Georgia Changed Its Car Import Rules in 2026

Read this first. Rates are set by the Georgian Revenue Service and they change. Georgia rewrote its car-import taxes in 2026, and the figures below are current as of June 2026 but will move, sometimes quickly, since Parliament has already turned a ban into a tax once. This is a sourced explainer, not a customs filing or legal, tax or customs advice, and Guazi is the China-side supplier of the cars and their export paperwork, not your licensed customs broker in Georgia. The Georgian Revenue Service (RS.ge) and a current customs calculator are the only authority on what your specific car will cost. Confirm every figure that applies to you with official customs or a licensed broker before you ship, and remember any re-export must also comply with the destination country's rules.

Georgia has long been one of the easiest places in the region to bring a car into, and that reputation is a big part of why the country became a used-car crossroads in the first place. In 2026, though, the math changed. A new excise law took effect on 2 April 2026, and it quietly rewrote the cost of importing for almost everyone, rewarding newer cars, punishing older and right-hand-drive ones, and leaving electric vehicles largely untouched. If you are about to spend money bringing a car into Georgia, these are the Georgia car import rules 2026 you need to get right before you buy, not after the container is already at Poti.

This guide lays out the real cost of clearing a car into Georgia, customs duty, VAT and the new excise, then explains the 2026 excise in detail, the age and Euro 5 walls that decide whether a car can ever get plates, and the single most valuable distinction for a regional trader: when a car kept in transit or moved onward as a re-export skips the Georgian tax entirely. Guazi appears as a China-side sourcing and logistics lens, the supplier that can land an inspected car at a Georgian port, with the clear caveat up front that rates are Georgian customs business and this is general information you must verify before you ship.

The three things you pay to clear a car into Georgia

Start with the simple version, because the headline that gets all the attention, the excise, is only one of three charges. When you clear a car into Georgia for domestic use, you are generally looking at customs duty, value-added tax, and excise, layered on top of each other. Duty and VAT are calculated on the CIF value, the cost of the car plus insurance and freight to the Georgian port, while the excise is calculated separately on the engine and the car's age, which is the part the 2026 law overhauled. The table below is the summary; every figure in it is a 2026 reference point to confirm with RS.ge before you rely on it.

The thing to internalise is that these stack. A cheap car with a clean CIF value can still carry a meaningful bill once a large engine pushes the excise up, so the only number that matters is the all-in landed cost, not any single line. Run your specific car through a current calculator rather than estimating from the headline rate alone.

The 2026 excise, explained

The excise is where 2026 changed the game, so it deserves the most attention. For years Georgia effectively penalised cars older than six years through a patchwork that culminated, for a time, in a restrictive treatment many people described as a near-ban. The 2026 law replaced that with something cleaner and, for older cars, heavier: a two-tier excise charged per cubic centimetre of engine capacity, with the rate depending on how old the car is at the moment of the customs declaration. The principle is straightforward. Bigger engine, more excise. Older car, much more excise.

The two age brackets: under 6 years vs over 6 years

The structure splits on the six-year line, measured at the time you file the customs declaration rather than the date you bought or shipped the car. A car in the younger bracket pays a base rate per cm³ of displacement; a car in the older bracket pays three times that base rate per cm³. The gap is deliberate, designed to keep older, higher-emitting cars out without an outright prohibition.

Because the bracket is judged at declaration, a car sitting right on the six-year boundary when you buy it can slip into the heavier tier by the time it clears, much as the age rule does in other import markets. If a car is close to the line, build a margin into the timing, or expect the older-bracket rate.

Right-hand drive pays triple, electric pays nothing

Two adjustments sit on top of the brackets and they swing the cost dramatically. Right-hand-drive cars are charged three times the applicable base rate in either bracket, a heavy penalty aimed at the many right-hand-drive units that arrive from Japan. Electric vehicles, by contrast, are exempt from the displacement excise altogether, which is a meaningful advantage for the modern EV stock now moving through the region. Left-hand-drive hybrids under six years old get a softer break, a 60% discount on the excise. The worked example below shows how far apart these can land for the same nominal engine size; the GEL figures are illustrative, rounded, and to be confirmed against a current calculator.

The lesson is blunt. Steering side and powertrain matter as much as engine size under the 2026 rules. A left-hand-drive hybrid or an EV is treated gently; a right-hand-drive petrol car with a big engine is treated harshly. Choose the car with the rules in mind, not against them.

Age, Euro 5 and getting plates

Paying the tax is one thing. Being allowed to drive the car is another, and this is where buyers get caught. Georgia ties road registration to an emissions standard: vehicles that do not meet Euro 5, broadly those made before 2013, cannot get Georgian plates. You can still pay the duty and physically import such a car, but it will be refused on-road registration, which for most buyers makes it pointless. The practical floor on a car you intend to actually drive in Georgia is therefore a model year that satisfies Euro 5.

There is one narrow exception worth knowing. Genuine classic cars, those 30 or more years old, which as of 2026 means roughly 1996 or earlier, get a reduced flat excise of 1.0 GEL per cm³ and an exemption from the Euro 5 requirement, on the logic that they are collector items rather than daily transport. Outside that classic carve-out, the Euro 5 wall is hard. If a car predates 2013 and you want plates, it is generally a non-starter, and no amount of duty paid will change that.

The re-export fork: clear it in, or keep it in transit

Here is the distinction that matters most to a regional trader, and the reason this piece ties directly to the Georgia used-car hub story. Everything above assumes you are clearing a car into Georgia for use there. But a great many cars passing through Georgia are never meant to stay, and the rules treat those very differently. A car moved onward without being formally imported sits outside the Georgian excise base, which is the whole economic logic of the re-export trade.

