Georgian Housing Costs Rose 8.5% in the Year to August as Rents Kept Climbing

Geostat put Georgia's housing, water and energy costs 8.5% higher in August 2026 than a year earlier, with actual rents up 8.4% and household energy up 10.3%.

Georgian housing costs — the consumer-price group covering housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels — stood 8.5% above their year-earlier level in August 2026, according to figures the National Statistics Office of Georgia published on 3 September. Actual rents inside that group rose 8.4%. Headline annual inflation was 5.6%, so housing ran close to three percentage points ahead of the wider basket.

Energy bills did most of the lifting

Within the housing group, electricity, gas and other fuels climbed 10.3% over the year and dwelling maintenance and repair costs 8.7%. The group added 0.82 percentage points to the 5.6% headline — less than transport, up 15.2% and contributing 1.81 points, and less than food and non-alcoholic beverages at 5.0% and 1.72 points. Housing is not the loudest line in Georgian inflation this year. It is the most persistent one for anyone paying a Tbilisi rent.

Rents matter more here than the price index does

Trend, reporting on 7 September, paired the Geostat release with analysis from investment bank Galt & Taggart, which put primary-market price growth at 6.1% year on year in May 2026 and the gross rental yield in Tbilisi at 8.4% for the same month, with average rents settling near $10 per square metre. Galt & Taggart expects annual price growth to stay in a 5-7% range, citing urbanisation, shrinking household sizes and rising incomes. In a market where yields are high and capital growth has cooled from its 2022-2023 pace, the rent line carries most of the return.

What our Georgia snapshot shows, and where it stops

Glopra's Georgia row, dated 7 September 2026, carries an average price of $1,640 per square metre and a gross rental yield of 7.42%, one of the highest in our European set. The 12-month price change is 4.9% in local terms and 8.3% in US dollars, the difference being a 3.2% move in the lari over the period. Our Bubble Risk score for Georgia is 36 out of 100, in the moderate band, and the price-to-income ratio is 12.1. Rental income for a non-resident is taxed at a flat 5% of gross under the standard regime, the lowest rate in our dataset outside the Gulf.

One limitation is worth naming. Geostat's residential property price index covers Tbilisi new-build only, so a country-level row built partly on it tracks the capital's primary market more closely than it tracks Batumi resales or housing outside the big cities. Our confidence flag for the Georgia row is set to Medium for that reason.

The question August leaves open

Rents rising 8.4% while primary-market prices rise 6.1% pushes yields up rather than down, the opposite of what usually happens late in a cycle. If that holds into the autumn readings, the Georgian high-yield case strengthens on rent growth rather than on cheap entry prices. If household energy keeps running at 10.3% and starts eating into what tenants can pay, the same gap closes from the other direction.

Sources: National Statistics Office of Georgia (Geostat), Inflation Rate in Georgia August 2026, 3 Sep 2026 https://www.geostat.ge/en/single-news/3840/inflation-rate-in-georgia-august-2026; Trend (Geostat and Galt & Taggart data), 7 Sep 2026 https://www.trend.az/scaucasus/georgia/4221115.html; Georgia Today (Geostat August CPI detail), 3 Sep 2026 https://georgiatoday.ge/geostat-fish-meat-and-meat-products-saw-the-biggest-price-increase-in-august-rising-9-8/

Market data: Georgia