You send three people to a service you already use. The company thanks you and transfers a fee. Nothing about that transaction looks like starting a business, and most people who receive their first introducer commission in Georgia treat it as pocket money. Then a second one arrives, then a fourth, and at some point the question stops being "how do I get more of these" and becomes "what am I supposed to declare, and at what rate".
Georgia answers that question in an unusually generous way and an unusually specific one. There are two special regimes for individuals, one at 0% and one at 1%, and there is a general personal income rate of 20% sitting behind them for everything that does not qualify. What decides which of the three you land on is not how much you earn. It is what activity your arrangement describes, how the payment is labelled in the contract, and whether you registered before or after the money started moving. People from the Georgian diaspora who have earned referral income in another country get caught here more often than anyone, because they arrive with a mental model built somewhere else.
Introducer income is also slow to start, which is its own problem when you are trying to build it. Apps such as I am Beezy pay you for viewing content — videos, articles, advertisements — and that gives you something arriving weekly while the commission side is still a handful of conversations that may or may not convert.
Why does the label on your commission decide your tax rate in Georgia?
Because Georgian tax law does not treat "money you received" as a single category. It sorts income by what generated it, and the special regimes only cover some of those sorts. Two people can receive an identical transfer from an identical company and owe wildly different amounts, purely because of the words in the agreement.
Two special regimes, and a general rate behind them
Article 83 of the Tax Code sets out special regimes for individuals with micro-business status, for individual entrepreneurs with small business status, and for a third category of fixed-tax payers. The first pays no income tax at all under article 86. The second pays 1% under article 90.1. Everything that falls outside a special regime goes back to article 81.1, which sets the general personal income rate at 20%. That is a twenty-fold difference between the best and worst outcome on the same money, which is why the classification is worth an hour of your attention rather than five minutes.
Royalties, interest and rent sit outside both regimes
This is the trap that catches affiliate arrangements specifically. Government Decree 415 of 29 December 2010 lists, in its annex 5, the income types that are neither taxed under the small business regime nor counted towards its ceiling: rent, loan income, gambling winnings, gifts, capital gains on property, vehicles and securities, inheritances, dividends, interest, royalties and debt write-offs. Annex 3 does the same job for the micro-business regime. If a programme describes what it pays you as a licence fee or a royalty rather than a fee for a service, your 1% status does not reach it, and the general rules apply to that stream instead. Read the payment clause before you sign, not after.
A foreign payer does not make the income foreign
The single most repeated claim about Georgian tax is that residents are not taxed on foreign income. Article 82.1 does exempt a resident individual's income that is not Georgian-source, so the claim has a real basis. But article 104.1 deems a service to be rendered in Georgia when the provider and the recipient are in different states and the provider is a Georgian resident, unless the provider establishes that the service went through a permanent establishment abroad. A person sitting in Tbilisi who introduces customers to a company registered elsewhere is performing a Georgian-source service, and that income is taxable in Georgia. The good news is that it is then eligible for the 1% rate rather than exempt, which for most people is a better result than they expected — but it has to be declared to get there.
The two statuses, side by side
Most introducers will be choosing between micro-business and small business status. The choice is not a matter of taste: the ceilings, the paperwork rhythm and the entry requirements are different enough that one of them will obviously fit you.
Micro-business: nothing to pay, and a hard ceiling
Under article 84.1 of the Tax Code, micro-business status is open to an individual who employs nobody and carries on the activity alone, with gross income capped at 30,000 GEL per calendar year. Article 86 states plainly that a person holding this status does not pay income tax. The return is annual, due before 1 April for the previous year under article 93.1. The trap is on the way out: article 85.3 provides that if you cross 30,000 GEL and do not request small business status within 15 days, you lose the status and leave the special regime entirely — which means the 20% general rate, not the 1% one.
Small business: 1%, but you must be an entrepreneur first
Small business status is available only to an individual entrepreneur under article 88.1, so there is a registration step before the tax step: you register as an entrepreneur through the National Agency of Public Registry, which sits under the Ministry of Justice, and then apply for the status through the Revenue Service at rs.ge. The rate is 1% under article 90.1, the ceiling is 500,000 GEL of gross income per calendar year, and 700,000 GEL for wine tourism and agrotourism operators. Above the ceiling, article 90.2 moves you to 3% from the first day of the month in which the excess is recorded, for the rest of that calendar year — the text applies the higher rate to the taxable income of the period, not merely to the slice above the line.
| Point of comparison | Micro-business status | Small business status |
|---|---|---|
| Income tax rate | None at all (art. 86) | 1% of taxable income (art. 90.1) |
| Annual gross ceiling | 30,000 GEL (art. 84.1) | 500,000 GEL, or 700,000 GEL for wine and agrotourism (art. 90.2) |
| Who can hold it | An individual working alone, with no employees (art. 84.1) | Only a registered individual entrepreneur (art. 88.1) |
| Filing rhythm | Once a year, before 1 April (art. 93.1) | Every month, by the 15th (art. 93.1-1) |
| Rate above the ceiling | Status lost if not converted within 15 days (art. 85.3) | 3% for the remainder of the calendar year (art. 90.2) |
| Effect on VAT | Status lost on VAT registration (art. 85.2) | No exemption: VAT applies from 100,000 GEL (art. 92, 165) |
Which activities can never be paid under the 1% rate?