When transit and re-export skip the tax

If a container is transshipped directly onward without being unloaded into Georgia, the new excise does not hit it. Cars kept inside the Poti Free Industrial Zone for onward movement to Azerbaijan, Armenia or Central Asia likewise stay outside the Georgian excise base, and export, transit and re-export are generally exempt from Georgian customs duties and fees. In plain terms, a car that is passing through to another market is not taxed as if it were joining the Georgian fleet. For a trader whose customer is in Almaty or Yerevan rather than Tbilisi, that exemption is the entire point of routing through Georgia.

There is also a grandfather provision for the changeover. Cars that were already in transit before 2 April 2026, evidenced by a pre-cutoff bill of lading or CMR, are treated under the old rates rather than the new ones. If your shipment straddles the date, the documentation that proves when it started matters, so keep it.

When the new rates apply to you instead

The flip side is just as important. The moment a container is unloaded in Poti and the car is cleared into Georgia for domestic use, the new rates govern in full, duty, VAT and the two-tier excise as described above. The fork is binary: stay in transit and stay outside the tax, or clear in and pay it. Deciding which side you want to be on before the car arrives, rather than after, is the single most consequential planning choice in this whole guide. And as with all of this, transit and re-export must still satisfy the destination country's own customs rules, so the exemption in Georgia is not a free pass everywhere down the line.

Paperwork and clearance, in order

Whichever side of the fork you land on, a clean import file is what keeps a car moving rather than stuck. The core of it is the bill of lading, the shipping title that proves the consignment is yours, and the commercial invoice that establishes the CIF value the duty and VAT are calculated on. Around those sit the vehicle's title or registration documents from the country of origin, and the standard clearance steps handled by your broker at the port. The aim is to arrive with the value clearly documented and the ownership chain clean, because gaps there are what turn a routine clearance into a delay.

This is also the point where the China side of the supply chain earns its place. Guazi runs end-to-end export logistics from China, including export clearance and freight forwarding, and supplies a full condition report with every car, which means the export-side documentation and the proof of what the car actually is arrive in order. That does not make Guazi your Georgian customs broker, the local clearance is still the importer's and the broker's job, but a clean, well-documented car leaving China is half of a smooth clearance arriving in Georgia.

A note for China-origin imports and EVs

Most existing guides to importing into Georgia are written from the US-salvage angle, the Copart-to-Poti route. The 2026 rules, though, happen to favour exactly the kind of car China supplies well. The electric-vehicle exemption from the displacement excise is a direct advantage for the modern Chinese EV stock now spreading across the region, and the left-hand-drive hybrid discount rewards the left-hand-drive configuration that China-market cars are built in. Where a right-hand-drive unit from Japan gets hit with triple excise, a left-hand-drive Chinese car sidesteps that penalty entirely.

The honest framing is that the rules reward newer, cleaner, left-hand-drive cars, and that is the lane China-origin supply naturally sits in. Guazi's strength as China's number-one used new-energy-vehicle platform lines up with the EV exemption in particular. None of this is a claim that Guazi handles your Georgian tax; it is the observation that the 2026 structure and modern Chinese supply point the same direction, which is worth knowing when you choose where to source.

Landing an inspected car at Poti or Batumi, through Guazi

Pulling it together, the 2026 rules reward a specific kind of car, newer, left-hand drive, cleanly documented, ideally electric or hybrid, and they punish the opposite. Guazi is one of China's largest used-car platforms, with end-to-end export logistics that include export clearance, tax refunds and international freight forwarding, every car carrying an over 200-point inspection and a full condition report, drawn from our public about page. What we do is land a sound, inspected, well-documented car at a Georgian port; what we do not do is act as your licensed Georgian customs broker, which stays the importer's and the broker's job on the ground.

So the division of labour is clean. Get the eligibility and the local clearance right with Georgian customs and a broker, using the figures above as a starting map to verify, and let the inspection and the export paperwork on the China side settle what the car actually is and that it arrives in order. For the sea route itself, our guide to shipping a used car from China to Georgia covers Poti and Batumi, container versus RoRo, and timelines, and our how-to-buy guide walks the sourcing steps. See export-ready inspected cars.

Key Takeaways

• Clearing a car into Georgia in 2026 generally means 5% customs duty and 18% VAT on the CIF value, plus the new excise on engine size and age.
• The 2026 excise, effective 2 April 2026, is two-tier: 1.5 GEL per cm³ for cars under 6 years and 4.5 GEL per cm³ for older cars, judged at the customs declaration.
• Right-hand-drive cars pay three times the base excise, EVs are exempt from the displacement excise, and left-hand-drive hybrids under 6 years get a 60% discount.
• Cars made before 2013 generally fail Euro 5 and cannot get Georgian plates; genuine classics 30-plus years old pay a flat 1.0 GEL per cm³ and skip Euro 5.
• The big trader distinction is the re-export fork: a car kept in transit or re-exported, including through the Poti Free Industrial Zone, stays outside the Georgian excise; clear it in and the full rates apply.
• Rates are set by the Georgian Revenue Service and change, so every figure here is a starting map to verify with official customs or a current calculator, and re-export must also meet the destination country's rules.

Sources & References

• West Coast Shipping, Georgia's 6-year car-import rule, what changed in Poti, 2026 update
• West Coast Shipping, Georgia car import taxes and duties
• Civil Georgia, fivefold excise replaces the ban
• ProAuto, Georgia customs calculator 2026
• trade.gov, Georgia import tariffs
• Revenue Service of Georgia (RS.ge), customs procedures