How to onboard and manage teams hired via Employer of Record (EOR) in Georgia
- Gegidze • გეგიძე | Marketing
- Aug 30
- 9 min read
Table of contents:
What specific onboarding documents does a Georgian EOR typically require from new hires?
How do Georgian leave and probation rules affect my onboarding timeline
Which compliance risks should I monitor when managing EOR-hired staff in Georgia?
What costs and fees typically change as I scale EOR hires across Georgia
Who provides equipment & workspace? (and how not to start a laptop custody battle)
Introduction: Why onboarding matters more than you think
Everyone’s got a horror story about employee onboarding.
The laptop arrived two weeks late.
The HR system that locked someone out on Day One.
The contract that mysteriously “went missing” until payroll reminded you three weeks later.
Onboarding shouldn’t feel like a group project where nobody did the reading. But too often, it does.
And when you’re hiring internationally, forget it. Multiply that chaos by time zones, local labor laws, and a payroll system that still thinks it’s 1998.
That’s where Georgia quietly sneaks in as your cheat code.
This isn’t the Georgia with peach festivals and college football, it’s the one with a criminally underrated talent pool, business-friendly labor laws, and an Employer of Record (EOR) setup that makes entity-free hiring feel like skipping the line at airport security.
Here’s the pitch:
Low risk. The EOR carries the legal employer role, so you’re not explaining labor law to your investors during due diligence.
High reward. You tap into a sharp, motivated workforce at salaries that don’t make your CFO cry.
Zero bureaucracy. You get contracts, payroll, and compliance handled while you focus on what you actually hired people to do, work.
Onboarding and managing via an EOR in Georgia isn’t about lowering standards. It’s about lowering blood pressure. Your team joins fast, stays compliant, and skips the admin nightmare.
So if your idea of onboarding feels like throwing someone a Slack invite and hoping they figure it out, stick around. Georgia’s EOR model might just be the grown-up version you’ve been avoiding.
What specific onboarding documents does a Georgian EOR typically require from new hires?
If you thought hiring in Georgia was as simple as “send us a passport scan and we’re good,” bad news: this isn’t Airbnb check-in. An Employer of Record (EOR)provider in Georgia isn’t just collecting random paperwork; it’s building the legal foundation that keeps you from getting roasted in a compliance audit.
Here’s the truth: Georgian EORs are efficient, but they’re not psychic. They can’t employ someone based on a LinkedIn profile and a profile picture from 2017. They need actual documents. And yes, more than one.
Here’s the standard starter pack your shiny new hire will hand over before they’re officially on payroll:
Valid passport or national ID — the non-negotiable proof that they exist.
Signed bilingual contract (Georgian + English) — drafted by the EOR so it actually holds up under Georgian labor law. (That Word doc you copied and pasted from your last hire in Berlin? Yeah, it won’t cut it here.)
Proof of address in Georgia — rental agreement, utility bill, or something equally boring but necessary.
Passport-size photo — yes, the old-school kind. Bureaucracy loves its headshots.
Tax forms (I-9, W-4, G-4 equivalents) — because the Georgian Revenue Service actually wants to know who’s paying income tax.
Pension enrollment forms — mandatory 2% contributions from both employer and employee. It’s small, but it matters.
Bank details for direct deposit — no, you can’t pay them in crypto and hope the tax office doesn’t notice.
Emergency contact info — pro tip: don’t skip this. One day, you’ll be glad you have it.
Educational certificates or professional licenses — especially for regulated professions.
Background check consent form — required if your company or role needs extra trust.
The good news? Your EOR doesn’t just collect these and stuff them in a filing cabinet. They also handle:
Registration with tax and pension authorities
Enrollment in Georgia’s social security system
Residence permit paperwork for foreign hires (contracts + proof of address are key here)
So yes, it’s more paperwork than you’d like, but far less than you’d face setting up your own entity. And unlike DIY hiring, you won’t be explaining to a labor inspector why your “contract” looks like it was written in Google Translate.
How do Georgian leave and probation rules affect my onboarding timeline
If you’ve ever onboarded someone and expected them to be fully productive by Friday, surprise, that’s not how it works in Georgia. The law actually gives you a built-in buffer, and how you use it determines whether your new hire is integrated smoothly or still “finding the bathroom” at month three.