The ceilings get all the attention and the barred list gets almost none, which is backwards. A ceiling only matters once you are earning well. The barred list decides whether you were ever eligible at all, and it is the single most common error in what circulates online about the Georgian 1%.
The barred list is longer than people think
Annex 4 of Decree 415 excludes seven categories from small business status: activities requiring a licence or permit; activities requiring significant investment, meaning production of excisable goods; currency exchange operations; medical, architectural, legal, notarial, audit and consulting activity, tax consulting included; gambling; the supply of personnel; and the production of excisable goods. Annex 2 does the equivalent for micro-business status, adding activities whose income is liable to exceed 30,000 GEL in the year.
Consulting is the one that catches introducers
An introducer sits uncomfortably close to two of those categories at once. If your agreement says you advise the client on which product to choose, you are describing consulting, which is barred outright. If it says you recruit or place people with the company, you are edging towards supply of personnel, also barred. If it simply says you are paid a fee for each customer introduced who completes a purchase, you are describing a service, which is not on the list. The same commercial arrangement can be inside or outside the regime depending on which of those three descriptions ends up in the contract.
What to do if your contract calls you a consultant
Ask for it to be redrafted before signing. Companies that pay introducers usually hold several template agreements and no strong preference between them, and this is an easier conversation before the first payment than after twelve monthly filings. Where the counterparty will not move, price the difference in: the same gross fee is worth far less at the general rate than at 1%.
| How the payment is described | What that triggers | What to do about it |
|---|---|---|
| Fee for each customer introduced | A service; can sit inside a special regime | Keep the wording, register before the first payment |
| Advisory or consulting fee | Barred from both special regimes (Decree 415, annexes 2 and 4) | Ask for redrafting, or expect the general rate |
| Royalty or licence fee | Outside the regime and outside the ceiling (annexes 3 and 5) | Treat it as a separate stream under the general rules |
| Recruitment or placement fee | Reads as supply of personnel, barred by annex 4 | Clarify in writing what you actually do |
| Interest or profit share | Outside the special regimes (annexes 3 and 5) | Ask what is really being paid for |
Building a base income with I am Beezy while the commissions ramp up
Introducer income has a shape that nobody warns you about: nothing for weeks, then several payments at once, then nothing again. Registering a status, filing every month and waiting for conversions all cost effort before the first lari arrives. With I am Beezy you view content — videos, articles, advertisements — and each view generates earnings, which produces a small, regular figure rather than a lumpy one.
What the range looks like in lari
The reference range across the platform is 5 to 15 euros a day. At the National Bank of Georgia's indicative rate of 6 August 2026, where 1 EUR bought 3.0260 GEL, that works out at roughly 15 to 45 GEL a day. The lari floats and the National Bank describes its published figure as indicative rather than binding, so convert at the rate on the day rather than reusing this one.
Where it sits next to commission income
Treat it as the floor under the experiment, not as the experiment. It pays into your usual payment method, which here normally means a current account at a Georgian bank identified by a 22-character IBAN beginning with GE. Keep it in your own records: the habit of writing down what each payment was for is exactly the habit that keeps the commission side clean.
What happens if you get the status wrong?
I registered after the money arrived — is that a problem?
The status applies from when it is granted, not retroactively to payments you already banked. Income received before you held the status is dealt with under the ordinary rules, so registering early is worth more than registering perfectly. If you expect introductions to produce anything at all, do the registration step first.
Do commissions count towards the VAT threshold?
Yes, and this is the part of the system people find hardest to believe. Article 165 requires registration for VAT once taxable transactions pass 100,000 GEL over any continuous twelve calendar months, with the Revenue Service to be notified within two working days of crossing it, and article 166 sets a single rate of 18% with no reduced rate at that article. Since the small business ceiling is 500,000 GEL, you can be paying 1% income tax and charging 18% VAT at the same time. Both are filed monthly by the 15th.
What about the pension contribution?
For an employee, contributions to the Pension Fund of Georgia are compulsory and shared: 2% from the employee, 2% from the employer and 2% from the state on the first 24,000 GEL of annual remuneration, dropping to 1% from the state between 24,000 and 60,000 GEL and nothing above that. For a self-employed person, joining is voluntary and the contribution is 4% of income. Introducer income does not put you inside the employee arrangement, so this is a decision you make rather than one made for you.
Do the paperwork before the first conversation
The order that works is boring and it works every time: decide which status fits the size you expect, register the entrepreneur record if you are going for the 1%, get the wording of the agreement checked against the barred list, then start making introductions. Doing it in that order costs a fortnight. Doing it in the reverse order costs the difference between 1% and 20% on everything that arrived in the meantime, plus the missed monthly filings. And while the first introductions are still finding their way to a payment, I am Beezy keeps something arriving in the account in the meantime.
