How to open a drive: what a 24/7 shop needs

What a drive is and whether it suits you

A drive is what people call a small shop by the road or in a neighbourhood that is open day and night. Customers drop in for a few minutes: for a drink, cigarettes, bread or whatever is already closed elsewhere at night. Each receipt has only a few items, but there are a lot of receipts.

Before you rent premises, keep in mind how a drive differs from an ordinary shop:

• Night shifts. The shop never closes, so cashiers work in shifts, often 24 hours long, and hand the shift over to each other. The drawer has to be counted at every handover, or you can't pin a shortage on anyone.
• Many small suppliers. Drinks, sweets, cigarettes and bread come from different distributors, some of them several times a week.
• Competing with chains. You can't beat a chain supermarket on price. A drive wins on location, opening hours and speed.

1. Location

Location decides a drive's income more than anything else. Night customers stop where the shop is easy to see and easy to pull up at.

Consider: Can the shop be seen from the road at night? Can a car stop by the entrance? How many people pass nearby in the evening and at night? What stays open around you after 23:00?

Rent varies a lot by neighbourhood and premises, so compare several listings on the same street. If you plan to sell cigarettes, check before you sign the lease that there is no school or kindergarten nearby: selling tobacco within 50 metres of them is prohibited (see point 6).

2. Registration: individual entrepreneur or LLC

You register the business with the Public Registry (NAPR) and file the application at a House of Justice.

• Individual entrepreneur: 26 GEL in 1 working day, 75 GEL for the same day.
• LLC: 200 GEL in 1 working day, 400 GEL for the same day.

A small drive often starts as an individual entrepreneur, because small business status is granted only to a natural person registered as an entrepreneur. If you are opening with a partner, discuss the LLC option with an accountant.

Source: Public Registry (NAPR): service fees and terms (in Georgian), checked on 21 October 2026.

3. Taxes

• Small business status. An individual entrepreneur whose annual income does not exceed 500,000 GEL pays 1% of income. If you pass that threshold during the year, the rate is 3% from that month to the end of the year.
• Micro business status rarely fits a drive. It is granted only to an entrepreneur who works without employees, with annual income up to 30,000 GEL, and a drive needs cashiers.
• VAT. If your taxable transactions exceed 100,000 GEL in any 12 months, you must apply for VAT registration within 2 working days. 100,000 GEL a year is about 275 GEL of sales a day, so a busy drive can reach this threshold in its first year.
• Cash register fines cost you the status. Small business status is cancelled if you are fined three or more times in one calendar year for breaking the fiscal cash register rules.

Check: sources disagree on whether a shop that sells excise goods, such as cigarettes and alcohol, keeps small business status. Before you write a business plan that counts on the status, find out on RS.ge or from your accountant.

Source: Tax Code of Georgia, Articles 84-90 and 165, checked on 21 October 2026.

4. Fiscal cash register

Under Article 259 of the Tax Code, cash payments from customers must go through a fiscal cash register. Working without one, or not using it for a cash sale, is fined 200 GEL under Article 281, and three such fines in one year will also cancel your small business status. The Revenue Service publishes the list of approved devices.

Ask: Does your software print a fiscal receipt itself, or do you need a separate fiscal cash register? Is the device in the RS.ge register?

Sources: Tax Code, Articles 259 and 281 and RS.ge: cash registers (in Georgian), checked on 21 October 2026.

5. Food business operator registration

Anyone who sells food is a food business operator and must register in the register of economic activities: operating without registration is prohibited.

• Registration with the Public Registry costs 39 GEL and takes 2 working days, or 78 GEL for the same day.
• According to the National Food Agency, the registration has to be renewed every year.
• The fine for operating without registration is 100 GEL with small business status and 500 GEL otherwise.

If you prepare food on site, for example hot sandwiches, you will also need procedures based on HACCP principles. Find out from the National Food Agency what applies in your case.

Sources: Food/Feed Safety Code, Articles 13 and 65 (in Georgian), Public Registry (NAPR): economic activity registration fee (in Georgian) and National Food Agency (in Georgian), checked on 21 October 2026.

6. Cigarettes and alcohol

Cigarettes and drinks are a large part of a drive's income, but selling them has its own rules. Under the Law on Tobacco Control:

• Selling tobacco to minors is prohibited. If there is any doubt about the buyer's age, the cashier must ask for an ID card.
• Tobacco must not be visible from inside or outside the shop, and it must be kept apart from food, for example on a closed shelf.
• Selling tobacco in schools and kindergartens and within 50 metres of them is prohibited.
• Cigarettes are not sold singly.
• You must put up a warning of at least A4 size in the shop about the harm of tobacco and the ban on sales to minors.

Selling alcohol to minors is prohibited too. Alcohol, beer and tobacco must carry an excise stamp, so only take goods from a supplier who gives you a waybill.

Sources: Law on Tobacco Control, Article 5 (in Georgian), Law on the Protection of Minors from Harmful Influence (in Georgian) and Tax Code, Article 192, checked on 21 October 2026.

7. Hardware

At a minimum, a drive's checkout needs this hardware:

• a computer or touchscreen for the POS software;
• a barcode scanner, because at night the queue depends on how fast each receipt goes through;
• a receipt printer and a cash drawer;
• a label printer for goods that have no barcode;
• a bank card terminal, which you request from your bank;
• a fiscal cash register, if you take cash (see point 4).

8. Goods and suppliers

In a drive, goods come in often and in small batches. If you don't record every delivery, you can't tell how much is on the shelf, how much you owe each supplier or where goods go missing.

Consider: record every delivery on the same day, keep the waybill and count the shelf at least once a month.

9. Drive software: what it must do

Drive software is ordinary shop software, but night trading asks four things of it:

1. 1Fast sales with a scanner, so no queue builds up at night.
2. 2A shift per cashier, with their own code and a cash count at handover.
3. 3Selling without internet, because the connection drops at night too.
4. 4Stock that is deducted by itself with every sale.

What it costs: official fees

Rent, your first stock and hardware depend on the location and your range, so ask several suppliers for prices. The official fees are the same for everyone:

Before you open: check

1. 1If you will sell cigarettes, check that there is no school or kindergarten within 50 metres.
2. 2Register as an entrepreneur and apply for small business status.
3. 3Register as a food business operator.
4. 4Buy and register a fiscal cash register, and request a card terminal from your bank.
5. 5Enter your range in the software and print labels for goods that have no barcode.
6. 6Give each cashier their own code and practise opening and closing a shift with a cash count.
7. 7Put up the tobacco warning and accept excise goods only with a waybill.

If you'd like us to show you the till with your own products, see pricing or contact us.