Driving in Tsqaltubo: Limited traffic zone

Tsqaltubo, Georgia · Limited traffic zone

Official name ქალაქ წყალტუბოს ადმინისტრაციულ ერთეულში საგზაო მოძრაობის ორგანიზების წესები

What applies

Tsqaltubo is a spa town in Imereti, and its central park — the ring of sanatoria and mineral baths the town exists for — is closed to motor traffic by a set of "no entry" signs rather than by a charge, a permit or an emission class.

The rules are an annex to decree №7 of the Tsqaltubo Municipality Sakrebulo, adopted on 28 May 2026 and in force since it was published on 1 June 2026, made under article 16(2)(k) and article 61(2) of the Local Self-Government Code and article 7(3) of the Georgian Road Traffic Act.

The annex does four things and two of them restrict driving: item 1 installs the prohibitory sign "შესვლა აკრძალულია" — No entry, sign 3.1 — at the entrances to the central park and at named approaches around it, and item 4 installs "სატვირთო ავტომობილების მოძრაობა აკრძალულია" — freight vehicles prohibited, sign 3.4 — at three junctions. The other two items, sign 3.27 (no stopping) near the market on A.

Tsereteli street and sign 3.28 (no parking) at the school, the Cold Lake car park and one park entrance, are stopping and parking rules rather than access rules, and this record does not cover them. There is exactly one written exemption and it is unusually broad: article 4 of the decree says the prohibitory sign does not apply to owners of immovable property located inside the area the sign covers.

No hours are stated anywhere in the decree, no fee exists, and no vehicle is admitted on the strength of its emission class. The decree itself names no penalty — article 3 sends the driver to the Administrative Offences Code of Georgia, whose article 125(7) sets 100 GEL for disregarding a prohibitory sign.

Source: სსიპ „საქართველოს საკანონმდებლო მაცნე“, read 2026-09-19
Full citation

სსიპ „საქართველოს საკანონმდებლო მაცნე“ (Legislative Herald of Georgia) — the national register, serving the decree in full. This document has never been amended: the page carries no consolidated-publication list and no paywall notice, so the free text here is the text in force, which is not true of every act on this host (D-197)

Daily charge

There is no charge, and this is not a gap in what we hold. The decree's instrument is a road sign, not a tariff: it tells the municipality to install sign 3.1 and sign 3.4 at named places, and a prohibitory sign has no price at which it stops applying. Nothing in the decree, and nothing in the article 125(7) penalty it points at, offers a payment that buys entry.

When it operates

The decree states no hours at all. It names the signs and where they go, and neither sign 3.1 nor sign 3.4 carries a time plate in the text. We do not write "24 hours" from that silence: the Georgian road-sign regulation allows a supplementary plate to limit when a prohibitory sign applies, and whether such a plate is fitted on the ground is a fact about the street, not about the decree, and we have not read it.

Assume the ban is in force whenever you arrive, and read the plate under the sign.

Area covered

The decree lists places rather than drawing a boundary.

Sign 3.1, "No entry", goes at the entrances to the central park (ცენტრალური პარკის შესასვლელებში) and, in the decree's own order, from the direction of the House of Justice, Liberty Bank, the "Tsitsvebi" shop and the "Rkinigzeli" sanatorium; in front of the Museum of Local Lore; on the so-called Europe Bridge; on 26 May Street; at the right and left entrances of "Tsivi Tba" (Cold Lake); at the junction of G.

Tabidze and 9 April streets at the start of D. Aghmashenebeli street; and towards the Tsqaltubo fire-and-rescue unit of the Emergency Situations Service. Sign 3.4, freight vehicles prohibited, goes at three junctions: M.

Samakashvili with Sh. Rustaveli, G. Tabidze with 9 April, and D.

Aghmashenebeli with Tamar Mepe. Those two lists are the whole of the restricted area as the publisher defines it — there is no polygon, no street-by-street schedule of the enclosed streets, and no map.

