Villa or apartment is a question about which contract you sign. With a villa, a foreigner leases land and the house on it before a notary, and then arranges the rest: building approval, accommodation licence, tax registration, staff. With an apartment, in nearly every case on the island, the contract is a lease of one unit for 25 to 35 years or a preliminary agreement (PPJB) with a developer, and the licence, the management and the maintenance fund arrive with the building, run by someone else. There is a third document, the strata certificate that would put a unit in a foreigner’s own name. It exists in the 2021 land regulation, with a price floor of IDR 2 billion for Bali. The land ministry counted 131 properties registered to foreigners in all of Indonesia between 2017 and 2023. We have not found one such certificate in Bali.
Control on one side, cover on the other. The rest of this article is what each costs.
In short
- A unit is sold to a foreigner as a lease, as a PPJB with a developer, or, in the regulation, as strata on Hak Pakai or HGB land from IDR 2 billion. We have not found a Bali example of the third.
- A condotel unit sits outside the condominium law altogether, by the Constitutional Court’s 2022 ruling: no owners’ association, no unit certificate.
- A hotel or aparthotel (KBLI 55110, 55194) holds one accommodation licence for every unit. Each villa needs its own, and a management company cannot hold one for a portfolio.
What an apartment is in Bali
Fifteen metres. That is the height cap in the provincial spatial plan, the height of a coconut palm as the local press puts it, and it is why an apartment block in Bali is three or four storeys around a pool and not a tower. The developers’ association said in 2020 it had spent six years trying to lift the cap.
Inside that limit the supply has grown fast. C9 Hotelworks, which tracks hospitality-managed residences with Horwath HTL, counted 59 projects and 3,643 units on sale in March 2025: 87% apartments or condominiums, 13% villas, 39% of projects in Canggu and Berawa, 20% in Uluwatu, and 41% of projects with fewer than 30 units. A year later the count was above 70, villas had grown to about 18%, and the share sold as freehold had gone from 12% to 23%. For the rest, C9 records leasehold of 25 to 35 years, “generally with renewal provisions subject to agreement”.
Subject to agreement. In January 2024 a Canggu developer launched 80 units and, as Nusa Bali reported it, offered them to foreigners as “30-year ownership”. A 30-year term with a renewal still to be agreed is what this market calls ownership. Under the word there is one of three contracts, and the apartments for sale on our site name which one before the price.
The three ways a unit is sold to a foreigner
A lease of the unit, Hak Sewa, is the plainest. It is signed before a notary like a villa lease; the land certificate for the block stays with whoever holds it, and the lease deed is the only document the buyer takes home. What the buyer may do with the unit is whatever the deed says. The clauses that carry the value, extension, assignment, subletting, successors, are the same as for a villa lease and are set out in can foreigners buy property in Bali.
Where the unit does not yet exist, or exists without a certificate, the developer sells on a PPJB. The buyer pays in stages against the agreement and, until the final deed, holds a contract against the developer and nothing against the land.
Strata title is the one listings mean by ownership: a certificate over a unit in a multi-storey building, SHMSRS, in the foreigner’s name. Government Regulation 18 of 2021 allows it in Articles 67 to 72, on conditions. The foreigner needs immigration documents; the block must stand on Hak Pakai or HGB land; the location must be in a designated zone, which a 2022 legal commentary reads as including tourism areas; and the price may not fall below the floor the land ministry sets by province, which for Bali is IDR 2 billion for an apartment (about USD 112,000) against IDR 5 billion for a house, under the decree of September 2022.
Then the land under the block. If it is HGB, the right to build, the certificate has to be issued over a right a foreigner cannot hold, and the law firms that read the regulation when it came out did not see how. “Difficult to see how an HMSRS certificate can be issued to a foreigner in the case of an apartment that is located in a block built on HGB land”, ABNR wrote in May 2021. KSF Legal, a year later, called the HGB provision vulnerable to judicial review and pointed out that the implementing rule does not say whether the land right converts on its own or only by re-registration at the land office. Nobody has answered that since.
The ministry’s numbers say how far practice has got. In May 2023 its director-general gave the count of properties registered to foreigners across Indonesia since 2017 as 131, a 52% rise, and said that in Batam alone foreigners held more than 100 units on PPJBs. Three years on, in May 2026, the same ministry warned apartment buyers to check the land right under their block, because an HGB expires, and in a block whose owners’ association has lapsed the units cannot be sold or mortgaged once it has.
A villa does not have that layer. The buyer leases the plot and the house together, or holds a Hak Pakai from IDR 5 billion with a certificate in their own name, and the land right and the building are one question; among the Bali villas for sale we list, that answer, lease or Hak Pakai, is the first line of the listing. For a unit they are two questions, and the second is decided at the level of the block.
