Cildir-Aktas | Customs and Immigration

April 17th, 2024 by wieweitnoch

Super easy and fast border crossing. After half an hour we were in Georgia.

Fuel Stations (2nd is "Connect") with Diesel shortly after the border (2,90 Gel for Diesel).

July 18th, 2023 by Mekongfrank

Very smooth and fast border crossing in the early afternoon from Turkey to Georgia.
Passed a long line of trucks, apart from them I was the only 'customer'. I was told to park at the entrance gate and walk to immigration, about 300 meters of covered walkway. Got my exit stamp right away, walked back to the entrance gate where the customs officer checked my motorbike out of Turkey. Then drive through the long Turkish border post for a final passport and bike papers check at the window.
Georgian side: The immigration officer spoke reasonable English, checked bike papers, insurance (bought at https://tpl.ge/en ), drivers license, and passport. Checked my face against the photo IDs thoroughly, because of my new beard. Good old soviet-communist practice, last time the face check took so long was when I drove into old Eastern Germany in 1988. He also inquired about my trip in Georgia and elsewhere. Then he called the customs guy who checked my bike papers, but nothing else.
Stopped at the petrol station just after the border (no super, I put some liters of normal in), also got a SIM card (40 GEL) and changed some €€. A few kilometers I passed another petrol station, they had super listed.

July 4th, 2023 by instagram.com/de.overlanders

Easy crossing coming from Turkey into Georgia but the procedure is kind of backwards. :-)
You (all) have to get out of the car and walk a long way trough a hallway to passport control. Then, the driver has to walk all the way back to the car and go through a few stations before picking up the passengers up again in the nomansland area. Then, all repeats again in the same way in the Georgian side.

June 2nd, 2023 by the_slow_travel_experience

We crossed from Turkey to Georgia and dar it not been for the lorries blocking the Turkish side, it would have been a very easy border crossing. But we had to squiz ourselves between the trucks, beacause they didn't let a free lane for the car. That took an hour. On the georgian side, everything was more organised. They didn't even check the van. We showed our car insurance that we made online a dat before and it was ok. You can exchange money in the building opposite the passport control, but the exchange rate is not so good.

March 30th, 2023 by instagram.com/yearonwheels/

Turkey-Georgia. Easy border crossing. Maximum 30-45 minutes. You can get insurance a couple of hundred meters on the Georgian side next to the gas station. We payed 35 lari for a month.

July 25th, 2022 by joostenmarijkeopreis.nl

Perfect border. Close to 35 minutes for both sides. Truck queue is on Georgian side and not long. Everybody friendly and helpful. Money change in Georgian building. We bought insurance online at tpl.ge. A new road is being built in Turkish side. Road on Georgian side so so, except stretch around Vachliani is under consteuction.

July 22nd, 2022 by zuziho

Open also for cars, very fast, almost nobody there. Only turkish side was a bit confusing and we needed to pay some traffic fines about which we didn't know.

July 13th, 2022 by sabine

We entered from Georgia to Turkey. Georgia pretty quick: 10 min. Turkey very friendly but unorganized: about 1 hour. On turkish side 5 km commercial truck queue.

June 27th, 2022 by klaasjankos

Border open at this moment. I crossed easily with car from Turkye to Georgia. A massive 9km cue of trucks. I could pass them all and was the only car

April 21st, 2022 by daon.herve

The border is still open now. Lots of trucks but you can cross with a car or a campervan

April 12th, 2022 by KaYe

We went to today from Turkey to Georgia with our van. Mostly trucks crossing the border, but you can pass them once you'll come closer to the gate. Turkish side was a bit chaotic, since they we still not so used to people arriving with their own vehicle (border was only open for trucks for a long time). But Georgian Side was super easy, we could stay in the van. Documents were checked (good to have international driver's license) and custom checked briefly all drawers, cabinets, fridge in the van. All good and were quickly in Georgia.

June 14th, 2021 by TeddyOnTheRoad

Border is closed for anything but trucks from Turkey into Georgia. Only border open at this point in time is at Sarpi.

July 28th, 2019 by travelove.org

Very good and easy bordercrossing. All officials were nice and smiling, I didn’t have to take anything out of the van, the officer was sitting on my sofa in the van and let me shortly open all cupboards - but more like a friend who’s interested in „how to build a van“. :-)
No fees, no hassle, clean toilets, open 24 hours, highly recommended!

July 13th, 2019 by zuerichgoeseast.com

We crossed this border from Georgia to Turkey and I recommend that you find another option if possible. The crossing took us almost three hours, although there were only three cars there.
The Georgian side was super easy, all sorted in minutes.
However, the Turkey side is completely disorganized. There is a lane for cars with a passport control dedicated to drivers; however, you have to get out and queue with all passengers (in our case a bus full of tourists...), then squeeze your way back to the car and enter the customs area. Staff were unfriendly and simply tried to avoid work. It took one hour (I initially was the only car) to get a stamp and a visual inspection of the car. Once that was completed I thought I was done and headed for the exit only to be sent back to an x-ray. There I was instructed to removed *everything* from the car to more easily process the images. (I always thought the point of an x-ray was to see through things...) I simply refused to take all boxes and contents of drawers out of the car and offered to take out all loose items from the main cabin. After a long discussion that was accepted and I removed all things from the main cabin. These things were never inspected or scanned... The actual x-ray took 15 minutes, then there was another visual inspection where I had to take out and open many boxes.
After that I could put all contents back into the car, exit and pick up my partner who had been waiting there for a long time.
Fun fact: while my partner was waiting for about 2 hours in rain at 10 degrees (in July) a very friend border guard was talking to her and after seeing the many stamps in her passport knowingly asked if this was the most tedious border crossing of our travels. Not quite, but it is coming close... so this seems to be the norm rather than an exception.

March 31st, 2019 by MensinkMerijn

Great border crossing. The people are very friendly, it took us max. 20 minutes. As said earlier, there is a strict medicine check. We recommend this border.

August 6th, 2018 by Elki

we confirm all infos provided by niels_scherling, especially with respect to low traffic and the friendly and efficient handling on the Georgian side

July 15th, 2018 by Teamstanbulance

Turkey -> Georgia. Very friendly customs. No waiting line. The Georgian side even helped us pushing our old VW LT35 to the parking lot because the engine
wouldn't start. Nothing to pay on both sides. Georgia's insurance was around 10 euro for our van.

June 13th, 2018 by bundas87

As described, really nice quick border crossing with very friendly people on both side. We crossed from Turkey to Georgia. The route from Hopa is really scenic worth driving here. We headed to Vardzia from here and the shortest road is quite rough a very long graded dirt road which ends in a super windy descent to Vardzia.

April 26th, 2018 by niels_scherling

As not much is written on Caravanistan or elsewhere: this is a very convenient border crossing. We crossed from Turkey into Georgia. Two stops on Turkish side and two stops on Georgian side, took us less then 30 minutes and people were very friendly. We were almost the only ones though. Only 1 lane was open. At Georgian side they checked our medicines, but all was ok. There was no ATM, but there was a small counter in the Georgian border building at which we could change Lira’s, Euro’s or Dollars into Lari’s (at good rates). At this same counter we could also buy car insurance for Georgia, explained in a nice leaflet. For 30 days we paid 50 Lari for a car. The leaflet also shows motorbikes and trucks. Took us 10 minutes to exchange and buy insurance. We came from Hopa, which was a really nice ride as well.