Georgia vs. United States

Georgia

SettleMetric tax engine over Tax Code (Small Business Status) ↗

Recopilado por SettleMetric

Datos a fecha de

1 ene 2026

Verificado

3 jul 2026

Método

Best eligible scheme ge-small-business-1pct at €60,000 = 180,738 GEL (NBG 3.0123 GEL/EUR), below the 500,000 GEL threshold → 1% turnover tax = 1,807 GEL, no mandatory social/pension. Effective burden ≈ 1.0%.

United States

SettleMetric tax engine over official 2026 federal rules (IRS Rev. Proc. 2025-32; IRS self-employment tax; SSA 2026 contribution base) ↗

Recopilado por SettleMetric

Datos a fecha de

1 ene 2026

Verificado

1 ago 2026

Método

Best eligible scheme us-sole-proprietor-federal at €60,000 = $68,394 (ECB 1.1399 USD/EUR, 2026-07-02) with 10% expenses. Net profit $61,554.60; self-employment tax 15.3% on 92.35% of it = $8,697.38; half deducted, giving AGI $57,205.91; less the $16,100 standard deduction and a §199A deduction of $8,221.18 leaves taxable income $32,884.73, taxed $3,698.17. Total levies $12,395.55 / $68,394 = 18.1%. This is federal tax only, which is the whole story just in the nine states that levy no income tax on earned income.

Notas

The single number hides the widest internal spread of any country in this dataset. The same freelancer pays 18.1% in Texas or Florida, 20.5% in California (us-sole-proprietor-california) and 24.4% in New York City (us-sole-proprietor-new-york-city), where state and city income taxes stack on the federal one. Read this figure as the floor available to someone free to choose their state, not as a national average. It also excludes the self-employed health-insurance deduction and retirement contributions, both of which US freelancers use heavily and both of which would lower it.

Georgia

Government Ordinance N255 — visa-free entry ↗

Fuente oficial

Datos a fecha de

3 jul 2026

Verificado

3 jul 2026

Notas

Exceptionally easy in practice: ~94 nationalities (incl. all EU, US, UK, Ukraine, Russia) may stay visa-free for a full year and register an Individual Entrepreneur with 1% Small Business Status the same day — no residence permit needed. Scored as a long-stay path; there is no formal 'digital nomad visa' and the year of visa-free stay does not itself build toward permanent residence.

United States

U.S. Customs and Border Protection — Visa Waiver Program; 8 CFR 214.2(b) visitor admissions ↗

Fuente oficial

Datos a fecha de

1 ago 2026

Verificado

1 ago 2026

Notas

The United States has no digital-nomad visa and no freelance or self-employment permit — the concept does not exist in US immigration law, which authorises work through a sponsoring employer, a treaty investment, or an immigrant petition. For a location-independent earner with an ordinary passport, the realistic ceiling is a visitor stay: 90 days under the Visa Waiver Program, or up to six months on a B-1/B-2 visa, neither of which authorises work in the United States. The genuine long-stay routes all have a demanding filter — E-2 requires a treaty nationality plus substantial invested capital, O-1A and EB-1A require documented national or international acclaim, and the diversity lottery is a lottery. See data/countries/us/legalization.json for all six.

Georgia

Geostat — Households Expenditures survey 2025 ↗

Recopilado por SettleMetric

Datos a fecha de

31 dic 2025

Verificado

3 jul 2026

Método

Geostat 2025 average per-capita monthly consumption (603 GEL) split by the survey's COICOP category shares, with the imputed-housing portion removed, converted at 2.6431 GEL/USD (NBG 2026-07-02). Categories sum to this figure. Geostat has no clean single-person-excl-rent basket, so treat as a curated estimate.

United States

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics — Consumer Expenditure Survey, 2024 annual means (series CXU*LB0101M and CXU*LB0502M via the BLS public API) ↗

Recopilado por SettleMetric

Datos a fecha de

31 dic 2024

Verificado

1 ago 2026

Método

Consumer Expenditure Survey 2024, all consumer units: average annual expenditures $78,535 across an average 2.4 persons. Removing shelter ($16,317, the rent-equivalent line), personal insurance and pensions ($9,797, which is saving rather than consumption) and cash contributions ($2,292, which are transfers) leaves $50,129 of consumption. Divided by 2.4 people and by 12 months = $1,740.59 per person per month.

