Georgia's telecom law never says SIM, and we counted it ourselves
The Law of Georgia on Electronic Communications contains no SIM registration rule, no IMEI provision and no mention of a passport: we ran those counts on the official English text and got zero for each (matsne.gov.ge, read 8 September 2026). What it does define is a subscriber, and the definition needs a prior written contract with a Georgian provider. What you buy here is a prepaid data plan whose record warns that coverage in Abkhazia is not guaranteed (our Georgia catalogue record, checked 8 September 2026).
Where this profile does not reach:Coverage in Abkhazia is not guaranteed.
6 plans for Georgia, from 1 GB at $4.49 to 20 GB at $36.49. 5 GB for 30 days costs $16.99 — 51st cheapest of 56 in Europe, against a $7.99 median. Our retail prices from the operator catalogue, checked 28 September 2026.
Get the eSIM
Data only: the profile carries no phone number, your own stays as it is. Not sure of the size? Work it out from your trip. Terms and refunds.
Payment and guarantees
What travellers say
What it costs per day
Cheapest per day: 3 GB for 30 days at 37¢ a day. The dearest per day is 20 GB for 30 days at $1.22. Short plans always cost more per day: validity is rounded up, and unused days are paid for anyway.
How much data to buy
Four ways people use a phone abroad, sized against this country’s own plans. The gigabytes are an estimate built from published per-hour rates — nobody measured your phone.
The hours behind each row are our assumption, not yours — put your own in and the same rates do the arithmetic.
Where a row shows a range, the cell is sized on the lower number, which assumes the evening runs on hotel Wi-Fi. On mobile data around the clock, read the upper number and take the next size up. The per-hour rates and the 15% added for background traffic are listed with their sources in the calculator.
What applies in Georgia
Operator facts from the Airalo catalogue, read 28 September 2026. Rules and networks change — check the date before you rely on a line here.
The law asks a visitor for nothing, and here are the counts
Georgia's telecom statute has no rule that reaches your phone or your identity. We read the Law of Georgia on Electronic Communications in the official English translation on matsne.gov.ge. Then we searched it for the things travellers ask about. The string SIM appears zero times as a word. IMEI appears zero times. Passport appears zero times.
That is a count rather than an impression, and we did it because a first pass nearly fooled us. A case-insensitive search for «sim» returns fourteen hits in this act. Every one sits inside a longer word such as similar or simultaneously. Searching sloppily here produces a rule that is not there.
The word that decides it is subscriber
Georgian law defines its subscriber more tightly than most, and the definition does the work. Article 2(a) reads: «subscriber - an end-user who or which is provided with publicly available electronic communication services on the basis of a prior written contract entered into with the provider of electronic communication services». A prior written contract, with the provider.
A travel profile gives you a contract with us and none with a Georgian company. No Georgian provider signs anything with you, issues you a number or opens a subscription. Wherever the act imposes something on a subscriber, there is no Georgian subscription for it to land on.
What the act does require is aimed at companies
The identification language in this law belongs to lawful interception, and every duty in it runs to a business. Article 81 requires an electronic communications company to have a technical capability. On request of an authorised body it must deliver, in real time, the content and identification data of communications sent through its networks. Article 82 makes the same company record when identification data goes to state bodies under the Criminal Procedure Code. It then reports that to the Personal Data Protection Inspector.
Read who is addressed and the pattern is the familiar one. The obligations attach to the company operating the network and concern its own traffic. They sit beside a supervision duty, not a registration counter. Nothing in that chapter asks a traveller for a document.
What we searched for and did not find
A statute can be silent while a regulator's decree is not, so we went looking for one. We searched the Communications Commission's legal acts and the legislative herald for a subscriber identification requirement, in English and in Georgian. What came back were decrees on number portability and on the national numbering system. Nothing established an identity check before a SIM is sold.
That is a negative result and we are labelling it as one. The Commission publishes much of its material in Georgian only. We did not read every decree it has issued. **If a Georgian shop asks for your passport, treat that as the seller's own practice unless they can point you at a rule.** We could not find the rule, and we looked.
The coverage line that actually matters
One caveat on this country's record deserves reading before you plan a route. Our Georgia catalogue record carries the note «Coverage in Abkhazia is not guaranteed» (checked 8 September 2026). That is the supplier's own statement about where the network reaches. It is the only territorial caveat on the record.
Plan around it rather than discovering it. If your route runs near that region, carry offline maps. Do not lean on a live connection for navigation, or for a booking that must be confirmed on the road. Everywhere else on the record the profile is an ordinary Georgian data line.
What the Georgia profile actually is
You get data on one Georgian network and nothing else. Our Georgia catalogue record names the seller Kargi Mobile and the network Cellfie at 4G. Its own note calls that network Beeline. Two names for one operator, and we report both rather than choosing. No minutes come with it, no texts, and no Georgian number in your name.