The probation window: six months to figure it out
Georgia’s Labor Code lets you set a probation period of up to six months, but it has to be clearly written into the employment contract. This isn’t a “wink-wink” trial run; it’s legally binding.
What this means in practice:
Your new hire is on full salary and has all core employment rights from Day One.
You, the employer, get a half-year runway to test fit, performance, and cultural alignment.
Termination during probation is easier, with fewer notice and severance obligations, but Georgian courts still expect you to act in good faith. Translation: don’t treat it like a revolving door.
Smart teams don’t waste that window. They use probation as a structured onboarding period, with 45-, 90-, and 180-day check-ins that balance feedback with accountability.
Leave entitlements: when the clock starts ticking
Here’s where things get interesting. Every employee in Georgia is entitled to 24 days of paid annual leave, but the right to take it typically kicks in after 11 months of service. So, unless your new hire plans a vacation in their first month (bold move), annual leave won’t disrupt early onboarding.
Other leave entitlements matter more in the short term:
Sick leave/temporary disability: employees can take up to 40 consecutive calendar days if they’re medically certified.
Public holidays: Georgia has 17 official ones, and yes, they’re paid. Onboarding schedules need to flex around these, especially in Q1 when the holiday calendar is stacked.
The onboarding effect
Put simply:
Probation = flexibility. You don’t need someone fully ramped in week one, you’ve got up to six months to build them into your workflow.
Leave = expectation management. Annual leave won’t hit until close to the one-year mark, but sick days and public holidays are a reality from the start.
For HR teams, this means onboarding in Georgia isn’t a sprint. It’s a structured runway, with probation giving you legal room to evaluate fit and leave entitlements shaping when real time-off kicks in.
Which compliance risks should I monitor when managing EOR-hired staff in Georgia?
Hiring through an EOR in Georgia takes most of the legal admin off your plate. But it doesn’t mean you can go full “set it and forget it.” If you treat compliance like a Netflix auto-play button, don’t be surprised when the tax office decides to binge your company.
Here are the big risks you actually need to watch:
1. Employment contracts that actually hold up
Your team’s contracts need to be drafted in Georgian (or bilingual with English) and must spell out the boring-but-critical stuff: probation, termination, benefits, and IP rights. Miss one clause, and you risk finding out the hard way that your product code technically belongs to your developer.
And let’s kill the most common startup fantasy: calling someone a “contractor” when they’re clearly a full-time employee. Georgia doesn’t buy it. Misclassification here = back taxes, social contributions, possible fines, and a side of reputation damage.
2. Payroll and tax: the landmine you don’t see until it blows up
Even with an EOR running payroll, you can’t just look away. Watch for:
Errors in payslips or late salary payments (employees notice immediately).
Missing or incorrect income tax and pension contributions (the government notices eventually, and it hurts more).
Surprise extras like severance obligations or FX shifts can skew your budget.
Think of payroll like oxygen; nobody talks about it until it’s missing.
3. Data protection (because Excel spreadsheets aren’t a strategy)
Your EOR is sitting on a pile of sensitive employee data—IDs, bank accounts, contracts. If they don’t have airtight data protection, you’re one breach away from fines and angry employees. Make sure they’re using proper data privacy standards, running audits, and not storing payslips in someone’s Dropbox from 2014.
4. Business continuity: what happens if your EOR fails?
EORs are companies, too. If they hit financial trouble or botch operations, your team suffers first. Bake in protections like SLAs and indemnification clauses, and always have a Plan B, whether that’s switching providers or building internal capacity if things go south.
5. Staying current on Georgian law (so you don’t have to Google it at 2 am.)
Labor laws, tax rules, and immigration processes shift. A good EOR keeps up. But you should still check that they’re adapting contracts and payroll filings as the law evolves. At a minimum, stay in regular contact and ask uncomfortable questions. (If they dodge, that’s your red flag.)
What costs and fees typically change as I scale EOR hires across Georgia
Here’s the thing about scaling with an EOR in Georgia: the core costs don’t suddenly balloon just because you went from one developer to ten. But if you’re not paying attention, the “extras” can sneak up on you faster than a Jira backlog on Monday morning.
The base layer (your unavoidable costs)
Every EOR hire comes with three constants:
Gross salary — Expect anywhere from $2,000 to $3,500/month for developers, depending on seniority and stack. That’s your baseline.
Pension contributions — Georgia keeps it simple: 2% from you, 2% from the employee. Small, predictable, but non-negotiable.