Notas

Per-capita basis, to match how Italy, Spain, Czechia, Austria and France are computed in this dataset. The BLS also publishes the real one-person consumer unit, which is what a solo mover actually faces: $48,794 a year, or $29,359 after removing the same three lines — about $2,447 a month excluding rent, 41% above the per-capita figure because a person living alone has no household economies of scale. Read $1,741 as the comparable cross-country number and $2,447 as the realistic personal one. Both include US health spending, which is why every line involving healthcare runs far above the European entries.

Georgia

UNODC (via World Bank mirror) — intentional homicide, Georgia ↗

Datos abiertos

Datos a fecha de

31 dic 2019

Verificado

3 jul 2026

Notas

2019 is the latest year UNODC publishes for Georgia. Low by global standards (world average ≈ 5.8); Georgia is widely regarded as very safe for residents. No city-level series is published.

United States

Bureau of Justice Statistics and FBI — Crime Known to Law Enforcement, 2024 (NCJ 310856), Table 1 ↗

Fuente oficial

Datos a fecha de

31 dic 2024

Verificado

1 ago 2026

Notas

17,420 homicides in 2024, a rate of 5.1 per 100,000 — down sharply from 6.1 in 2023, continuing the retreat from the 2020–21 spike. Still several times the Western European level: Italy records 0.6, and no European country in this dataset is above 1.2. The national figure also hides an enormous internal range: New York State records 2.7 and California 4.2, while several southern states run above 8. Estimated by the BJS/FBI National Incident-Based Reporting System Estimation Program from agencies covering about 96% of the population.

Georgia

Georgian insurers (Ardi, GPI, Imedi L) — comprehensive-tier plans ↗

Recopilado por SettleMetric

Datos a fecha de

3 jul 2026

Verificado

3 jul 2026

Método

Midpoint of comprehensive local plans: Ardi Medi Premium from ~$340/yr up to market comprehensive ~$795/yr (converted at 2.6431 GEL/USD). Expat international plans run higher ($1,000–2,000/yr).

Notas

Georgian insurers quote by callback rather than public age-rated engines, so this is a curated market midpoint for local comprehensive cover, not a bound quote.

United States

Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services — 2026 Marketplace Open Enrollment Period State-Level Public Use File, national total row ↗

Recopilado por SettleMetric

Datos a fecha de

15 ene 2026

Verificado

1 ago 2026

Método

CMS reports an average monthly premium of $741 before advance premium tax credits across the 23,130,860 people who selected a plan for 2026 through HealthCare.gov and the state exchanges; ×12 = $8,892 a year. Average premium after tax credits is $178 a month.

Notas

Basis differs from the other countries here and the difference matters. This is an enrollee-weighted average across all ages and all metal levels, not a quote for a healthy 35-year-old: the marketplace risk pool skews old (41% of enrollees are 45 or over), and the Affordable Care Act lets insurers charge the oldest adults up to three times the youngest, so a 35-year-old pays meaningfully less than $741 a month. No age adjustment was applied because CMS's default uniform age-rating curve was not retrievable at the verification date. Two further caveats: most enrollees do not pay the sticker price — premium tax credits cut the average to $178 a month — and this is individual-market insurance with deductibles and coinsurance on top, not the comprehensive low-deductible cover the other entries quote. Even discounted for all of that, US health cover is the most expensive in this dataset by a wide margin, and it is the single largest fixed cost a freelancer moving to the United States takes on.

Georgia

National Bank of Georgia — Virtual Asset Service Providers ↗

Fuente oficial

Datos a fecha de

1 jul 2023

Verificado

3 jul 2026

Notas

Individuals pay 0% income tax on crypto gains (Minister of Finance Public Decision N201, 2019 — crypto is not Georgian-source income for individuals) and crypto↔fiat exchange is VAT-exempt. Service providers must register as VASPs with the NBG (regime since 1 July 2023). Very favourable for individual holders, hence legal-friendly.

