Marriage and Birth Registration in Georgia

Marriage and birth registration in Georgia both route through the same civil registry system as everything else bureaucratic in the country: the Public Service Development Agency and its House of Justice branches. What surprises most foreigners is how little paperwork either one actually needs compared to their home country.

Neither process requires a residence permit or Georgian citizenship to begin with, which is part of why Georgia has built a reputation, deserved or not, as one of the simpler places in the region to handle either life event as a foreigner.

Getting Married in Georgia as a Foreigner

If neither partner has been married before, the requirement is close to just two passports: no birth certificates, no affidavits of single status, no letters from an embassy confirming eligibility to marry. Each passport needs a certified Georgian translation, notarized by a notary in Georgia, and that is close to the entire document list for a first marriage on both sides.

If either partner was married before, a divorce certificate or court decision is required, or a death certificate if the previous marriage ended that way.

The government fee is 50 lari for standard registration or 100 lari for same-day express processing. After the application is submitted and both partners confirm in person that neither is currently married elsewhere, the wait is typically 40 minutes to 5 hours before the ceremony itself, which can take place at the Public Service Hall, a dedicated wedding palace, or an approved off-site location.

One popular ceremony venue, Tbilisi's Palace of Rituals, is a striking piece of late-Soviet architecture completed in 1984, blending expressionist forms with echoes of medieval Georgian church design, worth choosing for the building alone even for a purely civil ceremony.

Start to finish, the whole process is often done within a day or two, which is exactly why Georgia has a reputation among foreigners for uncomplicated, fast civil marriage.

Marrying a Georgian citizen also opens a practical path to legal status: family reunification is one of the recognized grounds for a residence permit in Georgia, letting a foreign spouse apply on that basis instead of through employment, business, or a property purchase.

That same family-reunification path can shorten the road to citizenship later too: a spouse of a Georgian citizen naturalizes after five years of residence instead of the standard ten, provided the marriage itself remains genuine and ongoing.

A New Insurance Requirement That Affects Wedding Travel Too

Since January 1, 2026, every foreigner entering Georgia visa-free or on a tourist visa needs a mandatory health insurance policy in Georgia for the full length of their stay, checked right at the border: at least 30,000 lari for medical treatment and accidents.

A couple flying in specifically to marry is covered by the requirement just like any other visitor, so it is worth arranging before travel rather than discovering it as a border question. Free-of-charge emergency care remains available to everyone regardless of insurance status, but planned hospital treatment afterward is where an insurance gap actually gets expensive.

Registering a Child's Birth

The hospital where a child is born issues its own confirmation of the birth, but that document is not the actual birth certificate.

The birth certificate itself is issued by the Civil Registry, part of the same Public Service Development Agency that handles residence permits and apostilles, and is usually ready by the next working day once the parents' passports and the hospital's birth confirmation are submitted.

If the parents are married, the marriage certificate is required too, translated into Georgian if it was not issued there.

Does the Child Automatically Get Georgian Citizenship?

No. The rules for Georgian citizenship are strict on this point: being born on Georgian territory does not by itself grant citizenship. If at least one parent is a Georgian citizen, the child receives Georgian citizenship regardless of where the birth takes place.

If both parents are foreigners, even ones living in Georgia on a residence permit, the child keeps the parents' citizenship and later goes through the standard naturalization procedure on general grounds, the same one an adult foreigner would use.

Using the Certificate Outside Georgia

A Georgian birth or marriage certificate needed abroad, for a foreign civil registry, an inheritance matter, or a visa application elsewhere, follows the same apostille process in Georgia as any other Georgian-issued document: certified through the Public Service Development Agency, then translated into the language actually needed, since an apostille confirms the document is genuine without doing anything to make it readable elsewhere.