The condotel, and what the Constitutional Court said about it
A condotel sells rooms in a hotel. The buyer signs a PPJB or a deed for the unit and, with it, an irrevocable power of attorney under which the hotel operator markets the unit, takes the bookings and runs it as a room. What comes back is a share of the pool’s profit and a right to stay a set number of nights a year, by voucher. A 2013 Detik Finance guide to condotel buying put the nights at 12 to 30 and the rental guarantee, where one is offered, at an initial period only, with the guarantee priced into the unit.
In 2022 a group of condotel owners went to the Constitutional Court. They had no owners’ association, no certificates for their units, and the developer remained the owner of the building; they asked the court to read the condominium law so that it covered them. The court said no. On 31 October 2022 (decision 62/PUU-XX/2022) it held that the condominium law is for buildings used mainly as housing, that a condotel run as a business falls outside it, and that legislators might write a separate framework. Four years on, no such framework is on the books that we can find.
Bali has its own example of how that ends. Buyers at a Jimbaran condotel had paid deposits and were receiving returns from 2013. The developer went through bankruptcy proceedings in the Surabaya commercial court in 2015 and 2016, and the returns stopped, as a 2021 article in a Padjadjaran University law journal records. What the buyers held was a contract with a developer and a management agreement with an operator. The hotel licence belonged to the operating company.
Buying off-plan: what a PPJB has to contain
C9’s count is of projects on sale, most of them unbuilt, so for most apartment buyers the document that governs the money is the PPJB. Government Regulation 12 of 2021 says when a developer may sign one: the status of the land must be certain, the building approval (PBG) issued, the shared infrastructure available, and construction at least 20% complete. After the Meikarta collapse the housing ministry restated the rule, in March 2023, as a condition on marketing itself: a project may be sold once construction reaches 20%, with the physical and location data disclosed.
The regulation also says what happens when the agreement ends early, and the numbers are worth knowing before anyone quotes different ones. Developer defaults: full refund. Buyer withdraws: the developer may keep at least 20% of what has been paid, plus tax, or 10% if the withdrawal is because a mortgage was refused. Refunds are due within 30 calendar days, after which the penalty is one per mille a day, 0.1%. A PPJB that gives the buyer less than this departs from the regulation.
Between the last stage payment and the final deed there is a gap, and its length depends on paper the buyer does not control. The final deed for a unit (AJB) can be signed only once the block has its own certificate and the unit has been split from it, before a land deed official (PPAT). For a leased unit the lease deed replaces that step and no certificate follows. Either way, ask at the first meeting whether the parent certificate is mortgaged to the developer’s bank. The ministry’s May 2026 warning was about that layer, the right under the block, and it is the one layer a buyer cannot repair afterwards.
Who runs the building, and who pays for the roof
For the first year after handover, the developer. Government Regulation 13 of 2021 gives it a transition period of at most one year from the first unit handed over, during which it manages the block and bears the management cost for units still unsold. The housing ministry’s regulation of April 2025 (Permen PKP 4 of 2025, which replaced the 2021 rule) fills in the rest. During the transition the developer sets and collects the service charge (IPL). Once sale deeds covering 25% of the building’s proportional value have been signed, the owners’ association (PPPSRS) must be formed, and the developer has to facilitate it before the year is out. After that the association sets the charge by deliberation, with a quorum above half the proportional value and, as Leks&Co reads the rule, no owner’s vote counting for more than 20%. A sinking fund (dana endapan) for major repairs is compulsory, held in a separate bank account and planned over 25 years.
So the first year’s charge is the developer’s figure, and the body that could change it does not yet exist.
There is a smaller catch for a buyer on a lease. The association, when it forms, is an association of owners; a lessee of a unit has whatever standing the lease deed gives them, which may be a vote, a voice, or nothing, and is a clause to ask for before signing. A villa owner pays for the roof, the pool pump, the staff and the security directly and answers to no association at all.
One licence for the building, one licence per villa
Letting rooms to tourists is a licensed business in Indonesia. The licence attaches to an operator with a business number (NIB) and an accommodation classification code, and a building run as a hotel or an aparthotel (KBLI 55110 or 55194) holds one for every unit in it. A unit owner in the pool lets under that licence and holds none.
A villa is a licensed business of its own, under the villa code (KBLI 55193) or, for an Indonesian citizen letting up to five rooms in the house they live in, the homestay code (pondok wisata, 55130). The portfolio shortcut does not exist: a management company cannot hold one licence covering the villas it manages, as Bukit Vista, a Bali operator, explains in its licensing guide, unless the villas are a complex built by one developer, which can be licensed as one. Each villa also needs its own building approval issued for accommodation, its own certificate of function, and an operator registered for the regional accommodation tax at 10% of room revenue.
