Georgia launches international iGaming licenses, and the payment setup is the part worth watching

Georgia has fully launched a new international iGaming licensing regime for operators serving only foreign players. The license itself is not the main story for high-risk payments teams; the real question is whether the promised banking and card-processing setup around it actually works in practice.

1. The regime is aimed at operators that work only with foreign players. Georgian citizens cannot use these platforms. The license is issued for 5 years and can be applied for remotely.
2. This is not a pure paper jurisdiction. Operators do not need gaming premises, but they must have a registered office in Georgia and local server infrastructure.
3. On the economics side, the stated terms are 5% GGR, a 1% regulatory fee, a fixed annual fee of 100,000 GEL, and 0% tax on profit retained in the business. Georgia also says access to Georgian corporate banking infrastructure is available.
4. For payment operations, the key detail is the stated acceptance of card payments with gambling MCC 7995 and the ability to connect to Georgian corporate banks. In other words, Georgia is trying to package the whole chain: license, company, bank, payments.
5. For high-risk operators, this could become an alternative to classic offshore jurisdictions, especially for companies looking for a post-Curaçao option with clearer banking infrastructure and a gambling MCC that is actually usable. The catch is simple: until the first live setups appear — operator to Georgian bank to PSP/acquirer to MCC 7995 — the model is still a promise, not a proven route.

For the payments market, the real signal is not how many licenses get issued. It is how many working payment rails appear inside this jurisdiction. If the banking side performs the way it is being presented, Georgia could become another magnet for international iGaming.