Update 2023: You can now easily buy your Indonesia visa online at https://molina.imigrasi.go.id/. All the necessary information is available on their website. It only takes a few days to receive your visa after payment. If you bought your visa this way, you can extend it on this same website, which in my case, took only a few minutes. I didn’t print my visa out, and the airport immigration officer in Indonesia had no problem when I only showed it on my mobile phone. I did print the extension to show when I was leaving Indonesia, but the immigration officer didn’t seem to care much about it – I think he saw all the information on his computer screen.
The below information is fo those who, for some reason, do not or cannot use the online method, and buy the visa on arrival.
- 1. Do you need a visa to Indonesia at all?
- 2. One option to stay longer than one month: a visa run
- 3. The better option to stay longer than one month: buy a visa and extend it
1. Do you need a visa to Indonesia at all?
Update 2023: The visa free programme in Indonesia is “temporarily suspended” (this is the official wording used). At the moment, everyone (at least most travellers and tourists) need to buy a visa – you can do this online or on arrival. I will leave the below information here anyway, should they reintroduce the visa free programme again – or for you to know what it was like before, in the good old pre-covid times 🙂
Most people can stay in Indonesia visa free for one month. You can check if you are eligible on the website of your country’s travel advisory website, or on the Indonesian government website.
One month is quite a long time for holidaymakers, who can see a lot during this time, although Indonesia is a huge country. But if you are on a usual holiday, it is certainly enough.
However, if you are a digital nomad, who only has time to do touristy things in his free time and at weekends, then the four weeks will be way too short.
2. One option to stay longer than one month: a visa run
If you want to stay longer than one month, there are two easy options. One of them is the visa run. This means that at the end of your one month visa free stay, you leave Indonesia for a short period, and when you come back, you get another visa-free one month stay.
The visa run is not always risk free. There are stories on the internet about people who were actually detained in Singapore by the Singaporean officials because they suspected the person was doing a visa run, and only wanted to stay at the airport in Singapore for a few hours. No, the visa run (in the case of Indonesia) is not illegal at all, but then you cannot argue with border guards and other officials. How long you should stay outside of Indonesia to not raise suspicion, is not clear. But a two hour stay at a nearby airport is definitely risky.
Another problem with the visa run is that it may eventually cost more money and hassle than buying a visa on arrival and then extending it for another month (for prices, see below). Because for the visa run, you will need to buy a return ticket, and if you stay at least one night in another country, you will need to pay for accommodation, for getting to the city from the airport and back – these may add up nicely.
3. The better option to stay longer than one month: buy a visa and extend it
The visa on arrival is valid for 30 days, and you can extend it for another 30 days. You don’t have to wait with the extension, you can arrange it as soon as you have bought the VOA.
If you decide to do it later, do not procrastinate too much. At some places, extending the visa may take as long as two weeks – this is the latest news from some travellers in Bali. In most cases, however, this can be done during a week, and you will have to visit the Immigration office three times.
3.1 Buying your Indonesian visa on Arrival
Everyone, including those who are entitled to a visa free one month, can buy a visa on arrival to Indonesia. It is available at every international airport. When you arrive, look for the VOA or Visa on arrival sign. Be prepared to pay cash, no cards are accepted. The fee was changed in 2019 to 500.000 IDR, which they claimed equalled to 38 USD. It doesn’t, but what can you do? If you have Indonesian rupees with you, you will save a few dollars. If you don’t have exactly 38 dollars with you, you will get IDR as change, with the same awful exchange rate of course. So if you only have fifty-dollar notes, not to mention a 100, you will lose a lot of money. You will get a receipt, keep it – you may or may not need it when you want to extend your visa.
3.2 Find a Kantor Imigrasi (Immigration Office) Kelas I
You of course bought the Indonesian VOA only because you want to extend it for another month. This is how you do it.
