Liberty Bank is popular and generally accommodating toward foreign applicants, though it currently has just one, fairly pricey, tariff plan for non-residents.
- Apple Pay support: yes
- Mobile banking: good
- Service quality: average
- Rejection likelihood: average
To open an account: an application form (review fee 10 GEL, sometimes a KYC fee of +50 GEL), an international passport, a local SIM card, and proof of income (an employment contract, an income certificate, or 6-12 months of bank statements with the issuing bank’s stamp, in English).
Pricing: a fairly expensive plan at 25 GEL/month, with the debit Visa card itself an extra 25 GEL. Fees at Georgian banks can change — confirm current pricing directly with the bank before applying.
If remote account opening matters more to you than the specific bank, opening a bank account in Kazakhstan is worth a look as an alternative.
Liberty Bank Reviews
- Liberty’s maintenance fee is 25 lari/month. At the branch, they told me unemployed applicants don’t get accounts at all.
- Liberty (in-branch, multi-currency cards, rates starting at 25 GEL for non-residents, Platinum premium cards available, 1% fee on USD ATM withdrawals).
- Went to a Liberty branch on May 25th and filled out an account application, stating personal use — groceries, everyday spending, that kind of thing. Documents I brought: just a passport, a year’s worth of statements from two of my bank accounts, my phone, and 10 lari. They didn’t ask for anything else. Ideally they wanted an employment contract or something showing salary, which I didn’t have — but they agreed to submit the application anyway. On May 30th they called back saying I’d need to bring an employment contract or proof of where my money comes from — without it, they won’t open any kind of account, even a basic lari one.
- Detailed case study: I applied at Liberty in Tbilisi. Back home I had a sole-proprietor/freelance setup (e-commerce, online courses, digital sales on marketplaces) with no employer or formal employment contracts, income via PayPal. Here I registered as a sole proprietor with small-business tax status (took 2 days). Applied at Liberty on Monday the 11th (their central Liberty Tower branch), at a window where the staff member spoke Russian fluently. Brought: a year of statements from my sole-proprietor account and PayPal, plus the first royalty-payment contract I could find (in my home language, with a company from home) — all printed. They took it but asked me to also email copies. Filled out the application, explained my situation — that I do this work, that I’d come to stay long-term, not just for a couple of months. Offered a year-long housing agreement as proof; they said that wasn’t necessary. Asked for a separate business account plus a business Visa (thinking I could link it to my sole-proprietor setup), plus a universal personal account with its own Visa — all multi-currency. A week and a half of silence. Then yesterday morning they suddenly remembered me — asked for confirmation that money from the contract I’d submitted was actually visible in the statement. I circled the relevant lines in the 200+ page PDF (I assume they just didn’t want to search for it themselves), and uploaded PDF payment confirmations from my home bank’s online banking, with the bank’s official stamp (they specifically wanted the stamp). An hour later — a call: everything approved, come in today so it’s done before the holidays. Went in, and within about 15 minutes had a personal multi-currency account open. Got an unnamed card first; I asked for a named one instead — they said 3 business days (closer to a week and a half with the holidays). Also chose Visa for that one. Paid 70 lari (seemingly just for the account-opening itself) plus 25 lari/month maintenance (still not sure why it’s so pricey). Took a number at another window the same visit and got the business account done too — about 20 minutes. Everything in English, no issues at all — though all the paperwork itself is in Georgian, so I asked them to walk me through what was what. Standard questions: type of business activity, which countries my clients are in, who my main counterparties are (I said PayPal). I’d hoped they’d issue a Visa tied to the business account so I could link a payment processor to it, but no — they said business cards just aren’t issued, full stop. A few downsides with Liberty: 1) They gave me basically no information upfront on limits, fees, cash withdrawal terms, etc. (I gathered informally it’s 1% for withdrawals at their own ATMs). 2) Couldn’t top up the account through an ATM — it wants an ID, and my passport number didn’t work there. 3) Bank of Georgia and TBC have far more ATMs around the city, and I haven’t heard of them charging anything close to Liberty’s withdrawal fee. On the plus side (may not be unique to Liberty): I initially assumed I’d have to wait for online-banking login credentials by mail, but no — that’s apparently only for the business account, which uses a separate Digipass login. For the personal account and card, everything worked instantly; registered in the app with my passport number and immediately saw my card there.
