Georgia — Country Risk Report

Georgia (Europe • Eastern Europe). Risk report as of the 19 Jun 2026 FATF plenary.

Moderate country risk, with governance and transparency concerns. Georgia's country risk score is 4.0/10, placing it in the moderate-risk band. The principal driver is weak voice and accountability, alongside political stability risk. Georgia is not currently FATF grey- or black-listed. Georgia is not subject to comprehensive country-wide sanctions. Firms should apply additional scrutiny where exposure involves state-linked entities, restricted sectors, sensitive technology, dual-use goods or politically exposed counterparties.

Recommended treatment

Standard due diligence, with enhanced checks for defined risk triggers.

At a glance

• FATF status: Not currently listed (one indicator only; it does not set the overall country risk rating by itself)
• Comprehensive country sanctions: none identified. Targeted sanctions exposure: possible, screen applicable persons, entities and sectors
• Government effectiveness and rule of law: 4.2/10
• Corruption (CPI 2025): 50/100, rank #56 of 182
• Enforcement data: not yet assessed (no RegActions coverage)

Country Risk Score: 4.0/10 (Moderate)

Higher score means higher country risk (global average 4.6). Full information available. Some evidence is older. Enforcement activity and CPI are shown for context but do not change the score.

All three parts of the score are available.

How this score was calculated

• Financial crime controls: 5.5/10 — 50% of this score
• Government effectiveness and rule of law: 4.2/10 — 30% of this score
• International sanctions: 0.0/10 — 20% of this score
• The FATF assessment is more than five years old.

International sanctions contributes 0.0 because the complete UN, UK, EU and US review found no direct country-level sanctions programme. People or organisations connected to the country may still appear on sanctions lists.

Principal risk drivers

• Government effectiveness and rule of law drive the score; no FATF listing or direct country-level sanctions were identified

Mitigating factors

• Not currently on the FATF grey or black list.
• No comprehensive country-wide sanctions programme.
• Comparatively stronger rule of law and institutions (3.8/10).
• Risk is concentrated in specific counterparties, sectors and transactions rather than applying uniformly.

Business impact

• Customer onboarding (Medium): Additional ownership and control verification may be required.
• Payments and transactions (Medium): Review transaction purpose, counterparties and geographic routing.
• Trade and export activity (Medium): Screen goods, end users and potential dual-use exposure.
• Corporate clients (Medium): Assess state ownership, government links and political exposure.
• Ongoing monitoring (Medium): Apply alerts for ownership changes, sanctions and geopolitical developments.

Recommended controls

• Verify ultimate beneficial ownership using more than one reliable source.
• Identify state ownership, government influence and politically exposed persons.
• Screen entities, directors and beneficial owners against applicable sanctions lists.
• Apply enhanced review to technology, defence, telecommunications, financial services and dual-use activity.
• Document transaction purpose and source of funds where cross-border structures are complex.
• Escalate unresolved ownership opacity or adverse information to Compliance.

Enhanced due diligence triggers

• State ownership / control
• PEP involvement
• Sensitive / restricted sectors
• Opaque ownership
• Adverse media
• Dual-use goods & technology
• High-risk intermediary routing

FATF status: Not currently listed

Georgia is not on the FATF grey or black list as of the 19 Jun 2026 plenary.

Source details

International sanctions by issuing body

• UN: No
• EU: No
• UK: No
• US: No

No means the complete UN, UK, EU and US review found no direct country-level programme. People or organisations may still appear on sanctions lists.

Government effectiveness and rule of law (World Bank 2024, percentile)

• Government Effectiveness: 60/100
• Regulatory Quality: 65/100
• Rule of Law: 60/100

Regulators and legal framework

FATF network

FATF network via MONEYVAL.

• Committee of Experts on the Evaluation of Anti-Money Laundering Measures (MONEYVAL)

Last mutual evaluation: 2020 · report

National regulators

Regulator profiles not yet available on RegActions.

