The Verification-Heavy Underdog
Georgia numbers its residency law the way an engineer numbers a manual. Permits carry thresholds in US dollars. The tax code carries article numbers, and each article says one thing. The road to permanent residence runs six years, printed in the statute.[10] This page is the claims-heavy underdog of the comparison set for that reason. Almost every line below can carry a citation. The two countries’ records read like two different genres of document.
Panama’s half of the ledger is shorter but steeper. Its routes print floors in balboas and dollars. Two of them land in permanent residency at once. Its general citizenship clock runs five years.[6][8] Which country fits depends on the banking and border profile you carry. That axis closes the page. It is framed as your own profile, not as facts about either country’s banks or borders. The register behind this page holds none of those.
The Permits and Their Dollar Thresholds
Georgia runs six residence-permit types: investment, short-term property, work, IT, study, and family reunification.[10][11] Four of them price in money or income. The prices are published at the dollar level.
| Permit | Threshold | Maintenance |
|---|---|---|
| Investment | USD 300,000 invested, with family included[11]. | Annual turnover of USD 50,000 in year 1, 100,000 in year 2, and 120,000 in years 3 through 5[11]. |
| Short-term property | Non-agricultural real estate at a market value above USD 150,000, set by a certified appraiser[11]. | Holding the property; the permit rides the asset[11]. |
| IT residence | 2 years of IT experience, plus pay of at least USD 25,000 a year[11]. | The remuneration level, for tech freelancers and employees[11]. |
| Work | Income of at least 5 times the subsistence minimum[11]. | The employer’s turnover of GEL 50,000 per alien worker[11]. |
The investment row hides half its cost. The entry fee is not the whole price. USD 300,000 opens the permit. The turnover ladder keeps it: 50, then 100, then 120 thousand dollars a year through year five.[11] A reader budgeting only the stake is budgeting half the rule. The property permit is the passive one. It asks an appraised asset above USD 150,000, with no turnover ladder attached.[11] The IT permit prices a career rather than a stake: two years in tech and USD 25,000 a year of pay.[11] The work permit prices a job against the subsistence minimum, with the employer’s turnover in play.[11]
Panama prices differently. The Friendly Nations category is the cleanest contrast. One tie, chosen from three: property at B/.200,000, a deposit held three years, or a local job. The road runs two provisional years into permanent residency.[4][5][3] There is no turnover ladder. There is also no permit priced for a tech career, which is Georgia’s own lane.[11] A reader whose qualification is a job history, not a stake, finds one door in this pair and not the other.
Two Georgian permits carry no price at all: study and family reunification.[10] They ride a school place or a relationship instead of money. They count as residence permits all the same. The six-year clock in the next section treats some of that time differently, which is where the fine print starts to matter.
Six Years to Permanent Residence
Georgia’s permanent residence permit arrives after six years of holding a temporary permit. Not all temporary time counts. Study, medical treatment, and diplomatic stays are excluded from the count.[10] Two family shortcuts bypass the wait. The spouse, parent, or child of a Georgian citizen gets the permanent permit directly.[10]
Panama’s waits run shorter on every track. Friendly Nations runs a two-year provisional stage, then the permanent filing.[4] The pensionado program skips waiting altogether. It asks a lifetime pension of at least B/.1,000 a month, or B/.750 with a B/.100,000 property purchase, and grants PRP-JP permanent residency from day one.[6][7] Six years against two, or six against zero. A reader who prices time needs no help noticing the gap.
Citizenship widens it. Georgia naturalizes after 10 consecutive years of lawful residence, plus an examination in the Georgian official language, history, and law, granted by the President. Spouses of Georgian citizens get a simplified 5-year track.[10] Panama counts five years generally, three where Panamanian family ties exist, two for Spain and Colombia. An express renunciation of the prior nationality comes with every grant.[8][9] A US reader comparing endgames sees ten tested years on one side and five on the other. The family lanes differ in kind too: Georgia hands the close family of citizens a permanent permit directly, while Panama’s family tie shortens the citizenship clock instead.[10][9]
The Tax Code, Article by Article
Georgia’s individual income tax is a flat 20 percent on a natural person’s taxable income. That is Article 81.[12] The code then drills special regimes into the same base. Each regime has its own article.
