Georgia Prices 2026: Lunch from 20 GEL, Room from 80

Prices in Georgia in 2026, quoted in lari, look roughly like this: a city transport ride costs 1 GEL, khachapuri from a bakery 3-8 GEL, lunch in a café 20-35 GEL per person, a night in a guesthouse 30-80 GEL, a 3-star hotel room 80-180 GEL, and a group day tour 80-150 GEL. Below are prices by category with specific items, so you can gauge the cost of exactly what you plan to spend on: food, lodging, transport, activities. Every figure comes from 2026 sources; the rate and tariffs shift, so treat these as a guide, not a fixed price list.

Checked 02.07.2026. Prices are in Georgian lari (₾, GEL), pulled from 2026 sources; they move constantly, especially lodging in high season. We show the live lari rate against the dollar, euro, ruble and hryvnia in the site header (source: the National Bank of Georgia). If you want a full trip budget with day-by-day totals rather than a price table, that lives in a separate guide on how much a holiday in Georgia costs for 3, 5 and 7 days. And for how to change money and where it’s cheapest, see our breakdown of currency in Georgia.

The lari rate: how to read the numbers below

Every price below is in lari. For a quick conversion, at the start of July 2026 use roughly: 1 USD ≈ 2.7 GEL, 1 EUR ≈ 3.0 GEL (the rate floats; the exact figure is in the header and on nbg.gov.ge). So 100 GEL is about $37 or €33. The practical takeaway is simple: almost everywhere in the country you pay in lari, and cafés, taxis and market stalls won’t take dollars or euros, so you change your first batch as soon as you land.

Food: where Georgia is cheapest

Food is the most cheerful line item: you can eat well and cheaply here, and the price spread is huge - driven less by the dish than by where you order it. The same serving of khachapuri from a neighbourhood bakery versus a restaurant on Rustaveli Avenue differs two- to threefold, and that’s the main lever for saving money.

One thing to flag for 2026: café and restaurant prices have climbed noticeably. As of May 2026 the average restaurant bill was up about 7.6% year on year, and khachapuri rose the most - plus 11.6% in cafés. Beer in bars went up 10.5%, coffee 6.2%. So if you’re going by reviews from two or three years back, add a quarter to those figures.

The cheapest options are bakeries, markets and street food: khachapuri, lobiani and churchkhela cost a few lari. Khinkali is easier to count per piece: in a plain khinkali house one dumpling is under a lari, in a tourist spot up to 2-2.5 GEL; you usually order 5-10 at a time. What to try first from Georgian cuisine, and where, is in our guide on what to eat in Georgia.

Lodging: where the budget swings most

Lodging is the line that decides which end of the range you land on. The spread is the widest here: a hostel bunk and a boutique-hotel room differ tenfold, and the coast adds another half on top in beach season.

Two things move the price most - season and distance from the centre. At the peak of beach summer in Batumi and over New Year in Gudauri, lodging climbs sharply; in the shoulder months (April-June, September-October) the same rooms go for noticeably less. Guesthouses and family homes almost always beat chain hotels, and in the mountain regions - Kazbegi, Svaneti, Kakheti - the rate often comes with breakfast or half-board, which trims your food spend too. How the season shapes prices overall is covered in the guide on when to visit Georgia.

Transport: from 1 lari a ride

Within cities transport is almost token; between cities you trade speed for price. Start with Tbilisi, where the fares are official and fixed.

A single ride on Tbilisi’s metro, bus or city minibus costs 1 GEL, and transfers are free within 90 minutes - so you can make two changes on one fare. You pay with a MetroMoney card (2 GEL at the metro ticket office) or a regular bank card. If you ride a lot, a pass is better value: a week of unlimited travel is 20 GEL, a month 40 GEL. A Bolt ride around town usually lands at 5-15 GEL, and from the airport to the centre it’s about 30-35 GEL. For the full rundown on the metro, buses and taxi apps, see transport in Tbilisi.

Between cities the marshrutka (shared minibus) is cheapest: Tbilisi-Kazbegi about 15 GEL, Tbilisi-Batumi around 30-35 GEL. The Tbilisi-Batumi train is roughly 20-35 GEL in economy (more depending on carriage class); we compare every option on that route in the Tbilisi-Batumi breakdown. If you rent a car (a basic one is about $30-40, i.e. 80-110 GEL a day), add fuel - petrol 95 holds at about 3.77 GEL a litre. Rules and deposits for rentals are in the car rental section, and cash expenses are easiest to cover in lari, which you withdraw from ATMs (see the guide on currency in Georgia).

Activities, museums and tours

Sights in Georgia are mostly cheap, and many of the main churches and monasteries - Jvari, Gelati - are free. You pay for museums, cave towns, tastings and organised tours.

A winery tasting in Kakheti runs from 15 GEL at simple estates like Shumi up to 30-50 GEL at bigger names such as Tsinandali or Pheasant’s Tears. A group day tour from Tbilisi - to Kazbegi, Kakheti or Mtskheta - costs 80-150 GEL per person; the same route privately is several times more (300-700 GEL for a car with a guide), but the schedule is flexible and you wait for no one. If you’re planning a wine route, the details and best estates are in the guide to wine in Kakheti.

Cash or card: how to pay for these prices

In Tbilisi, Batumi and Kutaisi you can pay by Visa and Mastercard almost everywhere - restaurants, supermarkets, hotels, contactless is long since standard. But you still need cash lari: markets, small vendors, taxis, minibuses, mountain villages and family guesthouses often take cash only. Keep at least 100 GEL in small notes on you, double that in the backcountry. Where to change money more cheaply, which ATMs to use, and why to always pick the charge in lari (GEL) rather than your home currency when withdrawing, is covered in detail in the separate breakdown of currency and changing money in Georgia.

Is Georgia expensive now

In short - prices have risen roughly 30-40% over the past three years, and Georgia is no longer the rock-bottom-cheap destination people remember from 2020-2021 reviews. But by European standards it’s still noticeably cheaper: a full lunch for 20-35 GEL, a city ride for a lari, and a night in a decent guesthouse for 50-70 GEL are prices you won’t find in most of Europe anymore. The easiest savings come from three things: lodging (guesthouses over hotels), food (bakeries and markets over restaurants by the main squares) and transport (minibuses and the metro over taxis and domestic flights). To see how these prices add up across a whole trip, head to the ready budget for how much a holiday in Georgia costs for 3, 5 and 7 days.

Nearby / read also

• How much a holiday in Georgia costs for 3, 5 and 7 days - the same prices, rolled into a day-by-day trip budget.
• Currency in Georgia - where to change money, cards, ATMs, tipping.
• When to visit Georgia - how the season moves lodging and flight prices.
• What to eat in Georgia and transport in Tbilisi - where these lari go first.