United States

IRS — Digital assets: for U.S. tax purposes digital assets are property, not currency, and income from them is taxable ↗

Fuente oficial

Datos a fecha de

1 ago 2026

Verificado

1 ago 2026

Notas

Holding, trading and spending crypto is legal throughout the United States and banking access is normal. Tax treatment is the friction rather than the legality: digital assets are property, so every disposal — including paying for something in crypto or swapping one token for another — is a taxable event producing capital gain or loss, and every federal return asks a digital-asset question on its first page. Exchanges are regulated at both federal level (FinCEN money-services-business registration and anti-money-laundering rules) and state level (New York's BitLicense is the strictest), and brokers now report customer transactions to the IRS. Classified 'legal-regulated' rather than 'legal-friendly' because nothing about the tax treatment is favourable: there is no de minimis exemption for small payments and no long-term holding relief beyond the ordinary capital-gains rates.

Georgia

US State Dept 2025 Investment Climate Statement (Georgia) / trade.gov ↗

Recopilado por SettleMetric

Datos a fecha de

31 dic 2025

Verificado

3 jul 2026

Método

GEL freely convertible (float since 1998; IMF Article VIII since 1996); no capital controls; funds transfer abroad freely (except sanctioned destinations); no routine cash caps or resident foreign-account exit restrictions.

Notas

Caveat: since Georgia joined CRS (2024) and post-2022 de-risking, non-resident bank account onboarding has become notably stricter (source-of-funds documentation, some rejections). The FX regime itself is open; the friction is at bank KYC.

United States

FinCEN — Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts (FBAR): required when foreign accounts exceed $10,000 in aggregate at any time in the year ↗

Recopilado por SettleMetric

Datos a fecha de

1 ago 2026

Verificado

1 ago 2026

Método

Composite. No capital or currency controls: the dollar is fully convertible and personal funds move in and out freely, which is the 'low' end of this scale. Against that: reporting is unusually broad. US persons must file an FBAR whenever foreign financial accounts exceed $10,000 in aggregate at any point in the year, FATCA obliges foreign banks worldwide to identify US account holders, currency of $10,000 or more must be declared when crossing the border, and citizens and permanent residents are taxed on worldwide income wherever they live — a rule almost no other country applies. Banking access for a newly arrived foreigner is workable but slow, generally requiring an SSN or ITIN. Rated 'moderate': money moves freely, but it is watched more closely than in most of the countries here, and the tax net follows you out of the country.

Notas

The worldwide-taxation rule is the one to understand before taking a green card. Permanent residents remain US taxpayers on global income for as long as they hold the status, whether or not they live in the United States, and formally abandoning it can trigger an expatriation tax.

Georgia

Georgian Post + courier service pages (composite) ↗

Recopilado por SettleMetric

Datos a fecha de

3 jul 2026

Verificado

3 jul 2026

Método

Georgian Post ~500 branches nationwide (1–3 day domestic parcels, some lockers/pickup points); Wolt Drive and Glovo last-mile in Tbilisi/Batumi; DHL/FedEx/UPS present. Dense and reliable in cities; locker density and nationwide same-day coverage thinner than EU leaders → good, not excellent.

United States

United States Postal Service — service commitments and network (Ground Advantage, Priority Mail), alongside UPS, FedEx and Amazon Logistics coverage ↗

Recopilado por SettleMetric

Datos a fecha de

1 ago 2026

Verificado

1 ago 2026

Método

Classified from carrier service standards: USPS delivers to every address in the country including PO boxes and rural routes, with Priority Mail at 1–3 days and Ground Advantage at 2–5; UPS and FedEx both offer guaranteed next-day air nationwide with real-time tracking as standard; Amazon Logistics reaches a large majority of the population with same-day or next-day delivery. Rated 'excellent' on the strength of nationwide next-day availability and universal address coverage, despite a parcel-locker network that is thinner than Poland's or France's — Amazon Lockers and Hub apartment lockers exist in metros but there is no dense third-party locker estate.

Notas

Cash on delivery is effectively extinct in US consumer e-commerce, unlike Italy or Mexico; card or account payment is assumed. Delivery to the door is the default even in apartment buildings, and package theft from doorsteps is a real and widely reported problem in cities.

