Indonesia Visa
Visa on arrival and the entry points that actually issue it, the arrival card every traveller now files, and the retirement and study routes for staying longer.
Last updated: August 2026.
Indonesia rebuilt its visa system in mid-2025. A decree of the Minister of Immigration and Corrections, effective 2 June 2025, replaced the old numeric categories — the C312, C316 and C317 codes still quoted all over the internet — with a letter-index scheme, and merged a long tail of narrow sub-categories into broader ones. If a page you are reading quotes a C-number for a study or retirement permit, it is describing a system that no longer exists.
The letters are worth learning, because every official form asks for one. A is visa exemption, B is the 30-day visa on arrival, C is a single-entry visit visa, D is a multiple-entry visit visa, and E is a limited-stay permit — the family of visas that become a KITAS once you are in the country. Tourists live in A, B and C. Retirement and study live in E.
Tourist Entry
Most visitors arrive on the visa on arrival. The UK government states flatly that British citizens must have a visa to visit Indonesia, so for the majority of Western travellers the practical choice is not whether to get one but whether to buy it at the airport or online beforehand.
| Route | Who it is for | Stay | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Visa exemption (A) | Indonesia’s ASEAN neighbours and a short list of others | 30 days, not extendable | Free |
| Visa on arrival (B1) | Tourism, visiting family, some business meetings, buying goods | 30 days, extendable once by 30 | IDR 500,000 |
| e-VoA | The same permission, bought online before you fly | 30 days, extendable once by 30 | IDR 500,000 |
| Visit visa (C / D) | Longer or repeat visits — a 60-day single entry, or multiple entry over 1 to 5 years | 60 days a visit | Varies — check the portal |
Visa exemption is the narrow case, not the common one. Indonesia cut the exempt list dramatically in 2024 and it now runs to roughly nineteen countries — its ASEAN neighbours plus a handful of others, Brazil, Türkiye, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Colombia, Peru, Suriname, Hong Kong and Macau among them — with a few additions since. Most Western passports are not on it, which is why the UK’s advice opens by saying a visa is required. Exempt entry gives 30 days, cannot be extended and cannot be converted into another permit from inside the country, so it is the weaker option even for those who qualify. Check the official list rather than assuming.
Visa on arrival
The visa on arrival costs IDR 500,000, can be paid in cash or by card, and is single entry only — leave the country and it is spent. It gives 30 days and can be extended once, for another 30 days, at any immigration office in Indonesia, for a maximum of 60 days. To be issued one you need a passport that meets the entry rules and proof of onward or return travel.
It covers tourism, visiting friends and family, some business meetings and official visits, and buying goods. It does not cover volunteering, influencer work, or producing commercial online content — a distinction Indonesia has begun enforcing, and one that catches out visitors who assume filming for a channel is a holiday activity.
The entry point matters
This is the rule most often left out, and the one that ruins trips. The visa on arrival is issued only at designated entry points. Canada’s advice puts it plainly: you may obtain a visa in advance or on arrival “at select points of entry”, and the UK’s says only that “most of the main airports and seaports” issue them — which is another way of saying that some do not.
The scale is worth grasping: the designated list covers only about sixteen airports, alongside a long tail of seaports and a small number of land posts. Indonesia has considerably more international airports than that. The gateways most visitors use are on it — Jakarta Soekarno-Hatta, Bali Ngurah Rai, Surabaya Juanda, Medan Kualanamu, Yogyakarta, Lombok, Manado Sam Ratulangi and Padang Minangkabau among them — but the list is the authority, not this page.
The risk sits at the edges of the map: smaller regional airports, the great majority of seaports, and land borders. If your plan involves a ferry into a provincial port, a regional flight into a secondary airport, or a land crossing from Malaysia or Timor-Leste, check your specific entry point against the immigration department’s published list before you book. We could not find an official statement of what happens to a traveller who arrives somewhere that cannot issue one, so we will not guess at it — but it is plainly not a rule worth testing. Buying the e-VoA in advance removes the question entirely, which is the strongest argument for doing so.
Buying the e-VoA online
The electronic visa on arrival is the same permission at the same price, bought before departure. Apply through the Directorate General of Immigration’s portal, evisa.imigrasi.go.id — the site the UK government links to, and the one named throughout the Indonesian Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ own e-Visa user manual. The address ends in .go.id. Nothing else is official.
- Apply about a week ahead. The UK advises at least one week before you leave.
- Make sure it is approved before you arrive. A visa approved after you enter Indonesia is not valid, and you can be penalised for overstaying on the strength of it.
