Opening a business in Georgia: the IT you need from day one
Many people who move to Georgia open an individual entrepreneur or a small company and then need everything around it at once: a website, an address on a .ge domain, a way to take card payments, business email and someone to look after it. Here is what each part involves and in what order to do it.
A domain and business email first
Your address on the internet comes first, because the email, the website and the payment provider all use it. A .ge domain tells Georgian customers you are local; a .com works everywhere. Many businesses register both and point one to the other.
Business email on your own domain (name@yourcompany.ge) through Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 looks trustworthy, works on every phone, and stays with the company when an employee leaves. Register the domain and the accounts in the company's name, not in a contractor's.
A website in the languages your customers use
In Georgia customers search in Georgian, Russian and English, and in Batumi often in Turkish too. Each language needs its own pages, not a translation button, so that people searching in that language find you on Google.
At SureIT a one-page site starts at 900 ₾, a business website with up to 8 pages in 2 languages at 2,000 ₾, and each further language is 300 ₾.
Taking card payments
To accept cards on a website you need an e-commerce (acquiring) agreement with a bank or payment provider: TBC Bank, Bank of Georgia or a provider such as Flitt. You apply as a registered business with a Georgian business account; the bank checks the website before it switches payments on.
Fees are a percentage of each payment. TBC, for example, publishes 2% for Georgian cards and 2.5% for foreign cards. The customer pays on the bank's own page, so card data never touches your website.
Rules the website must follow
Georgia's law on personal data protection has applied since 1 March 2024 and largely follows the European GDPR. A website that collects names, phones or emails needs a privacy notice that says what you collect and why, and a way for people to ask for their data to be deleted.
Show who runs the site: the company or entrepreneur name, the identification number and how to reach you. Banks look for this before they approve online payments.
Being found on Google and Maps
Create a Google Business Profile with the same name, phone and hours as on the website, and ask your first customers for reviews. For a local business, the map often brings more customers than the website itself.
Add the business to the directories Georgians use, and keep the name, phone and address identical everywhere.
Who looks after it
Everything above needs someone to renew the domain, update the site, keep backups and answer when email stops working. A small business rarely needs its own IT person for that: a monthly care plan costs less and covers holidays.
We set all of it up in your company's name, in Russian, English or Georgian, and hand over the passwords. Website care after launch is 120 ₾ a month.
Set up your business IT in one go
Tell us what the business does and which languages your customers speak. We send a fixed price for the domain, email, website and payments before any work starts.
The service: Websites