Georgia's Law No.1509 activated its fine ladder on Friday 1 May 2026, the operational delivery of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) inspection powers granted in March 2026 and the penalty mechanism enacted in the law itself on 15 April.1 First offences carry 2,000 GEL (Georgian lari, approximately $740), roughly a month of Tbilisi rent for a one-bed flat in Saburtalo. The figure doubles for a repeat within twelve months and triples thereafter, taking the worst case to 12,000 GEL for a third offence. The law itself does not say which roles trigger the ladder, so operational risk runs through inspector judgement rather than statute.
One week in, neither the MIA nor the Labour Inspectorate has published a fine count, an inspection count, or a sector breakdown.2 The silence tracks the pattern flagged in the previous briefing cycle: visible capacity, invisible enforcement. Tbilisi is producing a chilling effect through the credible threat of inspection rather than through prosecuted cases. Foreign residents have no public dataset against which to price their day-to-day risk, which is precisely the architecture the law's drafters appear to have wanted.
Sub-clause T, the short-term professional activity exemption that would create a legal pathway for nomads working contracts shorter than the standard work-permit horizon, still lacks an implementing decree. Both Eurofast and Fragomen post-enactment briefings confirm the absence.3 Sub-clauses K and L, which read narrowly to leave remote workers employed by foreign companies outside the law's explicit scope, are intact but have not been the subject of any ministerial clarification. The boundary between a permitted foreign-employer remote worker and a fineable unauthorised local worker now sits in an inspector's notebook.
The Hungary 2018 to 2020 pattern under the second Orban government still holds as the operational template: a narrow legal text paired with broad ministerial discretion produces foreign-resident chilling effects at near-zero administrative cost. Two signals would break the pattern: an MIA publication of a first-fortnight fine figure, or the appearance of Sub-clause T's missing decree.