The identity-check field on that record is empty, which is what the law above would predict. You get a year from purchase to install, and the days you paid for start at the first connection. Nothing needs typing: the APN sets itself on both platforms.
One ladder, six sizes
There are no unlimited tiers here, so the whole decision is a size. The ladder runs 1, 2, 3, 5, 10 and 20 GB, with a 7-day window on the smallest, 15 days on the next and 30 days from 3 GB upward (our Georgia catalogue record, checked 8 September 2026). Twenty gigabytes over thirty days is the ceiling.
Georgia spends data in two very different ways. Tbilisi and Batumi are café-and-Wi-Fi cities where a small size lasts. The military highway to Kazbegi, the Svaneti roads and the Davit Gareja track are hours of live map with long gaps between towns. That is where a bigger step earns itself. Choose a window that ends after your flight home.
Before you fly
Install at home over your own Wi-Fi, days ahead. Scan the QR from your order page and label the line so you can find it quickly. Then leave it switched off until you land, because buying early costs nothing on a year-long install window (our Georgia catalogue record, checked 8 September 2026).
Settle the two lines before departure. Your home line keeps voice and bank messages, with its data roaming off. The Georgian line takes data once you switch it on. **Enable data roaming for the travel line and for nothing else.**
Your first day
Switch the line on, choose it for mobile data, and open a web page. You type no APN on either platform (our Georgia catalogue record, checked 8 September 2026), so silence points at the roaming switch or the wrong line. Skip the call test, because this profile answers none. Emergency dialling stays with your home line or the handset itself.
A weak signal in the mountains is not a legal problem. Georgia is high country with long valleys, and a bar that vanishes on a pass is terrain. We measured no coverage there and will not describe any. The one place the record itself flags is Abkhazia, and that flag is above.
Topping up
Recharge on the order page you already have open. The record marks the profile rechargeable, checked 8 September 2026, and no Georgian rule reaches that payment. Top up while data remains, or a guesthouse password becomes step one.
Watch the gigabytes rather than the calendar on this ladder. A 30-day window comfortably outlives 3 or 5 GB on a driving week. Check the counter before a mountain day rather than during one. The road to Ushguli is a poor place to run dry.
FAQ
Do I need to register a SIM in Georgia?
Why would a shop ask for my passport then?
Will the eSIM work everywhere in Georgia?
Is my phone affected by any Georgian device rule?
How much data does a Georgia trip need?
Is there anything to configure on the phone?
Before you fly: the checklist
- Bring no document for the phone: the telecom act contains no SIM, IMEI or passport provision, counted on 8 September 2026.
- Check your route against one caveat: «Coverage in Abkhazia is not guaranteed» (our Georgia catalogue record, checked 8 September 2026).
- Buy early; the install window on that record is 365 days (same record, 8 September 2026).
- Scan the QR at home over Wi-Fi and keep the Georgian line off until you land.
- Size it for the driving: there are no unlimited tiers, only 1 to 20 GB (same record, 8 September 2026).
- Mind the windows: 7 days on 1 GB, 15 on 2 GB, 30 from 3 GB upward (same record, 8 September 2026).
- Keep your home line for voice and bank messages, its data roaming switched off.
- Type nothing: the APN configures itself on both platforms (same record, 8 September 2026).
- Test with a web page, never a call: this plan carries no voice.
- Carry offline maps for Kazbegi, Svaneti and any mountain leg; a lost signal there is terrain.
- Recharge from your order page while data remains to complete the payment.
Sources and freshness
Law of Georgia on Electronic Communications, official English translation, Article 2(a) on the definition of subscriber and Articles 81 and 82 on interception and reporting duties (used in every legal section, the FAQ and the checklist) — the document, read 8 September 2026.
The act's record in the legislative herald matsne.gov.ge, used to confirm the version we read — the document, read 8 September 2026.
Our Georgia catalogue record: seller, network, plan type, identity check, install window, activation, APN, recharge, the package ladder and the Abkhazia coverage note, read 8 September 2026.
What we did not check: Nothing below is settled, and none of it is presented as settled. We read the act in the official English translation published by matsne.gov.ge and did not compare it against the Georgian original, which is the authentic text. We did not read every decree of the Communications Commission: much of its material is published in Georgian only, and our searches in both languages surfaced decrees on number portability and on the national numbering system rather than any subscriber identification rule. The absence of such a rule is therefore an absence in what we could reach, not proof that none exists, and it is the single most likely place this page could be wrong. We found no published enforcement case touching a visitor. Whether the operator applies any check of its own to an inbound roaming handset is not something we could verify. On the product side the record names the network Cellfie while its own note names Beeline, and we did not establish which name the network uses today; it carries no Wi-Fi sharing field and no fair-use condition, and it does not say whether a top-up extends the running window or opens a new one. Beyond the Abkhazia note we measured no coverage and tested no mountain roads, and silence in a record is not a measurement.