Most apartment owners need no construction permit at all: painting, retiling and replacing plumbing in place are free of formalities. A permit appears where you touch load-bearing walls, the façade, wet areas or the designated use of the space. Below is the clear line between "go ahead" and "you need a project", along with timelines, fines and what an unregistered reconfiguration does to a future sale.
- No permit: finishing works, non-structural partitions, replacing plumbing without moving it, internal doors.
- Permit required: load-bearing walls, moving the kitchen or bathroom, changing the façade and glazing a balcony, merging apartments, changing the designated use.
- Review takes up to 20 working days if no additional approvals are needed.
- Fines for unauthorised construction run in the region of 8,000–10,000 GEL, and reach 30,000 GEL in heritage protection zones and within Tbilisi.
- An unregistered reconfiguration surfaces at the sale: formally you are selling something other than what you are showing.
What is allowed without a permit
Cosmetic and even fairly deep renovation needs no permit. You are free to:
- put up or remove non-structural partitions — plasterboard, timber;
- carry out any finishing: paint, tiles, wallpaper, flooring;
- replace plumbing without relocating pipes and connection points;
- change internal doors and interior structures that do not affect the façade.
A typical example: combining kitchen and living room by removing a non-load-bearing wall needs no permit. The same operation on a load-bearing wall does — and those are two entirely different stories in time and cost.
What requires a permit
| Works | Why |
|---|---|
| Load-bearing walls — openings, removal, reinforcement | The building's structure and the neighbours' safety are affected |
| Moving the kitchen or bathroom | Wet areas and the building's utility networks change |
| Façade: windows, doors, balconies, external air-conditioning units | The building's exterior is subject to urban planning rules |
| Increasing the area, extensions, merging rooms | The cadastral characteristics of the property change |
| Merging apartments with cadastral registration | A new object of title comes into being |
| Change of designated use — residential to commercial | Different rules and different requirements apply to the premises |
Glazing a balcony and mounting an external air-conditioning unit feel like trifles, but formally they alter the façade. In central Tbilisi and in heritage protection zones such things are treated most strictly.
How a permit is obtained
In Tbilisi permits are issued by the City Hall, and the path looks like this:
- Checking the property and its legal status: ownership, cadastral boundaries, encumbrances.
- Establishing the urban planning restrictions for the plot or the building.
- Preparing the architectural project — done by a licensed architect.
- Filing the application with ownership documents, the project, any required approvals and the payment receipt.
- Issue of the permit. Review takes up to 20 working days where no additional approvals are needed.
- Commissioning after the works: an application is filed and the site is inspected.
Fines and legalisation
Unauthorised construction is punished by a fine. For Class II and III structures — individual residential houses and small commercial premises — the indicative range is 8,000–10,000 GEL. In cultural heritage protection zones, resort and recreational areas and within the territory of Tbilisi the fine reaches 30,000 GEL.
After a fine is imposed a reasonable period, often around a month, is usually given to remedy the violation.
Legalisation after the fact is possible but it is a separate and slow process: a lawyer and an architect examine the property, the cadastral boundaries, the "red lines" and the zoning, and only then does it become clear whether what was done can be legalised. Planning a renovation on the basis of "we will build now and legalise later" is an expensive strategy.
Reconfiguration and the sale
This is where yesterday's "harmless" renovation turns into a problem. Title and the property's characteristics live in the Public Registry, and if the actual layout does not match the registered one, formally you are selling something other than what you are showing.
What happens in practice:
- a buyer with a lawyer compares the extract with the plan and the discrepancy surfaces;
- if the buyer takes a mortgage, the bank checks the property too, and a mismatch can stop the deal;
- the price goes down, or the deal waits until the documents are put in order.
How to read an extract and check a property is in the Public Registry; the seller's side is covered in selling an apartment.
If you are building a house
For a private house the logic is the same, with the plot added to the picture: the land category, urban planning restrictions, "red lines", utility connections. Foreigners, in addition, cannot own agricultural land — a restriction visible from the property's category in the extract.
The practical order is unchanged: legal status and restrictions first, then the architect's project, then the application to the City Hall, and only after the permit — construction.
What to check before renovating
- Whether the wall is load-bearing — everything else follows from that. The answer comes from the building's plans, not from eyeballing it.
- Whether the current layout matches the registered one: if the apartment was reconfigured before you, the problem is inherited along with it.
- The zone the building sits in: restrictions are stricter in the historic parts of Tbilisi.
- The building's rules and the neighbours' position on shared structures and the façade.
If you are still choosing an apartment and planning a serious renovation, it helps to compare options in advance: prices and spreads by district are on the district pages, shortlisting is in the sale search, and pre-purchase checks are in how to buy safely.