Bali Visa Guide

Buying Property in Bali: Visa Options for Owners

Last updated: June 2026 · by bvtadmin

Buying property in Bali does not grant you a visa — ownership and immigration status are separate. Foreigners reach a long stay through one of three routes: the Second Home Visa (E33), an Investor KITAS held via a PT PMA company that owns the villa, or the Golden Visa. Choose the visa for your situation, not the title deed.

The rules, deposits and fees on this page are checked against the official portals imigrasi.go.id and evisa.imigrasi.go.id. Property and immigration regulations change — always confirm against official sources and a notaris before you sign or transfer money.

It is the single most common misconception we hear from buyers: sign for a villa in Canggu or Uluwatu and residency will follow. It will not. Indonesian property law and Indonesian immigration law run on separate tracks, and a foreigner can legally hold a Bali property while holding no long-stay visa at all — or hold a KITAS while renting a room. This guide untangles the two: what foreigners can actually own, the three real visa pathways for property owners, and where the money genuinely goes. If you want a purchase to double as a residency plan, you build the visa deliberately alongside the deal.

What foreigners can legally own in Bali

Before the visa question, get the ownership question right, because it shapes which visa even makes sense. Foreigners cannot hold Hak Milik (freehold) — that title is reserved for Indonesian citizens, and the “nominee” arrangements sold to get around it are legally fragile and best avoided. What you can legally hold falls into three plain-English categories:

• Leasehold (Hak Sewa). A long lease — commonly 25 to 30 years, often extendable — over land or a villa. It is the most common route for foreigners, requires no visa or company, and is essentially a rental agreement recorded before a notary. It gives you use of the property; it does not give you residency.
• Hak Pakai (Right to Use). The one title a foreign individual can hold in their own name over a residence — but only while you hold a valid Indonesian stay permit (KITAS or KITAP). Lose the permit and the title has to be transferred or converted. This is where property and visa genuinely intersect.
• HGB (Hak Guna Bangunan, Right to Build). The “right to build and own a building” title, held not by you personally but by a PT PMA — a foreign-owned Indonesian company. This is the standard structure for villa, commercial and rental-business ownership, and it comes bundled with its own investor-visa pathway.

Notice the pattern: leasehold needs no visa, Hak Pakai depends on a visa, and HGB comes through a company that itself unlocks a visa. That is why the three visa pathways below map so cleanly onto how you intend to own.

Pathway 1: The Second Home Visa (E33)

The Second Home Visa (E33) is the most direct property-and-residency combination for a buyer who does not plan to work or run a business in Indonesia. It is a five-year stay permit (extendable toward ten) aimed at financially self-sufficient foreigners — the classic profile of someone buying a holiday or retirement villa and wanting a low-admin base to live in it.

Qualification is deposit-based rather than income-based. The headline regulatory requirement is a deposit of the rupiah equivalent of USD 130,000 in a state-owned Indonesian bank in your name, or ownership of qualifying property, maintained for the duration of the stay. The visa does not itself buy you the villa — you still purchase separately under a legal title above — but it is the cleanest residency to pair with a purchase because it carries no company obligations and no local-work rights you would not use anyway. For the full document list and a transparent quote, see our Second Home Visa guide.

Pathway 2: Investor KITAS through a PT PMA

If your villa is a business — you intend to rent it out, run several units, or hold commercial property — the honest route is a company. You establish a PT PMA (foreign investment company), the PT PMA holds the property under HGB, and you take an Investor KITAS (E28A) as a shareholder or director of that company. This is the only structure that legally lets a foreigner own a building for a rental business and reside on the strength of it.

The trade-off is administration. A PT PMA is a real Indonesian company with a foreign-investment plan (the standard threshold is IDR 10 billion of stated investment per business line, with a smaller paid-up portion), an OSS/NIB registration, correct KBLI business codes, and annual reporting. It is more work than a Second Home Visa, but it is the route that turns a villa into a compliant income stream. The company-formation detail — capital, KBLI selection, timelines — is its own subject; we walk through it step by step in our guide on how to set up a PT PMA in Bali, and the visa layer on top is covered on our PT PMA company setup page. Buyers already leaning this way should also read our Investor KITAS and PT PMA guide.