- Visa scams are a live problem. British travellers have lost significant sums to agents who took payment and supplied nothing, or supplied the wrong visa — which ends in overstay fines, deportation and a re-entry ban. Use the government portal.
- Save the approval as a PDF and a screenshot. Connectivity at immigration is not guaranteed.
The All Indonesia arrival card
Every traveller must file an online customs and health declaration before arriving. Since October 2025 this is done through the All Indonesia arrival card, which both the UK and Canadian governments now direct travellers to. File it within 72 hours of arrival — Canada’s advice is to complete it before you check in for your flight. You are given a QR code to show on landing. It applies to everyone and to every way in — air, cruise, ferry or land crossing.
Two things to know. It is free, and the UK explicitly warns travellers to avoid alternative websites and email links that ask for payment for it. And older guides will send you to the customs department’s own e-CD portal instead; that system still exists behind the scenes, but the arrival card is the current front door.
Extensions and overstaying
A 30-day visa can be extended once, by 30 days, at any immigration office inside Indonesia. If you bought the e-VoA online you can start the extension through the immigration website; if you bought it at the airport, practitioners describe an in-person process that can run to three separate visits — application, biometrics, collection. Either way, begin several days before your permission expires rather than on the last day.
Overstaying costs IDR 1,000,000 for every day. It is not treated as a paperwork slip: the UK notes that using the wrong visa or staying past its expiry can lead to prosecution, detention and deportation at your own cost, and travellers have been held in immigration detention centres over it. If your visa will expire while you are in hospital or in detention, contact immigration before it lapses.
The Bali tourist levy
If you are going to Bali there is a separate levy of IDR 150,000 per foreign visitor, charged by the provincial government and unrelated to your visa or your customs declaration. Pay it online or on arrival through the Bali provincial government’s Love Bali portal and keep the QR code. It is charged once per visit, so leaving Indonesia and coming back means paying again. Arrivals elsewhere in Indonesia do not pay it, and holders of a KITAS or KITAP are exempt, though the exemption is claimed through the same portal. Lookalike sites charge several times the real amount for this; the genuine one ends in .go.id.
Retirement & Long Stay
Indonesia has a genuine retirement route, and it is one of the more accessible in the region — but it is also the area where published figures are least reliable. The thresholds are set partly in US dollars, they have moved more than once, and immigration practitioners quote materially different numbers for the same permit. Everything below is therefore described by shape rather than by a figure we cannot stand behind. Confirm the current numbers on the immigration portal before you commit money to a plan.
Retirement KITAS (E33F)
The main route. It is open to applicants from around age 55, requires provable ongoing pension or retirement income, a signed lease on Indonesian accommodation for a year, and health insurance. It is issued for one year at a time and renews, and after several consecutive years holders may become eligible to apply for permanent residence (KITAP).
On the income requirement: published monthly minimums from Indonesian immigration consultancies currently range from roughly USD 1,500 to USD 3,000, and some also expect a bank balance held over the preceding three months. That spread is too wide to print a single number against, and the applicable figure can depend on which immigration office handles the file. Ask the portal, or an agent you have checked, for the number that applies to you.
In practice this permit is normally arranged through a licensed sponsor or agent rather than filed alone, and some sources describe an obligation to employ domestic staff. Given the volume of visa fraud Indonesia is dealing with, verify any agent before paying.
Longer-dated alternatives
- Silver Hair (E33E). A five-year version aimed at older retirees, reported to require a deposit in the region of USD 50,000 held in an Indonesian state-owned bank, with a higher age benchmark than E33F and without the sponsor obligation.
- Second Home. A five- or ten-year long-stay permit granted against wealth rather than income: the widely cited thresholds are a deposit of IDR 2 billion in an Indonesian state-owned bank held in your own name, or property from around USD 1 million. Family members can hold dependent permits on the primary holder’s qualification. Sources disagree on which index code now carries it, so apply by name through the portal rather than by quoting a code.
- Remote worker (E33G). Not a retirement visa, but the one many people are actually looking for: a limited-stay permit for people living in Indonesia on income earned entirely abroad.
What these permits do not allow
This is the part worth reading twice. None of the retirement or long-stay routes is a work permit. They do not let you take a job with an Indonesian employer, sell goods or services locally, or draw income from Indonesian sources; the remote-worker permit is explicitly conditioned on your income coming from outside the country. Working in Indonesia requires a work visa in the E23 family, sponsored by a company, with Ministry of Manpower approval behind it. Retiring somewhere and working there are separate applications, and conflating them is a deportable mistake.