Georgia

Revenue Service of Georgia — customs procedures ↗

Fuente oficial

Datos a fecha de

3 jul 2026

Verificado

3 jul 2026

Notas

Georgia is outside the EU/EAEU. Personal-import de minimis: 300 GEL (≈ $113) and ≤ 30 kg, once per calendar month, exempt; above that, 18% import VAT + 0–12% duty + a small customs fee. All major integrators (DHL, FedEx, UPS, Aramex) present. Predictable but the low monthly de-minimis cap adds friction.

United States

Executive Order 14324 of 30 July 2025, Suspending Duty-Free De Minimis Treatment for All Countries, continued by Executive Order 14388 of 20 February 2026 (91 FR 9433) ↗

Fuente oficial

Datos a fecha de

20 feb 2026

Verificado

1 ago 2026

Notas

This changed fundamentally in 2025 and is the fact most likely to be out of date in anyone's head. The United States used to have the most generous de minimis threshold in the world — $800 duty- and tax-free per person per day — which made ordering from abroad trivially easy. Executive Order 14324 suspended duty-free de minimis treatment for all countries from 29 August 2025, and Executive Order 14388 continued the suspension in February 2026. Every inbound shipment is now dutiable regardless of value, postal shipments carry duties set by the order, and carriers charge brokerage on top. The carriers themselves are excellent and clearance is quick, so this is friction of cost and paperwork rather than unreliability — but a €40 parcel from Europe now arrives with a bill attached.

Georgia

M-Lab NDT country aggregates for Georgia ↗

Datos abiertos

Datos a fecha de

31 dic 2023

Verificado

4 jul 2026

Método

Median of 343 daily country medians (download_MED), 47,852 download tests (2023 — latest full year in M-Lab's public stats API; the 2024 file is only Jan–Mar, and 2025/2026 are not yet published). Georgia sits under continent code AS in M-Lab.

Notas

M-Lab NDT is single-stream and reads well below Ookla-style figures — comparable only within this criterion. Cross-check: the World Bank's July-2024 median of ~20 Mbps (Ookla-derived, so not citable here) is consistent with this once the M-Lab-reads-low offset is accounted for. Speeds are trending up (~10%/yr: M-Lab yearly medians ran 9.7 in 2020 → 15.8 in 2023), so multi-year pooling would understate current speed; the latest full year is used instead. GNCC/comcom.ge publishes operator quality-of-service measurements (e.g. Magticom fixed ~56 Mb/s advertised-tier average, 2025/26) but no national measured median, and its own speed commentary relies on the same Ookla data we can't redistribute.

United States

M-Lab NDT country aggregates for the United States ↗

Datos abiertos

Datos a fecha de

31 dic 2023

Verificado

1 ago 2026

Método

Median of the 344 daily country-median download values for US in 2023, which ranged 43.9–89.1 Mbps. M-Lab NDT is a single-stream test and reads well below advertised or Ookla-style figures — comparable only within this criterion. 2023 is the latest full year in M-Lab's public statistics API; the 2024 file stops on 26 March.

Notas

The highest reading of any country in this dataset on this metric — roughly three times Italy's — and it reflects a cable and fibre market that competes on headline speed. What the median hides is the price and the choice: monthly costs for gigabit service run well above European levels, and a large share of addresses have exactly one wired provider. Rural coverage remains the weak spot, though federal broadband funding is being deployed against it.

Georgia

EF EPI 2025 (score 541, rank 35/123 — High band) ↗

Estudio

Datos a fecha de

1 nov 2025

Verificado

3 jul 2026

Notas

Own band informed by EF EPI (attribution: EF Education First). English is workable in Tbilisi/Batumi tourism and the younger service sector; less so in government and older generations. Russian remains widely understood.

United States

Executive Order 14224 of 1 March 2025 — Designating English as the Official Language of the United States (90 FR, doc 2025-03694) ↗

Fuente oficial

Datos a fecha de

1 mar 2025

Verificado

1 ago 2026

Notas

English is the language of government, healthcare, housing and services throughout the country, and since March 2025 it is also the designated official language at federal level — the first such designation in US history. Spanish is a genuine second language of daily life in parts of the south-west, Florida and large cities, and federal agencies still provide multilingual services, but nothing about daily life requires another language.