The thing to understand as a gay or bisexual man in Georgia is that your sexual health does not run through the mainstream health system at all. It runs on a parallel track: community NGOs as the front door, the state AIDS Center as the clinical hub behind them, and private labs for the pieces the free services skip. Your family doctor and the Universal Healthcare Programme — the system everyone else uses — barely touch this. Knowing which of the three tracks handles what is the whole game.

🏥 The Three Tracks

1. The community NGO track — your front door. Equality Movement, Tanadgoma and AHF provide free, anonymous HIV testing, free PrEP, PEP referral, condoms, and gay-aware counselling. This is where you start. It is built for you, it works through anonymous codes rather than your name, and it never touches your GP records.

2. The state AIDS Center — the clinical engine. The Tengiz Tsertsvadze Infectious Diseases, AIDS and Clinical Immunology Center (Lubliana Street #70, Tbilisi) runs the national HIV programme: PEP, the PrEP supply, HIV treatment (ART), and confirmatory testing. The NGOs feed into it. Regional AIDS centres operate in Kutaisi, Batumi and Zugdidi.

3. Private labs — the paid gap-fillers. For the three-site gonorrhoea/chlamydia swabs the free services don't do, you pay a private laboratory such as Synevo (around 380 GEL for the STI PCR panel).

💳 Insurance, Residency, and Who Pays

Georgia's Universal Healthcare Programme (UHCP), introduced in 2013, gives Georgian citizens basic state coverage, with emergency care and family-doctor services free. But it matters far less for gay and bi men's sexual health than it sounds, because the things you need most sit outside it:

  • HIV testing, PrEP and PEP are funded through the state HIV programme and international donors (principally the Global Fund), delivered via the AIDS Center and its NGO partners. For the person accessing them, they are free — regardless of insurance status.
  • HIV treatment (ART) is provided free through the state programme, but with a residency condition (below).
  • Private-lab STI swabs and adult vaccines are self-pay whoever you are.

If you are a foreigner or new arrival

  • Free anonymous testing and prevention (Equality Movement, Tanadgoma, AHF) are open to you — they do not gate on residency or a Georgian ID.
  • Free HIV treatment (ART) requires a residence permit or refugee-status confirmation. With that, you register at one of the four AIDS centres (Tbilisi, Kutaisi, Batumi, Zugdidi) on the same terms as citizens.
  • Without a residence permit, you fall outside the state programme for treatment. In some cases a tourist can receive one month of antiretrovirals free but must pay for the CD4 and viral-load tests. For anything beyond that, plan on paying privately or arranging care elsewhere.

📋 Registering as a New Resident

If you are settling here:

  1. Get your residence permit — this is the key that unlocks free state HIV treatment if you ever need it.
  2. Register with the Universal Healthcare Programme at the relevant public service office once you have the permit; note that fully free services under UHCP are targeted at citizens and defined vulnerable categories, so expats often still pay for mainstream care.
  3. For sexual health, go straight to the NGO track — you do not need any of the above to get free testing, PrEP or PEP. Walk into Equality Movement or Tanadgoma.

🚪 The One Principle to Remember

Match the service to the track. Anything preventive or an anonymous check → a community NGO. HIV treatment, PEP, confirmatory testing → the state AIDS Center. Three-site swabs and adult vaccines → a private lab or clinic, self-pay. Your GP and the mainstream UHCP are not the route for any of it.

🏳️‍🌈 One More Reality: The Climate

A 2024 law restricting LGBT life has made the environment around these services more hostile, and NGOs operate under added legal pressure. In practice the services described in these guides are still running — Equality Movement, Tanadgoma and the AIDS Center all continue to see gay and bi men. But discretion is normal here, and it is reasonable to keep your care within the community/NGO track, which is built to protect your privacy. If a service's hours or location have changed, phone ahead using the numbers in these guides.

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