Pathway 3: The Golden Visa

For higher-value investors who want length and flexibility without running a company day to day, the Golden Visa grants five or ten years of residency in exchange for a larger qualifying investment — from USD 350,000 at the individual-investor tier, scaling up for the ten-year and corporate tiers. It is investment-linked rather than strictly property-linked: the qualifying investment can take several forms, and a villa purchase can form part of a broader investment picture rather than being the visa’s sole trigger.

The Golden Visa suits buyers who want to skip annual renewals and hold a long runway, and who are investing at a scale where the higher entry cost is comfortable. Because the tier amounts and qualifying-investment rules are still being refined, confirm the current figures on our Golden Visa 2026 update before you plan around a number.

Renting your villa out: the business trap

Here is where owners most often get their status wrong. Owning a villa and letting a villa are different acts in Indonesian law. The Second Home Visa is a residence permit for a self-funded individual — it does not grant the right to run a rental business. If you buy on a Second Home Visa (or worse, a tourist visa) and quietly list the property on Airbnb, you are operating a business without the licences or company behind it.

Short-term villa rental legally requires the right structure: a PT PMA with the correct hospitality KBLI code, the appropriate building and tourism licences, and tax registration. Skipping that is not a grey area that “everyone does” — enforcement against unlicensed villa operations and out-of-status foreigners has tightened, and being found working or running a business on the wrong permit can mean penalties on top of the flat overstay-style exposure of IDR 1,000,000 per day if your permit lapses while you scramble to fix it. If income is any part of your plan, start with the PT PMA route, not the Second Home Visa.

Costs compared

Two numbers matter for every pathway and they are not the same thing: our transparent service fee, and the regulatory amount you place with a bank or the government. We always separate them. The figures below are our published USD service tiers alongside the current regulatory amounts, verified July 2026 — see the full list on our pricing page.

The deposit and investment amounts are paid to a state bank or the government, not to us, and they come back to you (the deposit) or stay invested (the Golden Visa) — they are not a cost in the way our fee is. That distinction is exactly what a chat-bubble quote hides and a written USD quote makes clear.

FAQ

Can I buy property in Bali and get a long-term visa automatically?

No. Buying property does not grant any visa on its own. You hold the property under a legal title — leasehold, Hak Pakai or HGB via a company — and then apply for a separate long-stay visa: a Second Home Visa, an Investor KITAS through a PT PMA, or a Golden Visa. Ownership and residency are two separate applications.

Can foreigners own freehold property in Bali?

No. Freehold (Hak Milik) is reserved for Indonesian citizens. Foreigners legally use leasehold (Hak Sewa), Hak Pakai (Right to Use, tied to a stay permit), or HGB (Right to Build, held by a PT PMA company). Nominee arrangements that dress a foreigner’s purchase up as Indonesian ownership are legally fragile and best avoided.

Which visa is best if I buy a villa to live in?

If you will not work or run a business, the Second Home Visa (E33) is usually the cleanest fit — a five-year stay with a deposit-based qualification and no company obligations. If the villa is an investment you intend to rent out, an Investor KITAS through a PT PMA is the correct route instead, because it carries the business rights the Second Home Visa does not.

Do I need a PT PMA to rent out my Bali villa?

Yes, if you rent it commercially. Short-term letting is a business, and it legally requires a PT PMA with the right hospitality KBLI code, building and tourism licences, and tax registration. Renting out on a Second Home or tourist visa is operating a business without the structure behind it, and enforcement against that has tightened.

How much money do I need to invest for a property-linked visa?

It depends on the route: the Second Home Visa requires a USD 130,000 state-bank deposit (or qualifying property); the Golden Visa starts from USD 350,000 of qualifying investment; a PT PMA works to an IDR 10 billion investment plan. These regulatory amounts sit alongside our service fee, which we always quote separately.

Match your purchase to the right visa

Buying in Bali is the exciting part — getting the visa and the title to line up is what protects the investment. Tell us how you plan to own (to live in, or to rent out) and your budget, and we will map the deposit, the structure and the permit into one plan: message a licensed consultant on WhatsApp for a free eligibility check and a written USD quote. To go deeper on a specific route, start with our Second Home Visa page or, if the villa is a business, our PT PMA company setup guide. Bali Visa Trusted is Bali’s official visa agent since 2015, a Bali Premium Trip company — we make sure the paperwork matches the property.