Pension increase in Georgia
From 1 January 2027, the Georgian government will increase pensions for people under 70 by 45 lari instead of the planned 20 lari. Their monthly pension will therefore rise to 415 lari (around $160). Meanwhile, Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze argues that setting a minister’s salary below 12,000 lari encourages officials to engage in corruption.
As of August 2026, 905,000 people in Georgia received an old-age pension. Of these, 420,000 were under 70, while 485,000 were aged 70 or older. The initial draft budget for 2027 allocated up to 5.6bn lari (around $2.16bn) for pensions. The announced change will increase this amount by 128m lari (around $49.4m), bringing the total to 5.7bn lari. Under the law, an ordinary member of parliament’s salary, before tax, should rise by 1,080 lari, from 12,800 to 13,880 lari (around $5,359). The Georgian Dream party may decide not to implement this increase.
Kobakhidze said the indexation mechanism under current legislation would have increased pensions by just 20 lari. However, the government decided to raise payments further. The change does not apply to pensioners living in mountainous settlements, where different rules govern pension supplements.
Implementing the decision announced today will require an additional 128m lari in state budget spending.
What did Irakli Kobakhidze say?
According to the prime minister, social spending accounts for more than 33% of the state budget. Available figures show that the government allocated more than 5bn lari for old-age pensions in 2026, while 540m lari went towards co-financing the funded pension system. For comparison, Kobakhidze noted that pension spending totalled 1.065bn lari in 2012.
Kobakhidze said further increases in social spending carry fiscal and macroeconomic risks. He stressed that social spending had already reached the upper limit recommended by international financial institutions. Exceeding that threshold, he warned, could slow economic growth, fuel inflation and undermine Georgia’s access to international financing.
Nevertheless, he promised that the Georgian Dream government would continue looking for ways to increase pensions for people under 70 beyond the statutory indexation rate in the coming years. He added, however, that any increase must remain within acceptable budgetary limits.
Alongside the pension announcement, Kobakhidze addressed public sector pay, linking low ministerial salaries to potential corruption risks.
“Paying a minister less than 12,000 lari means pushing them towards corruption,” he said, explaining that new figures put a minister’s take-home salary at around 12,000 lari.
Kobakhidze argued that a private sector role with comparable responsibilities and workload could pay between 50,000 and 100,000 lari a month. He rejected the suggestion that 12,000 lari was a high salary for a minister.
“Given the work a minister does and the responsibilities they bear, they would earn at least 50,000–100,000 lari in a comparable private sector role. Yet we are expected to accept that 12,000 lari is a high salary for a minister. Is that reasonable? Is it really that high?” Kobakhidze said.
He noted that ensuring public officials receive decent salaries forms part of the government’s anti-corruption policy. In this context, he recalled the previous government’s time in office, saying that Bidzina Ivanishvili, the founder of Georgian Dream, had used his own money to pay salary supplements to public servants. Kobakhidze presented this practice as a measure to combat corruption.
How much will the pension increase cost Georgia’s budget?
Paata Kvizhinadze, chairman of the parliamentary Finance and Budget Committee, said that raising an MP’s salary by 1,080 lari would cost the state budget 1–1.3 million lari. By contrast, increasing the old-age pension by just 1 lari would require 11 million lari.
“MPs’ salaries are not set to increase under the initial draft budget. Even if the increase had been included, it would have added only slightly more than a million lari to budget expenditure — around 1.3 million lari. Meanwhile, raising pensions by 10 lari requires 111 million lari, while an increase of just 1 lari costs 11 million lari. Therefore, we should not link MPs’ salary increases to pension increases,” Kvizhinadze said.
Pension increase in Georgia