Driving without insurance in Georgia: what it really costs foreign drivers
Fines double on repeat offences, and an at-fault accident without insurance can cost thousands. Here is exactly what the law says — and the 3-minute fix.
Georgian police check insurance electronically: patrol cars and roadside cameras read your plate and query the national insurance database in real time. For foreign-plated vehicles, checks also happen at the border on exit — meaning an uninsured visit rarely goes unnoticed.
The base fine for driving without compulsory insurance in Georgia is 100 GEL. If you are caught again within the same period, the fine doubles to 200 GEL. That alone is more than a year of coverage, which costs 120 GEL — the arithmetic is not subtle.
The fine, however, is the small risk. The real exposure is an at-fault accident. Without insurance you are personally liable for every lari of damage you cause: the other car's repair, medical bills, towing, legal costs. A minor collision in Tbilisi traffic easily reaches several thousand lari, and Georgian courts can restrict you from leaving the country until the claim is settled.
There is a third, less known consequence: unpaid fines attach to the vehicle in the police database. Drivers have found themselves blocked at the border on the way home, forced to pay accumulated fines plus late surcharges on the spot before being allowed to exit.
Compare all of that with the alternative. A 15-day policy costs 15 GEL — about the price of two coffees in Tbilisi. It takes three minutes to buy online, arrives by email, and both police and border officers accept the digital document.
If you are already in Georgia and just realised you are uninsured, you can still fix it today: buy the policy online at georgianappa.com from your phone, and you are legal from the policy start date. Do not wait for the checkpoint to find you first.