161,885 Georgians have travelled visa free to Europe in past seven months
Tweet 
Share
Georgia’s Ministry for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration has informed the local media that between March 28 and October 20, a total of 161,885 Georgian citizens have traveled visa-free to the EU’s Schengen Zone.
Allegedly 9,875 out of the people have violated the Georgia-EU visa deal and did not return back after the end of 90 days,” the ministry says.
However, the ministry has not confirmed information on how many people of the 9,875 stayed in the Schengen Zone and how many left for a third country in line with the regulation.
28,597 of the Georgian visitors were between 31-40 year-old.
61,747 of the total visitors were female and 53,587 male.
The Georgia-EU visa waiver came into play on March 28, 2017.
Georgian citizens holding biometric passports can travel to the Schengen Zone for a period of 90 days within any 180-day period for purposes other than working.
Georgia’s Deputy Interior Minister Shalva Khutsishvili says that 55,000 Georgian citizens have made use of Georgia-EU visa-free travel since March 28, 2017. 3,000 of those people have not yet returned back, after the expiration of the 90-day period, Khutsishvili told IPN news agency, saying this may not necessarily mean that the people violated the agreement rule.
From now on, Georgian citizens no longer need a visa to travel to the Schengen Zone. The regulation lifting visa requirements for Georgians entered into effect today, Tuesday, March 28.
Agenda.ge’s team of journalists will be some of the first Georgian citizens to cross the EU border without a visa requirement early tomorrow morning.
Georgian citizens will be able to travel to any of the Schengen Zone countries visa-free in just 20 days. New legislation lifting visa-requirements for Georgians has been published in the European Union’s Official Journal today.
Almost all countries that were granted the visa-free regime with the European Union (EU) had initially similar violation statistics as Georgia, says the Deputy State Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration of Georgia.
The official data of the Ministry of Internal Affairs reads that between March 28 and November 2 in total 165,059 Georgians used the benefit of visa free travel to the EU.
Georgia continues to fulfill its visa liberalisation requirements, but there is a number of specific areas where further improvement of the implementation is expected. This is stressed in today’s report by the European Commission on fulfillment of visa liberalisation benchmarks.
The Georgian Ministry of Justice and its Service Development Agency have created an application to help Georgian citizens calculate their days in the Schengen Zone and avoid the violation of the terms of legal stay.
Georgian Prime Minister Giorgi Kvirikashvili has confirmed today that new regulations will be established concerning the changing of surnames to prevent Georgian citizens from violating the Georgia-EU visa free regulations.
In total 8,339 Georgian citizens changed surnames in 2017, the Georgian Justice Ministry reports. The statistics come after the Georgian government had announced plans to make the changing of surnames more complicated to prevent the illegal flow of Georgian citizens to the EU countries.
The Georgian passport has taken five steps forward and now ranks 48th in international the passport index rating published by Henley & Partners.
The Georgian passport now holds the 50th place in the Henley Passport Index, which ranks all the passports of the world according to the number of countries their holders can travel to visa-free.
About 1.4 million Georgians have left the country between 2002 and 2017, a study conducted by the NGO Society and Banks with the support of the Ilia University Financial Education Centre reads.