Notary Services and Power of Attorney in Georgia

A notary in Georgia is not a government clerk behind a counter: it is a private legal professional, licensed and supervised by the Ministry of Justice, who certifies documents so they hold legal weight.

For a foreigner, the most common reason to walk into a notary office is a power of attorney, letting someone else register a company, sign a lease, or complete a property deal on your behalf while you are still abroad.

How Notaries Actually Work in Georgia

Notaries in Georgia run their own private practices rather than working as state employees, but every notarial act follows a fixed procedure and, for most common services, a state-regulated price set by government decree.

Any licensed notary can perform the standard acts described below, so there is no need to hunt for a specific office tied to a specific district or case type; a full public list of registered notaries is maintained by the Notary Chamber of Georgia at notary.ge.

When You Actually Need a Power of Attorney

The most frequent case for a foreigner is registering an IE in Georgia or an LLC in Georgia without being physically present: a notarized power of attorney lets a representative file the registration at the House of Justice on your behalf.

The same applies to real estate deals, opening or managing a bank account through a representative, and a range of other administrative actions where showing up in person is not practical or possible for a specific closing date.

A power of attorney can be narrow, covering one specific action such as signing a single contract, or general, covering an open-ended range of actions on your behalf. The narrower version is worth using whenever possible: a general power of attorney over financial and legal matters is powerful and hard to fully undo quickly if the relationship with the representative changes.

What a Notary Actually Costs

The official state tariff for the most common notarial acts is set by government decree and is far lower than the total most foreigners actually end up paying. Certifying a power of attorney costs 10 lari, certifying the genuineness of a signature costs 2 lari, certifying the accuracy of a document translation costs 1 lari per page, and certifying a copy against its original costs 0.5 lari per page.

Drafting the actual document, when it goes beyond simple certification, is billed separately and by agreement, and this is where the real cost usually sits: full-service law firms and relocation agencies that draft a bilingual power of attorney, translate it, and handle the notarization end to end commonly charge several hundred lari for the whole package, not for the notary stamp itself.

Getting a Power of Attorney Certified While Still Abroad

Georgia is unusual in allowing a notarial act, including a power of attorney, to be certified remotely over a video call with a notary and a witness present, but that option is only open to Georgian citizens and holders of a Georgian personal ID: it does not apply to a foreigner who has not yet obtained one.

Remote certification through this electronic channel carries its own flat fee of 50 lari, higher than the standard in-person rate precisely because of the extra identity verification involved.

For a foreigner abroad without a Georgian ID, the practical route is a Georgian consulate or embassy in their country of residence: a power of attorney certified there is already a Georgian state act and does not need an apostille to be accepted back in Georgia.

The alternative, using a local notary in that country instead, works too, but then the document needs an apostille for Georgia from that country's authorities plus a certified translation into Georgian before a Georgian institution will accept it, an extra two steps a consulate visit skips entirely.

What to Bring and What to Expect at the Appointment

A foreigner needs a valid passport as identification; there is no requirement to already hold a Georgian personal number or residence permit just to use a notary.

If the document is in a language the notary doesn't work in, or the signatory doesn't understand Georgian well enough to confirm what they're signing, an interpreter has to be arranged and present for the signing itself, at a cost separate from the notary's own fee.

Documents should generally be brought unsigned: the notary needs to witness the actual signing, not just verify a signature made beforehand.

Common Documents That Actually Need Notarization

• Powers of attorney for registering a business, real estate deal, or bank account by proxy
• Real estate purchase and sale agreements, if the parties choose a notary instead of signing at the Public Service Hall
• Wills and inheritance-related certificates
• Certified translations of foreign documents into Georgian
• Certified copies of original documents for submission to government agencies

What a Notary Does Not Do

A notary certifies that a document and its signatures are genuine; it does not draft legal strategy, represent either side in a dispute, or give tax or immigration advice beyond the document itself.

For anything that requires judgment calls, structuring a deal, choosing between business forms, or contesting a rejected application, the right professional is a lawyer, with the notary stepping in only at the final certification stage.