The 1% Individual Entrepreneur works well for tutors and coaches — the income is service fees and costs are minimal. But tutoring differs from most remote professions in one important way, and it is worth understanding before your income grows.

Does this describe you?

You teach online — languages, school subjects, exam prep, music — or you coach clients on business, career or life. Students pay you directly, or you take bookings through a tutoring platform, or a school contracts you to deliver lessons. Those three routes are not the same for tax purposes.

Why the 1% rate applies

An IE with Small Business Status pays 1% on turnover, up to 500,000 GEL a year. Turnover is what students or platforms pay you. Since teaching has almost no deductible cost base, a turnover tax suits the profession well.

The B2C point tutors must understand

Most remote professionals invoice foreign companies, which puts them in B2B territory where the supply is outside Georgian VAT and excluded from the VAT-registration threshold. Tutors are often the exception: if your students are private individuals paying you directly, that is B2C, and the place-of-supply analysis is different. Such sales can count toward the 100,000 GEL VAT-registration threshold.

This does not make tutoring a bad fit — the 1% still applies, and many tutors never approach 100,000 GEL. But it does mean you should know which side of the line your income sits on, because a successful year can create a VAT question that a developer on a B2B contract would never face.

Platforms and schools change the picture

If a tutoring platform or a language school abroad is the one paying you — you invoice the company, and it handles the students — then your customer is a business, and you are back in B2B territory with the more favourable treatment. Many tutors have a mix: some private students, some platform work. That mix is exactly what is worth mapping out early.

What to watch

• Direct private students — B2C income can count toward the VAT threshold.
• Mixed income — map the platform/company share versus the private share.
• Payments to a personal card — keep business income in the business account so turnover is traceable.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I pay VAT if my students are private individuals?

Teaching private individuals is B2C, which follows a different place-of-supply analysis than B2B, and such sales can count toward the 100,000 GEL VAT-registration threshold. The 1% turnover tax still applies either way.

What if a school or platform pays me instead?

Then your customer is a business. If it is a company outside Georgia, the supply falls outside Georgian VAT and is excluded from the registration threshold — the same treatment other remote professionals get.

Is coaching treated the same as tutoring?

Broadly yes — what matters is whether your client is a business or a private individual, not the label of the service.