In their own words · Digital Nomad · Lisbon
How Maya J. rebased her design studio to Lisbon on the D8 visa in 11 weeks.
Maya Jenkins, 34
Independent product designer · Brooklyn, NY → Alfama, Lisbon · D8 visa granted March 2026
Interview by the Travel Dialog editors · Published July 2026
In their own words · Digital nomad · Tbilisi
Elif D. moved her four-person SaaS from Berlin to Tbilisi in autumn 2025 on the Remotely from Georgia one-year residency. Setup budget was $2,900 USD, most of it flights for the team and a first-and-last on a Vera two-bedroom. Ongoing cost is about $1,850 USD a month for the whole household. We asked how the move actually ran.
Travel Dialog: Why Georgia?
One-year visa-free stay for EU passport holders, English at the tax office, and 1% tax on my SaaS revenue under the Individual Entrepreneur scheme. Berlin’s numbers stopped making sense at the second developer hire; Tbilisi’s numbers made sense at the fourth.
What did the residency process actually take?
Three weeks after I landed. Individual Entrepreneur registration at the Public Service Hall was 90 minutes and 50 GEL. Bank account at Bank of Georgia the same afternoon. Small Business Status for the 1% tax rate took another week. The tax office in Tbilisi answers questions in English; the one in Batumi did not.
Register as Individual Entrepreneur on day one. Apply for Small Business Status on day two. Everything else waits for those two.
Elif D., SaaS founder, Tbilisi, one-year residency
Where did the team live?
Vera. Two-bedroom on Kiacheli Street, $850 a month, six-month renewable. My two other developers took studios in the same building for $500 each. We work from Impact Hub Tbilisi on Ingorokva; 550 GEL a month per desk.
Real monthly cost for the household?
$1,850 USD covers rent, utilities, three coworking desks, groceries, and eating out four times a week. Health insurance from ExpatGeorgia at $65 a month per person on top. Bolt to anywhere in the city runs $2 to $4.
Biggest surprise?
How much software work Tbilisi already has. I expected to be alone; there is a Georgian dev community that meets at Terminal Coworking on Thursdays. I hired my fourth engineer from that room in month three.
What would you tell a founder thinking about it?
Come for two weeks first. If you like it, register the IE on your second trip and lease on your third. The tax math only works if you actually enjoy living here.
- Individual Entrepreneur + Small Business Status = 1% tax on gross revenue up to 500,000 GEL. Register both on arrival.
- Bank of Georgia opens a business account same day; Tbilisi branch, English service.
- Impact Hub for the private phone booths; Terminal for the dev community meetups.
- ExpatGeorgia insurance at $65 a month per person; SafetyWing is cheaper but not accepted by every Tbilisi clinic.
Related reading
- Tbilisi guide, from four of our interviewees
- First nomad visa application, step by step
- Portugal Digital Nomad Visa (D8)
The editorial team
Named editors, real bylines.
Elena Martz
Editor in chief
Ten years at Roads and Kingdoms and Afar. Runs interviewing cadence. Based Brooklyn, New York.
Priya Bhandari
Destinations editor
Former Lonely Planet contributing writer. Writes the destination deep-dives that cite our interviews. Lisbon-based.
Jonas Reid
Planning editor
Digital-nomad visas and practical planning. Filed the Portugal D8 himself in 2024. Verifies every visa page every six months.