| Provision | What it says |
|---|---|
| Tax Code Art. 81 | 20% flat tax on a natural person’s taxable income[12]. |
| Tax Code Art. 81, rent rule | 5% special rate on residential-rent income, with no deductions allowed[12]. |
| Tax Code Art. 90 | Small-business status at 1%, rising to 3% above GEL 500,000 of gross income[12]. |
| Tax Code Art. 86 | Micro business at 0%[12]. |
| Tax Code Art. 79 | Non-resident individuals are taxed only on Georgian-source income[12]. |
| Tax Code Art. 104 | Defines Georgian-source income by type: employment in Georgia, goods and services supplied in Georgia, and the like[12]. |
Read the last two rows as one rule. That is how the code writes it. Article 79 scopes a non-resident’s tax by source. Article 104 says what counts as the source, type by type: work done in Georgia, goods and services supplied in Georgia, and the other listed kinds.[12] This page will not compress those two articles into a slogan. The scope runs by income type, not as a blanket pass on foreign money. Picture a reader with salary from abroad, rent from a home country, and one Georgian client. That reader holds three different answers. The articles sort them.
Set Panama’s line beside the articles. Panama’s income tax is territorial, and foreign-source income is not taxed.[1][2] That is a system-level rule, one sentence wide. Georgia’s is a 20 percent flat code with named regimes and a source test defined across two articles.[12] The rent rule shows the flavor. Residential-rent income pays 5 percent, but no deductions come with it.[12] A landlord comparing the two countries compares a rate against a base, and the base is the harder half of the sum.
A Translation Gap You Should Know About
Here is the feature most comparisons skip. The English consolidation of Georgia’s aliens law, on the official publisher matsne, lags the Georgian original on the investment and property thresholds. The gap is confirmed, and it is worth planning around. The Georgian-language text sets the investment permit at USD 300,000 in GEL-equivalent terms. It sets the property permit above USD 150,000, GEL-equivalent. Both match the operative SDA page. The English consolidation still carries older figures, GEL 300,000 and USD 35,000. Third-party sites carrying a USD 100,000 investment figure are stale too. The conflict was resolved against the Georgian original on 2026-09-08.[10][11][13]
This page prints the dollar figures from the Georgian original and the SDA page, not from the English consolidation.[10][11] The lesson generalizes past Georgia. An English translation of a law is a convenience, not the law. When a translated threshold looks too good, check the original text and the agency’s operative page before budgeting around it. A USD 35,000-looking property permit was never the rule. It was a translation that had not caught up.[13]
The method is worth three sentences of its own. Find the statute in its original language. Find the agency page that operates the permit today. Date every third-party figure and check it against both. That sequence would have caught the stale USD 100,000 claim before it spread, and it works in any country, not just this one.
Banking and Border Profile as the Deciding Axis
The instruments above can be weighed on paper. The axis that usually decides this pair cannot, because it lives in the reader. Where is your money banked, and what does each country’s paperwork ask of that bank? What passports does your household carry, and how does each border regime treat them? The register here holds no banking-access facts and no visa-free-travel facts. It asserts nothing on either count. The questions are yours to run, with a professional who can see your file.
What the record does settle, it settles cleanly. Georgia offers a documented, dollar-priced ladder to a six-year permanent permit, a flat 20 percent code with named regimes, and a ten-year citizenship road with an exam.[10][12] Panama offers lower-friction statuses, two of them permanent at or near the start, a five-year citizenship clock, and a tax base that does not tax foreign-source income.[4][7][8][1][2] A reader whose profile leans toward formal, document-heavy systems and a long horizon has a real case for Georgia. A reader optimizing for speed to permanence has a shorter path in Panama. Put the file in front of a lawyer licensed where you plan to file, and have every figure dated at filing time. The residency hub maps Panama’s remaining routes.
Frequently Asked Questions
Where do most US expats live in Panama?
Expat geography sits outside this page's register, which covers residency law, so no city or region gets named as where most US expats live. What the record does verify is the contrast the searcher usually needs: Georgia holds a six-year wait before its permanent residence permit, while Panama's tracks reach permanent status in two years, or on day one for the pensionado. Citizenship runs ten tested years in Georgia against five in Panama for a US applicant. Where you live inside either country is a separate question from what status you hold there.
Can US citizens get residency in Panama?
Yes, through the published pathways, none of which bars US citizens by nationality. A lifetime pension of B/.1,000 a month grants pensionado permanent residency from day one; a B/.200,000 tie of property, a three-year deposit, or a local job runs Friendly Nations from two provisional years into permanent status; and USD 300,000 or more in the investor route grants permanent residency directly. Georgia's side prices its permits on documents too: a USD 300,000 stake with turnover upkeep, an appraised property above USD 150,000, or a tech career at USD 25,000 a year. Neither system asks a US citizen for anything the published thresholds do not already list.
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