you travelled to receive, and not for check-ups or spa treatment.
• ✕
  Care given without the insurer's agreement : costs incurred without calling the assistance line first can be refused, which is why the 24/7 number matters more than the ceiling.
• ✕
  Pregnancy beyond the 36th week : and any complication whose risk was known before departure.
• ✕
  Ski lift passes and equipment hire : never covered, even on plans that insure the skiing itself.

The altitude exclusion is worth taking seriously, because the UK Foreign Office specifically flags altitude sickness at Gudauri, Mount Kazbegi and Mount Tetnuldi. If your trip involves trekking or ski touring rather than wine tasting in Kakheti, you need a plan that names the activity: start with our guide to extreme sports travel insurance. If you have a condition to declare, read pre-existing condition travel insurance first, and if the waiting period above concerns you, when to buy travel insurance explains the deadlines that decide what you can still cover.

No. The 30,000 GEL minimum, about $11,430, is a legal formality rather than an adequate ceiling: it would not cover a serious hospital stay in Tbilisi followed by a medical flight home, which is the scenario travel insurance for Georgia actually exists for.

Two facts from the UK Foreign Office set the context. First, there is no reciprocal healthcare agreement with Georgia, so you or your insurer pay for all treatment as it is provided. Second, medical facilities in Tbilisi are available but can be expensive, and outside Tbilisi they are limited. That second half is the real risk. Much of what draws visitors to Georgia, Svaneti, Tusheti, the Kazbegi valleys, is a long way from a hospital that can handle a serious case, so the expensive event is rarely the treatment itself. It is the transfer.

This is why we rank repatriation cover so highly on this page. Every plan compared above pays repatriation at actual cost rather than to a fixed ceiling, which is the single most valuable line in the contract for a mountainous country with limited regional facilities. We have deliberately not printed an air ambulance price here: the only figures publicly available are broker marketing ranges with no stated methodology, and an invented number would be worse than none. What we can say precisely is that the legal floor is $11,430 and the cover our plans provide is between $280,000 and $570,000.

• ✓
  Medical and hospital ceiling : treat 30,000 GEL as the paperwork threshold and aim for $250,000 or more, which every plan here already exceeds.
• ✓
  Repatriation at actual cost : the decisive guarantee in a country where serious cases travel far. See our guide to repatriation insurance.
• ✓
  Direct billing with no money advanced : included on all six plans, so you are not asked to pay a Tbilisi hospital up front and claim later.
• ✓
  Search and rescue costs : from roughly $3,400 to $6,800 depending on the plan, and genuinely relevant if you are walking in the high Caucasus.
• ✓
  An English language certificate : required by the Georgian rule itself, and issued instantly by every plan compared here.

For a sense of how far hospital costs vary between countries, our interactive study on how much a hospital bed costs around the world puts the Georgian figure in context.

You prove Georgia travel insurance by presenting the policy document itself, on paper or on your phone, in Georgian or English, to a Patrol Police officer at the border crossing point, and possibly to your airline before you even board.

That last point comes from the UK Foreign Office rather than the Georgian texts, and it changes the practical advice: you may be asked for evidence either by your airline at check-in or by immigration authorities on arrival. A policy bought at Tbilisi airport is therefore no help if the check happens at your departure gate.

1. Buy the policy before you leave home, both to satisfy a check-in question and to avoid the five day waiting period some contracts apply to policies bought abroad.
2. Download the certificate as a file rather than leaving it in an email, so it opens without a data connection.
3. Confirm it is in English or Georgian, and that it shows the seven items the resolution requires, above all the sum insured and the exact cover dates.
4. Check the dates span your arrival and departure days inclusive, not just the nights in between.
5. Keep the insurer's 24/7 assistance number with it, because calling before treatment is what protects the claim.

One thing we will not tell you is what happens if you arrive without cover. Neither the Law on Tourism nor Resolution No 602 sets a penalty for a traveller, and the fine figures circulating on travel blogs do not appear in either instrument. The Law on Tourism does impose fines of 500 to 6,000 GEL, but only on businesses such as tour operators and uncertified activity providers, never on visitors. What the texts do establish is a border check, and the Foreign Office puts it plainly: you may face difficulties without the evidence.

• Is travel insurance really mandatory for Georgia?

  Yes. Article 12 of the Law of Georgia on Tourism requires tourists visiting Georgia to hold health and accident insurance, and its application began on 1 January 2026 after a suspension clause expired. Government Resolution No 602 of 26 December 2025 sets the conditions.

• How much cover does Georgia require?

  At least 30,000 Georgian lari, which is roughly $11,430 at the National Bank of Georgia rate of 2.6250 recorded on 2 September 2026. Every plan in our comparator carries between about $280,000 and $570,000 of medical cover, so the legal floor is not a constraint in practice.

• Do I need it if I am travelling visa-free?

  Yes. Visa-free entry does not exempt you. Georgia is visa-free for nationals of more than 90 countries for stays of up to a year, and none of those travellers appear in the exemption list. The only visa holders who are exempt are those on diplomatic or special visas.

• Can I use a policy from my own country's insurer?

  Yes. Resolution No 602 states explicitly that the policy may be issued by either a Georgian or a foreign insurance company. You do not need to buy from a Georgian insurer.

• What language must the policy be in?

  Georgian or English. A policy issued only in French, German, Spanish or another language does not meet the requirement, so ask your insurer for an English certificate before you travel.

• Does a digital policy on my phone count?

  Yes. The resolution accepts the policy in physical or electronic form. Download it as a file rather than relying on opening an email at the border, since airport connectivity is not guaranteed.

• Is there a fine if I arrive without insurance?

  Neither the Law on Tourism nor Resolution No 602 sets any penalty for a traveller. The fines in the Law on Tourism, from 500 to 6,000 GEL, apply only to businesses. What the texts do provide is a check by the Patrol Police at the border, and the UK Foreign Office warns you may face difficulties without evidence of cover.

• Who exactly checks the policy, and where?

  An officer of the Patrol Police Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs is authorised to check that a tourist holds the policy, at the border crossing point. Separately, the UK Foreign Office notes your airline may ask for evidence at check-in.

• Do I need cover for a day trip with no overnight stay?

  The obligation is written against a tourist, which the Law on Tourism defines as a visitor staying at least one night. A visitor with no overnight stay is defined separately as an excursionist. If you are sleeping in Georgia you are clearly inside the rule, and for a day crossing the safest course is to carry cover anyway.

• Does my credit card insurance satisfy the requirement?

  Rarely in a usable form. Card cover is often capped well below what a Caucasus trip needs, frequently excludes the upfront payment of hospital bills, and card issuers seldom provide a standalone English certificate listing the sum insured and exact cover dates, which is precisely what Resolution No 602 requires the document to show. Check what your card really includes before relying on it.