FIU: Egmont Group member (FMS Georgia)

Framework signals

• FATF listing: Not currently listed
• International sanctions: no listed programme identified
• Corruption (CPI 2025): 50/100, rank #56 of 182
• Rule of law (WGI): 3.8/10 risk

Sector exposure

• Banking & payments (Low): No FATF listing, rule-of-law governance within normal range
• Trade & export controls (Low): No sanctions programme or FATF black-list constraint identified
• Crypto & virtual assets (Low): No FATF listing, accountability governance within normal range
• Real estate & luxury assets (Low): Corruption indicators within normal range for high-value assets
• State-linked & procurement (Low): Political-stability and corruption governance within normal range

Derived from sanctions tier, FATF listing, World Bank WGI governance and CPI; no per-sector dataset is asserted.

Georgia: analysis

Georgia's profile is governance-derived, with no FATF or sanctions overlay. Rule of law and institutions (moderate) is the strongest domain, reflecting reforms that have made Georgia a regional outperformer on institutional quality, while corruption (moderate), political stability (moderate) and voice and accountability (moderate) are moderate. The CPI reading is the highest in the South Caucasus. Georgia sits just above the global midpoint on the World Bank governance indicators. MONEYVAL's fifth-round process has recorded steady progress: through successive enhanced follow-up reports, Georgia has re-rated Recommendations 1 and 15 to Largely Compliant after 2024 amendments that strengthened risk assessment and the regulation of virtual-asset service providers, which now register with the National Bank of Georgia. MONEYVAL nonetheless continues to flag the casino and wider gaming sector as the highest domestic money-laundering risk, alongside cash-intensive real estate and inadequate supervision of higher-risk non-financial businesses. The Financial Monitoring Service is the national financial intelligence unit.

Outlook

Georgia's outlook is cautiously positive on the AML/CFT framework, but the risk picture is complicated by domestic political tension and by the country's role as a regional trade, transit and re-export hub, which raises exposure to Russia-linked circumvention flows following 2022. Firms should weight sector risk heavily: the gaming sector and high-value real estate are the principal domestic vulnerabilities, and virtual-asset activity remains a growing area despite the new registration regime. The next FATF plenary in October 2026 is not expected to alter Georgia's clean listing, and the MONEYVAL enhanced follow-up cycle remains the key checkpoint for continued technical-compliance progress.

Key watchpoints

• Assess exposure to the casino and gaming sector, identified by MONEYVAL as the highest domestic money-laundering risk with limited AML supervision.
• Monitor Russia-linked trade, transit and re-export flows given Georgia's position as a regional hub after 2022.
• Track National Bank of Georgia registration and supervision of virtual-asset service providers under the post-2023 regime.
• Watch MONEYVAL enhanced follow-up reporting and domestic political developments that could affect institutional trajectory.

Assessment currency

• FATF status: Not listed (as of 19 Jun 2026)
• Sanctions exposure: None identified (as of Jul 2026)
• Governance (WGI): Latest dataset incorporated (as of 2024)
• Corruption (CPI): 50/100 (as of 2025)
• RegActions assessment: Reviewed (as of 19 Jun 2026)

Public evidence layer

FATF action: none. No FATF call-for-action or increased-monitoring status was identified at the latest plenary. This does not establish low risk.

Contextual signals (not scored)

• FATF network membership: FATF regional network: MONEYVAL (present, as of 2026-07)
• EU non-cooperative tax jurisdictions: Not listed in Annex I (absent, as of 2026-02-17)
• Egmont Group FIU: FMS Georgia (present, as of 2026-07-17)
• Beneficial-ownership register: No live register identified in the source (unavailable, as of 2026-07-17)
• Transparency International CPI: 50/100, rank 56 (present, as of 2025)

Evidence freshness

• FATF monitored-jurisdiction status: current; data 2026-06-19
• FATF mutual evaluation and follow-up ratings: current; data 2026-07-31; follow-up 2025-12; base assessment 2020-09
• World Bank governance indicators: current; data 2024
• UN, UK, EU and US sanctions regimes: current; data 2026-08-16

Contextual signals are public evidence only and do not change the immutable v2 score.

Download evidence PDF · CSV · JSON

Regional peer scores

• Belarus: 6.0/10 (High)
• Bosnia and Herzegovina: 6.0/10 (High)
• Bulgaria: 6.0/10 (High)
• Monaco: 6.0/10 (High)
• Montenegro: 6.0/10 (High)
• Russia: 6.0/10 (High)

Source: FATF black & grey lists · World Bank WGI (CC BY 4.0 — World Bank WGI) · TI CPI (CC BY-ND 4.0 — Transparency International, display only)