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Exa: balithisweek.co.id
Exa: balithisweek.co.id
Bali Zero handles visas, company setup, tax and property compliance in Indonesia. Ask us directly on WhatsApp.
Chat with Bali Zero on WhatsAppAustralia and New Zealand consistently rank among Bali's top three tourism source markets. In a typical pre-pandemic year, Australians alone account f
Australia and New Zealand consistently rank among Bali's top three tourism source markets. In a typical pre-pandemic year, Australians alone account for well over one million arrivals at Ngurah Rai International Airport, making them the single largest foreign visitor cohort. New Zealand, while smaller in absolute numbers, punches above its weight on per-capita spending and average length of stay.
Currently, both nationalities enter Indonesia under the Visa on Arrival (VoA) scheme, which allows a 30-day stay extendable once for an additional 30 days, at a fee of IDR 500,000 (approximately USD 31) per entry. The process is handled at designated immigration counters upon arrival and, since 2022, is also available through the e-VOA portal in advance. While operationally straightforward, the fee and the administrative step represent a threshold absent for travellers heading to competing regional destinations such as Thailand, Vietnam, and Malaysia, which already offer visa-free entry to Australian and New Zealand citizens.
Discussions around granting full visa-free access to selected high-value tourism markets have surfaced periodically within Indonesian government circles, most recently as part of broader efforts to accelerate post-pandemic tourism recovery and compete with Southeast Asian neighbours. Any formal shift would likely be implemented via a revision to Government Regulation (Peraturan Pemerintah) or a Presidential Regulation governing the Bebas Visa Kunjungan (BVK) list, which currently covers approximately 90 nationalities.
No official decree has been published confirming the change, and the Directorate General of Immigration has not issued a formal policy statement as of the time of this writing. Reports circulating in Balinese and Indonesian travel media cite government sources and tourism industry stakeholders flagging the proposal as under active consideration, but timelines remain unconfirmed.
The diplomatic backdrop matters: Indonesia and Australia maintain a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership, and the two governments have been expanding bilateral cooperation across trade, defence, and people-to-people links. A visa-free corridor would align with Indonesia's stated target of 14 to 16 million foreign tourist arrivals annually, a goal that requires meaningful reductions in entry barriers across high-volume origin markets.
For our clients on the ground in Bali, a visa-free arrangement with Australia and New Zealand is directionally positive and entirely consistent with the trajectory we have observed over the past two y
ears. Indonesia has been systematically reducing friction for high-value visitors, from the e-VOA rollout to the Social Visit Visa extension pathway, and this would be the logical next step for its tw
o closest English-speaking neighbours.
That said, the practical difference between a well-functioning e-VOA at USD 31 and zero-cost visa-free entry is marginal for the kind of long-stay visitor or investor we typically advise. What matters more for our client base are the downstream signals: if Indonesia formalises visa-free status for Australians and Kiwis, it signals political will to deepen tourism integration, which historically correlates with lighter-touch enforcement on lifestyle visas, stronger hospitality investment sentiment, and upward pressure on short-term rental yields in the southern Bali corridor.
Until a Peraturan Pemerintah revision is published in the State Gazette, treat this as a confirmed direction, not a confirmed date. Do not adjust immigration planning on the basis of press reports alone.
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