Source: სსიპ „საქართველოს საკანონმდებლო მაცნე“, read 2026-09-19
Full citation

სსიპ „საქართველოს საკანონმდებლო მაცნე“ (Legislative Herald of Georgia) — the annex to decree №7, which is where the list of sign locations lives; the operative articles of the decree name no place at all

Why there is no map here
The municipality publishes where the signs go, and it publishes it as a sentence: park entrances, a bridge, a museum frontage, two lake gates and three junctions, named after the buildings a local would steer by. There is no map, no coordinate and no street list of what lies inside the ring — and the decree is the only thing the national register holds for this scheme. A polygon drawn from those landmarks would be ours, not the municipality's, and the line it drew would decide whether a driver is fined.
Petrol standard

No emission standard applies, for a petrol vehicle or any other. This is a sign-based access ban: the question it asks is where you are driving and, in item 4, whether the vehicle is a goods vehicle. What comes out of the exhaust is not a criterion anywhere in the decree.

Diesel standard

Nor a diesel standard, and for the same reason. Georgia has no national low-emission-zone framework that a municipality could hang an emission class on, and this decree invents none.

Penalty if you do not comply
100.00 GELSource: სსიპ „საქართველოს საკანონმდებლო მაცნე“, read 2026-09-19
Full citation

სსიპ „საქართველოს საკანონმდებლო მაცნე“ — the Administrative Offences Code of Georgia (საქართველოს ადმინისტრაციულ სამართალდარღვევათა კოდექსი), article 125 "საგზაო მოძრაობის წესების დარღვევა", paragraph 7, which sets 100 GEL for failing to comply with the requirement of a prohibitory sign and names "შესვლა აკრძალულია" — the sign item 1 of the Tsqaltubo annex installs — in the text. ⚠️ SCOPE, MEASURED RATHER THAN ASSUMED: paragraph 7's parenthesis names "შესვლა აკრძალულია" and "მოძრაობა აკრძალულია", and sign 3.4 (freight vehicles prohibited) is neither of those two by name. Whether paragraph 7 reaches item 4 as well is not settled by the words we read, so the figure below is stated for the No-entry ban and is not claimed for the freight ban. The url is the code without a publication parameter, which is the version in force; its latest consolidated publication is dated 16 September 2026

How to comply
  • Start from the sign, not from a permit desk. There is nothing to buy, nothing to register and nobody to apply to: where sign 3.1 stands, motor vehicles may not enter, and that is the whole of the rule.
  • The central park is the place this affects. Its entrances carry the No-entry sign, as do the approaches from the House of Justice, Liberty Bank, the "Tsitsvebi" shop and the "Rkinigzeli" sanatorium, the frontage of the Museum of Local Lore, the Europe Bridge, 26 May Street, both entrances to Cold Lake, and the start of D. Aghmashenebeli street at the G. Tabidze / 9 April junction.
  • If you are driving a goods vehicle, three junctions are closed to you in addition: M. Samakashvili with Sh. Rustaveli, G. Tabidze with 9 April, and D. Aghmashenebeli with Tamar Mepe.
  • If you own property inside the area a prohibitory sign covers, article 4 of the decree exempts you from that sign. It says nothing about proving it at the roadside, and it exempts the owner rather than the vehicle or the visitor.
  • Do not expect a time window. The decree sets no hours; if a supplementary plate under the sign narrows them on the ground, the plate is the thing to read.
  • Sign 3.27 (no stopping) near the market on A. Tsereteli street and sign 3.28 (no parking) at public school №2 on G. Tabidze street, beside Cold Lake and at the railway-side park entrance are part of the same decree, but they restrict where you may leave a vehicle, not where you may drive it.
  • Disregarding a prohibitory sign is an administrative offence under article 125(7) of the Administrative Offences Code, fined at 100 GEL.
Source: სსიპ „საქართველოს საკანონმდებლო მაცნე“, read 2026-09-19
Full citation

სსიპ „საქართველოს საკანონმდებლო მაცნე“ — decree №7 and its annex; every line above is the decree's own content, with the penalty line sourced separately to the Administrative Offences Code

Sources

Next scheduled re-check: 2027-03-19.

Before you set off

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