Bank of Georgia SOLO Premium Bank Account Review

You may be unable to open a bank account without residency in tax hell.

Even if you’re an EU citizen but don’t have temporary or permanent residency there (because you have it as a digital nomad in a better country like Paraguay or Panama), the bank likely won’t open an account for you there for that reason. For this reason, it’s a good idea to start considering a bank account in a country that doesn’t require residency. Georgia is the ideal country for this. Opening your bank account is only possible with your passport.

Are there any good banks at all?

It should be noted that all banks represent an invasion of your financial privacy. They are subject to regulation; they can, at best, block your account or, worse, close it altogether. They have to respond to court orders from all over the world. ‘Bank secrecy’ has not existed anywhere worldwide for many years. There are no banks that can keep it.

But there are worse and better banks.

If you are a digital/crypto nomad with better tax residency, there are quite a few better banks than the ones you have, for example, in the EU. The ones that:

• do not require residency in any country to open a bank account (opening an account is on your passport)
• are crypto-friendly and will not block your account if you send crypto from a local (Georgian) crypto exchange (e.g., cryptal.com, mycoins.ge) or from any Georgian crypto exchanger that is probably completely legal because the tax on crypto in Georgia is 0%
• your new payment cards will be sent to you by courier anywhere in the world. You don’t have to live or do business in Georgia at all
• Georgia still hasn’t signed the automated reporting (CRS) yet, so they’re not reporting you to tax hells out of Georgia (Georgia is going to sign the CRS in September 2024 – but they keep putting it off). I should note that when opening a given account, it is possible to use Paraguay, Panama, or any country other than your passport issuer as your (tax) residence.

An elite SOLO bank account that no other bank will provide you as a nomad

I recently decided to open a premium SOLO Club account with the Bank of Georgia (note that we at Liberation.Travel have been offering this service for over a year now – Protect your privacy, seven reasons why you need a Georgian bank account).

We can complete the opening of a SOLO bank account completely remotely for you without visiting Georgia.

We need an apostilled copy of your passport and a power of attorney authorizing our assistant in Tbilisi to open your bank account. And deliver these documents using the courier service to us in Tbilisi.

The cheapest SOLO X bank account costs just under €7/month when you pay upfront for one year and includes Mastercard World Elite and Visa Platinum cards with travel insurance (similar to Revolut, you can create virtual debit cards for online transactions). The daily withdrawal from each card is approximately €17795. Also included are unlimited visits to airport lounges, thanks to the Mastercard World Elite card.

The mid-priced SOLO Premium account, which costs €10/month when you pay a year in advance, already includes a private banker with whom you can communicate via WhatsApp without restrictions (for example, the last time I dealt with her was to change the main accounting currency from the Georgian lari to the euro, before that, which is the exchange rate used by their payment cards in Argentina). Unlimited airport lounges are a given. And a host of other perks.

I opted for the top package, SOLO Club, for about €24/month, where in addition to SOLO Premium, I also can get American Express Platinum (which is a credit card that you have to apply for and have a deposit for credit specifically) and VISA Signature, which allows me unlimited ATM withdrawals everywhere in the world for free(!) This is something no EU bank offers me.

For most clients, the SOLO Premium package is sufficient for €10 per month.

You can add any physical or virtual SOLO payment card to your Apple Pay or Google Play and make most transactions from your phone.

Payments from the EU to a Georgian bank account usually take 1-2 days. Fees vary as this is an international transfer from the EU side. If you use a service like Revolut, the transfer is free both on the sender and receiver side.

How much does it cost, and how long does it take?

So far, at Liberation.travel, we have offered a complete remote opening of a standard bank account with the Bank of Georgia for €737 and a premium SOLO account for €1337. Since the benefits of SOLO bank accounts and a private banker significantly outweigh the value of a standard bank account (there is significantly less risk of being rejected for a SOLO account than a normal one due to the VIP nature of the client, similarly, in a situation where your passport expires, updating it is significantly easier with a SOLO account than with a standard account), we have decided to offer only premium SOLO bank accounts at the price of €1197.

We are convinced that for this price, you will get one of the best bank accounts in the world.

We can open a SOLO account for you within one week as soon as we receive an apostilled, notarized copy of your passport and relevant power of attorney. The following week, the bank will send your payment cards directly to DHL (anywhere in the world).

The process of opening a SOLO bank account is smooth and hassle-free.

This means only one thing for you – if you want to start enjoying the benefits of an elite SOLO bank account as soon as possible, you must start opening one now! Contact us at info@liberation.travel.