EOR fee — With TeamUp, the cost to use EOR in Georgia is a flat €199/month per hire. Other providers love to charge a percentage of salary, which means your costs mysteriously “scale” the second you hire senior talent. (Spoiler: they’re not doing more work, they’re just charging more because they can.)
The add-ons (what actually shifts as you grow)
When you’re building a bigger team, here’s what usually creeps into the budget: Employee benefits, insurance & workspace
Health insurance — not mandatory, but most senior hires expect it. Starts around €49/month.
Gym memberships — another €49/month, because “remote” doesn’t mean “sedentary.”
Coworking space passes — roughly €150/month for flex desks in Tbilisi if your team’s tired of working from their kitchen table.
Training budgets — ~€49/month per employee if you want to stand out as more than “just another remote gig.”
Equipment leasing — laptops, monitors, and accessories run about €69/month per employee.
What doesn’t scale (but should)
EOR compliance, payroll, and contracts don’t suddenly cost more just because your headcount doubled. The paperwork is handled at scale, which means the right provider (hi, that’s us) keeps your admin costs flat. The only thing that changes is your ability to negotiate perks, workspace setups, or team-level benefits once you’re hiring in volume.
The CFO reality check
Hiring one engineer in Tbilisi? It’s affordable. Hiring a 20-person pod? Still affordable—but only if your EOR isn’t nickel-and-diming you with salary-based fees. With TeamUp’s flat pricing, your costs grow in proportion to your headcount, not your job titles. Which means your finance team gets predictable monthly invoices instead of “surprise” fees disguised as compliance.
Who provides equipment & workspace? (and how not to start a laptop custody battle)
If you’ve ever had to wrestle with “who actually owns the MacBook” when an employee leaves, you know equipment disputes can get petty fast. Nothing says “great company culture” like arguing over a charger in the exit interview.
With an EOR in Georgia, you don’t need to play laptop detective. The rule of thumb is simple: you provide the gear, the EOR handles the logistics.
Laptops, monitors, and the rest of the toy box
Most employers choose one of two paths:
Ship it yourself — You order the laptop, track it across customs, and pray DHL doesn’t decide your MacBook is “suspicious cargo.”
Local procurement or leasing via EOR — The saner option. TeamUp (or your EOR) sources, delivers, and even leases equipment locally. About €69/month per employee gets you a preconfigured laptop, with no “it sounds like a jet engine when I open Chrome” excuses.
Either way, ownership and return policies are written into the EOR agreement, so when someone offboards, you’re not chasing gear like it’s a side quest.
Workspace setups that actually work
Let’s face it: not everyone thrives working from a kitchen table between their cat and the kettle. With an EOR in Georgia, you can flex:
Fully remote setups — standard issue for most hires.
Coworking memberships — roughly €150/month in Tbilisi gets your developer a professional desk, fast Wi-Fi, and a coffee machine that isn’t instant.
For hybrid or growing pods, EORs can also arrange private office spaces, handy if your Slack standups keep turning into “whose Wi-Fi is lagging?” jokes.
Health & safety still applies, even remotely
Here’s the kicker: Georgian labor law doesn’t stop at the office door. Even if your hire is fully remote, you’re still expected to provide a safe working environment. That means clear policies on ergonomics, equipment standards, and liability. If your dev pulls a back muscle working from a folding chair you approved, guess who’s responsible?
Conclusion
Onboarding and managing teams in Georgia doesn’t have to feel like juggling contracts, payroll outsourcing spreadsheets, and Google Translate tabs at 2 a.m. An Employer of Record keeps the chaos where it belongs, out of your inbox.
Here’s the math: EOR = faster hiring + zero compliance migraines. You get employees onboarded in days, not months. Payroll, taxes, benefits, and legal filings are handled without you memorizing Georgian labor law. And your team in Tbilisi works like any other part of your company, minus the legal baggage.
Georgia’s talent pool is real. The costs are predictable. The compliance risk is handled. The only thing left is deciding whether you’d rather spend your next quarter debugging contracts or building your product.
If you’re serious about hiring in Georgia without the headaches, TeamUp’s EOR services are your shortcut to scaling clean, fast, and with the kind of compliance your CFO actually sleeps through.
Ready to grow your team in Georgia? Talk to TeamUp today and start onboarding the right way without the drama.