- Really convenient multi-currency accounts. You choose your preferred currency order, but even so, if you pay in, say, euros, it draws specifically from the euro sub-account. So you effectively have 4 separate account balances running at once, with no forced conversion — if the euro balance goes negative, you either cover it manually from the lari balance (with conversion) or top it up with cash directly (no conversion). Not sure if that’s possible through ATMs though.
- I thought I’d miss the classic “instant transfer by phone number” that some other countries have, but the app here does something close — just without being tied to one country or currency. Send yourself money from a card back home using any transfer service (Korona Pay, Unistream, Contact, etc.) in whichever currency, then catch it in the Liberty app on the matching account. $950 went through with no questions asked — not sure about the exact limits, but if you don’t push it too far, it seems to work reliably.
- The internal exchange rate is solid. Your balance always displays in lari, even for money technically sitting in a USD sub-account, but you can manually convert a chosen amount over to lari, and it seems to give a genuinely good rate. After converting that $950, I ended up with about 50 lari more than what the balance had shown while it was sitting in dollars — a nice surprise.
- Sharing a recent round of bank visits — I’m a foreigner, self-employed, no fixed employer or contract, just some client websites, an offer agreement, three years of PayPal statements, and a personal bank statement from home. My main goal was restoring PayPal payment acceptance by opening an account and card here. I’d closed my sole-proprietor registration back home a year ago and opened a new one here. Based in Batumi.
- Liberty, 9 Parnavaz Mepe St. Overall impression was positive, staff were reasonable — one of the tellers spoke and understood English well (she was on the left), though I ended up with a different one in the middle. Filled out the form, explained what I do and how I get paid (PayPal), sent documents over WhatsApp. They said they’d call within a week.
- Got a sole-proprietor account at Liberty using just a freelance agreement.
- I’m self-employed — got rejected the first time at Liberty and told to register as a sole proprietor instead, since they didn’t have a category for my situation. Second time around I described myself as unemployed, receiving support from my spouse — and that worked, they opened the account.
- Sharing my Liberty experience: I was self-employed back home, working through online freelance platforms, with a fairly small income. I was worried at first that they wouldn’t open an account without formal business registration — I’d planned to register here. But decided to just try. Didn’t realize Liberty rejects people fairly often. I found one of the few contracts I had — with a client from abroad, for illustration work, in English — and lightly edited it to add a table with approximate payment dates and service descriptions matching the deposits in my home bank statement. Didn’t bother translating the statement into English. Applied for a personal account as unemployed, and they asked for a contract from previous work to back up the source of the deposits. The statement itself only showed dates and amounts, since it was just withdrawals from PayPal. They called the next day saying it was ready. Today I picked up a multi-currency Visa (unnamed card; named version in 2 weeks). Fee: 25 lari/month, 1% for cash withdrawal. Paid 30 lari for the application review.
- Liberty wants an actual employment contract — a past one works too — plus a statement showing money movement; a bare account-balance certificate wasn’t accepted. That was the situation as of May, at least. SWIFT transfers from the US do arrive, just slowly. No extra fees, no correspondent bank specified.
- Liberty’s maintenance is pricey.
- Based on chat history I’ve seen, nobody’s reported a correspondent bank skimming a cut along the way on international transfers into Liberty.
Get in touch if you’d like help opening an account at Liberty Bank.
If remote account opening matters more to you than which specific bank, opening a bank account in Georgia remotely covers the process across several Georgian banks.
FAQ
Can a foreigner open an account at Liberty Bank? Yes — both personal and sole-proprietor accounts are available, though reviewers report a fairly average rejection rate and inconsistent outcomes between branches.
What documents are required? At minimum: an international passport, an application fee (around 10 GEL, sometimes +50 GEL for KYC), a local SIM card, and proof of income — an employment contract, an income certificate, or several months of bank statements.
How much does an account cost? Reviewers report around 25 GEL/month for maintenance, plus roughly 25 GEL for the debit Visa card itself — on the pricier side compared to some other Georgian banks. Confirm current fees with the bank.
Does Liberty Bank support multi-currency accounts? Yes — accounts hold several currency sub-balances at once (GEL, USD, EUR, and more), with no automatic conversion unless you request it, and reviewers report a favorable internal exchange rate.
Can I receive SWIFT transfers at Liberty Bank? Yes, generally — reviewers report successful SWIFT transfers, sometimes with a short delay, without needing to specify a correspondent bank.
Is Liberty Bank officially licensed? Yes — it operates as a licensed commercial bank under the National Bank of Georgia.