Find the local Immigration Office – Kantor Imigrasi in Indonesian. This is best done through Google Maps (or whatever online map your are using). Should there be more than one office in the city, find the one whose name is Kantor Imigrasi Kelas 1. They tend to be further away from where you normally want to stay. In Yogyakarta, it was next to the airport. In Padang, it was not very far from the centre. In Bali, it is in Denpasar, a bit further away from the beaches (of course).
Map: the location of the Immigration Office in Denpasar, Bali
3.3 Pay three visits to the Immigration office to extend your Indonesian visa
Yes, in Indonesia, it will take three visits to the Immigration Office to extend your visa on arrival. Here is how it goes. (If you don’t want to do it yourself, see below.)
3.3.1 Handing in your documents
This is what you will need to bring when you first visit the office:
You will also need to fill in an application form, which you can get in the office. No tricky questions there, don’t worry. Make sure you use a black ink pen for this or they will not accept it. Also use block capitals too. In most of the immigration offices, you will find black pens lying around on the tables.
In Padang, they asked me if I had a sponsor. When I said I didn’t, they said I would have to write a letter in place of a sponsorship letter, but they gave me a sample, written by an English guy some time earlier. It simply said something like “I, Mr So-and-so, wish to extend my visa because blah-blah-blah, and my current address in Indonesia is this and that hotel”. They didn’t need anything like that in Yogyakarta though.
In Yogyakarta, I didn’t have to wait very long, and in Padang, I was taken to a separate room (the foreigners affairs room?) immediately, and I think I didn’t spend more than 5 minutes in the office altogether.
Be prepared that your passport will be kept by them until you get it back at the end of the process on your third visit. Keep a copy of your passport with you at all times – not only because of this, but it is basically a good idea.
Warning: When you visit the Immigration office, dress “properly”. This means no shorts, no flip-flops, no very touristy T-shirts. At some places, they even have warning signs put up in English, and I have heard stories when the foreigner wishing to extend his visa was sent home to put on proper clothes, and educated that this was not the beach. It is best to wear long pants, a shirt and shoes/trainers, although I don’t think you will be kicked out if you are wearing sandals, if everything else is fine. I have only met very helpful, smiling officers though – but then, I was wearing my only pair of trousers, and put on my nicest red shirt 🙂
In Yogyakarta, on my first visit, they gave me a receipt of my passport, which they didn’t do in Padang. They also gave me a document for the bank transfer of the visa extension fee, which they didn’t do in Padang on the first visit. In Jogja, they said I should return after two days, in Padang they said I should return the next day for the fingerprint and photo process. This varies from place to place, so be prepared for some variations.
3.3.2 Visit again for fingerprinting, photo and payment
The next time you visit, they will take your fingerprint (all ten fingers) and take a photo of you, and you have to pay the visa fee. The fee was 355k IDR in early 2019, which has increased to 500.000 IDR in late 2019. In Jogja, I had to find any branch of a certain bank, but in Padang, the “post office” was a car parking right in front of the entrance to the Immigration Office. In Padang, they also had photocopying and printing services, should you need them, so it’s very convenient.
3.3.3 Collect your passport with your extended visa
The third time you visit the office is only to collect your passport with the visa extension stamped into it. It may or may not be on the same page as your visa sticker, so check it carefully.
3.4 Using a service to extend your Indonesian visa
In Bali, there will be a lot of agencies and tour companies who will offer to arrange (almost) everything for you. You will only have to visit the Immigration office once, when they take your fingerprints (I suppose, they could chop off one of your fingers too, and then you wouldn’t have to visit the office at all – but then…)
In Bali, this service seems to be popular among some, and that is understandable in some cases. For example, if you are staying in Ubud or in a remote village somewhere, because taxi rides, like everything else, are very expensive in Bali. So if an agency charges 900k or 1 million for the whole process, you may still save some money compared to if you did it yourself, using taxis 6 times altogether. (From Ubud to Denpasar, expect to pay at least 300k per ride, and they do not allow Grab to operate in their area).
