Ministry of Internal Affairs (Georgia)

Georgia's Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) gained authority to Conduct unannounced inspections of foreign nationals' homes and workplaces under labour migration amendments effective 1 March 2026. Law No.1509, enacted 15 April 2026, added sub-clauses K, L and T to the framework and established a fine ladder of 2,000 GEL (first offence), 4,000 GEL (second), and 12,000 GEL (third) activating 1 May 2026. Sub-clause T, creating a short-term professional activity category, remains inoperable: the implementing decree has not been issued. The March amendments also impose deportation and a three-year entry ban on foreign nationals who participate in protests, a clause that operates regardless of formal legal findings.

The MIA is Georgia's primary law enforcement and immigration enforcement ministry, overseeing the national police, border police and immigration services. It sits within a government that has passed a "foreign agents" law modelled on Russian legislation, suspended EU accession talks, and whose Prime Minister has stated Georgia will be "freed from illegal migrants". GYLA's Nika Simonishvili has noted that remote workers for foreign employers are outside the labour law's formal scope, but the MIA's inspection powers do not require a violation finding to be exercised. An estimated 7,200 remote workers in Tbilisi face interpretive uncertainty.

The EU-Georgia dialogue on 11 June 2026, the first since the European Commission suspended Visa-free travel for Georgian holders of diplomatic, service and official passports on 6 March 2026, produced no reversal. Ordinary Georgian citizens on standard biometric passports retain full Visa-free Schengen access; the suspension runs to 6 March 2027 and is extensible by up to 24 months, with potential widening to all citizens if governance concerns are not addressed. Hungary separately stopped issuing Georgian worker visas on 5 June 2026. The MIA's domestic enforcement instruments (unannounced inspections, the fine ladder, the protest-deportation clause) remain in force and are the primary operational risk for nomads, while the EU's citizen-level Visa-free access remains, for now, intact.