In 2026 the difference was enforced through the booking platforms. The tourism ministry’s survey of October 2025 had found more than 29,000 non-hotel units listed on online travel agencies in Bali, about 14,500 of them registered. Airbnb’s Indonesian help pages now require every host to enter a business number and classification code. In May 2026 the ministry said it had identified about 1,600 unlicensed operators and that platforms would delist them from 1 August. A unit under its building’s licence had nothing to show the platform. A villa without its own did.
That is the trade in one line. The apartment buyer is covered by a licence they do not control, run by an operator whose power of attorney is irrevocable and whose terms set the owner’s nights. The villa buyer controls the house and carries a licence that a foreign individual cannot hold in their own name, which is why villa letting in Bali runs through a licensed Indonesian operator or a company.
Costs and taxes that differ
On the purchase, nothing differs when the seller is a developer: VAT at 12% on 11/12 of the price, an effective 11% under the 2024 finance ministry regulation, with the full 12% only on property at IDR 30 billion and above, which is also the threshold for the 20% luxury sales tax on houses and apartments alike. The differences start after the keys.
| Item | Villa (lease or Hak Pakai) | Apartment (unit lease, PPJB or strata) |
|---|---|---|
| Acquisition duty (BPHTB, up to 5%) | On Hak Pakai. None on a lease | On strata. None on a unit lease or a PPJB until the deed |
| Hak Pakai minimum price, Bali | IDR 5 billion | IDR 2 billion |
| Annual land and building tax (PBB-P2) | On the plot and house; the lease deed says who carries it | On the unit |
| Running costs | Staff, pool, garden, security, repairs, and whatever the village council (banjar) asks of the house; all the owner’s | Service charge (IPL) set by the developer in year one, then by the owners’ association; sinking fund compulsory |
| Tax on letting income | 10% final on gross rent for a resident; a non-resident lessor without a permanent establishment falls under Article 26 withholding at 20%, on Ortax’s reading | In a condotel pool, the operator withholds 10% final on the owner’s share, as the tax office set out for condotels in December 2022; for a leased unit let directly, the villa column applies |
| Accommodation tax (PB1, 10%) | Registered and paid by the villa’s operator | Paid by the building’s operator |
The 20% in the villa column needs a word. It follows Ortax’s analysis of June 2026: a foreigner who lets a villa while living outside Indonesia, with no permanent establishment here, is a non-resident taxpayer, and non-residents fall under Article 26 withholding, not the final 10% that applies to residents and to Indonesian landowners. Whether a given buyer is resident is a question of days in the country and of where their tax home is, and it can change from one year to the next without the villa moving an inch. The taxes at each stage, including on resale, are in Bali property taxes for foreigners.
When the term ends
A unit lease ends when the deed says, and the extension is whatever the deed priced; a villa lease, the same, and the negotiation at the far end is covered in what happens when a Bali lease expires. A strata unit is different. Its life is the life of the land right under the block, and an HGB runs up to 30 years, extendable by 20 and renewable for 30, each stage on application.
Jakarta has already run that experiment. Sixteen years after buying, residents of the Mangga Dua Court apartments found out that their block’s HGB sat on state management land (HPL), whose holder’s consent the extension needed. They won at first instance in April 2018, lost on appeal, and were assessed IDR 4.3 billion for the extension, as Tirto reported in 2019. No Bali block with foreign unit-holders has reached that point in anything we have read. Here, the renewal clause in the deed is the only evidence of how it will go.
What nobody has counted
Three numbers would settle most of the arguments above, and none is published. How many strata certificates have been issued to foreigners in Bali, since the ministry gives a national total and no provincial split. Who buys the 23% of hospitality-managed units that C9 records as freehold: Indonesians, companies, or foreigners through the structures the hub article describes. And what an apartment in Bali is worth over time, because Bank Indonesia’s residential index is built from landed houses, as far as its published coverage shows, and no apartment series for the island has come to light.
Villa or apartment in Bali: FAQ
Can a foreigner own an apartment in Bali outright?
In the regulation, yes: a strata certificate in the foreigner’s name, for a unit at IDR 2 billion or more, in a block on Hak Pakai or HGB land in a permitted zone. In practice the block has to have been split into certificates and the land office has to issue one to a foreigner, which two law firms have doubted it can do where the block stands on HGB. Ask the developer which land right the block holds and whether any unit in it already has a certificate in a foreign name. If none does, what is on offer is a lease or a PPJB.
Do I need a licence to let out an apartment?
Not your own, if the building operates under a hotel or aparthotel code and your unit is in its pool. Ask for the building’s business number and the classification code on it, and check that the code is an accommodation code; a block registered under a residential or property code holds no accommodation licence for anyone. A unit outside the pool, let by the owner on a platform, needs an operator’s licence like any villa.
Villa or apartment for the Golden Visa or Second Home visa?
Apartment. Both visas name an apartment of USD 1 million or more as the property route; a house is not listed. The Second Home visa also accepts a USD 130,000 deposit in a state-owned bank, which has nothing to do with property at all. A leased villa qualifies under neither visa.
