The first question about an airport car is what it costs. It is a fair question and it usually gets a bad answer, because most of the businesses answering it have a reason to be vague. So here are the numbers, including the ones that make us look expensive.
Tbilisi International sits 17 kilometres southeast of the centre. The airport puts the drive at 20 to 30 minutes, depending on traffic. That distance is the one fact every option below has in common. Everything else is a choice about who absorbs the risk.
The four ways in, with the actual figures
The bus costs one lari. Route 337 runs from in front of the arrivals hall to Station Square via Freedom Square. The airport’s own page puts the fare at 1 ₾ for ninety minutes of travel, paid by bank card or a Metro Money card. It runs roughly between 7am and 11pm. For a solo traveller with one bag arriving at two in the afternoon, this is the correct answer and we will say so.
The airport taxi rank is the second option. The airport’s taxi page puts it at the kerb outside the arrivals hall, running around the clock, at a fixed 40 ₾ to the city centre and 50 ₾ to the suburbs. The fare is rarely the problem. What it does not settle in advance is the address, the language, or which car turns up.
Ride-hail apps work in Tbilisi and are the cheapest way into town once the bus stops running. They are also the option that fails in the most specific ways at the airport, where the pickup zone, the queue and the language of the driver’s messages all behave differently than they do in town.
A booked car is the fourth, and it is the only one with its fare agreed in writing before the plane lands.
Our numbers, in full
We publish a fixed airport transfer fare per car rather than a meter. At the time of writing it runs 350 ₾ for the seven-seat V-Class, 500 ₾ for the S-Class, and 750 ₾ for either Maybach. One fare, one car, agreed in writing before the car is dispatched.
Those are large multiples of a bus ticket and a real multiple of the rank’s fixed fare. We are not going to pretend otherwise, and we are not going to argue that a guest travelling alone with hand luggage at midday is making a mistake by taking the bus.
What the fare buys is a narrow set of things. The price is fixed and agreed in writing before the car is dispatched, so nothing is negotiated at the kerb. The fleet is four cars, each with a published fare. Anything beyond the car and the route, including what happens if the flight is late, is a question to ask when you book; what is included is confirmed in writing with the fare.
Where the cheap option stops being cheap
Three arrivals, specifically.
After 11pm. The bus has stopped. The rank runs around the clock, but a guest standing outside a quiet terminal at one in the morning, with no Georgian, no local number and a hotel address written in Latin letters, is in the one situation where the price difference stops being the relevant variable. It is the arrival a booked car exists for.
Before 7am. The same problem in reverse, with a boarding time attached. We have written at length about why the early-morning slot is the trickiest, and the short version is that there is no slack: book it days ahead and get the fare in writing, rather than hoping for a car on demand at 5am.
More than two people with real luggage. Two cars at rank prices still cost far less than one V-Class. What they lose is the party, which arrives in two pieces, with the bags split between two boots. The arithmetic of the seven-seat car changes somewhere around the fourth passenger.
What to settle before you agree to any fare
Whoever you book, in whatever tier, four things should be written down before the car moves. We ask for them in the booking brief and they are not specific to us.
The flight number, so a delay can be checked rather than guessed. The exact street address with the hotel name, because Tbilisi has several hotels with names close enough to swap, which arriving at Tbilisi’s hotels by car goes into. The currency and the moment of payment, settled in advance rather than at the kerb. And where the guest will be met, including whether they have booked the airport’s own Meet & Greet, whose agents walk them to the car.
A fare agreed without those four is not a fare. It is an opening position.
The number that is not on the rate card
Georgian airports handled a record 8.5 million passengers in 2025, and more traffic means more arrivals at hours nobody would choose. That is where the gap between a booked car and an improvised one matters most.
If the itinerary starts somewhere other than Tbilisi, the comparison changes again, and which Georgian airport the trip should use is usually a bigger lever on the first day than the transfer tier is.
Two arrivals, two answers
A 23:40 arrival that lands at 01:25 is the case to plan for: the bus has stopped, and the guest is tired. Book it days ahead, send the flight number, and ask before you book what happens if the flight is late; what is included is confirmed in writing with the fare, before the car is dispatched.
One traveller with a carry-on, landing at 2pm and staying a few minutes’ walk from Freedom Square, should take the 337. We would tell them so if they asked.
Fixed fares for airport work are confirmed in writing before the car is dispatched. Send a flight number to booking@soitblack.com and you will get a number back, not a range.