Student Visas
The study categories were consolidated in the June 2025 reform and then refined again in 2026, so this is another area where older guidance is actively misleading. Study permits sit in the E30 family and produce a KITAS once you are in the country.
| Index | Covers |
|---|---|
| E30A | School pupils — primary through senior secondary (SD, SMP, SMA) |
| E30B | All higher education: diploma, bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral, merged into one category |
| E30F | Student exchange programmes |
| C9 | Short courses and training — a visit visa, not a study KITAS |
The consolidation of every degree level into E30B is the change that matters most: a master’s student and a first-year undergraduate now apply under the same index. Immigration practitioners also report that from June 2026 E30A is being applied strictly to programmes classified as school-level, with kindergarten and preschool enrolment no longer accepted as the basis for an application in the way it once was.
Sponsor and duration
A study application is sponsored by the educational institution, which must be registered as a sponsor in the immigration system — you cannot file a study permit off your own back or on the strength of an individual’s guarantee. Your acceptance documents must support the level you are applying under, because the institution’s classification, not the student’s age, decides which index applies. Permits are commonly issued for one, two or four years and are renewed against continued enrolment, so a four-year degree does not require an annual reapplication. Dependants can be brought in on family permits, usually issued for shorter terms.
Work rights — read carefully
The 2025 decree removed the blanket prohibition on students receiving compensation or wages from individuals and companies in Indonesia. That is a real liberalisation and it is frequently reported as “students can now work”, which overstates it. Lifting a prohibition in the visa classification is not the same as being granted a work permit, and paid employment still engages the work-visa and manpower rules. Treat paid work as something to clear with your institution and with immigration in advance, not as a right that arrived with your KITAS.
Before You Fly
- Passport validity. At least six months beyond your date of arrival. The UK advises at least two blank pages; Canada asks for at least one for the stamp. Take the stricter figure.
- Onward or return ticket. Required — Canada’s guidance says a round-trip or onward ticket is needed to obtain all types of visa, and airlines check before boarding.
- Your address in Indonesia. Have the first night’s accommodation written down. The arrival card and the immigration desk both ask for it.
- Funds. You should be able to show you can support your stay. This is checked only occasionally on a tourist arrival, but it is a formal condition, not a courtesy.
- Register with the police if you stay in private accommodation. Hotels do this for you automatically; a villa, a rental or a friend’s spare room does not. The UK puts the fine for failing to register at IDR 5,000,000. This is the requirement long-stay visitors most often do not know exists.
- Yellow fever certificate if you are arriving from a country listed as a transmission risk.
- Keep everything offline. Visa approval, arrival-card QR and, for Bali, the levy voucher.
- Use only .go.id sites. Every official portal on this page ends in .go.id. Anything else charging you for an arrival card or a visa on arrival is a markup at best.
References
- Directorate General of Immigration — official e-Visa portal — where the e-VoA and every other visa class is applied for. The authority on current fees and categories.
- Directorate General of Immigration — visa application information — the immigration department’s own guidance for foreign nationals.
- Directorate General of Immigration — visa-free and visa-on-arrival country and crossing lists — the authoritative list of eligible nationalities and of the airports, seaports and land posts that issue a visa on arrival.
- All Indonesia arrival card — the free customs and health declaration required within 72 hours of arrival.
- Directorate General of Customs and Excise — electronic customs declaration — the underlying customs system referenced by older guides.
- Love Bali — Bali provincial government — payment portal for the IDR 150,000 Bali tourist levy.
- UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office — Indonesia entry requirements — source for the visa on arrival fee, extension rule, overstay fine, police registration and passport validity.
- UK government — Indonesia visa overstay and deportation — what happens after an overstay.
- Government of Canada — Indonesia travel advice — source for the “select points of entry” rule and the onward-ticket requirement.
- Ministry of Foreign Affairs — official e-Visa user manual (PDF) — confirms evisa.imigrasi.go.id as the application portal.
- Ministry of Tourism — visa and immigration — overview of the current visa classification.
- SSEK — analysis of the 2025 visa classification decree — a Jakarta law firm’s summary of Minister of Immigration and Corrections Decree No. M.IP-08.GR.01.01 of 2025, effective 2 June 2025; source for the index-letter scheme and the E30 study categories.
These sources were checked in August 2026. Indonesian visa categories, fees and financial thresholds have changed repeatedly in recent years, and retirement thresholds in particular are quoted inconsistently even by professionals. Where this page describes a rule without a number, that is deliberate. The official .go.id portals above are the authority — check them last, just before you fly.
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