If you want to stay in Indonesia, you need to know about the Tourist Visa requirements for Indonesia. If you are planning an extended stay in Indonesia, the affectionately called “Social Visa” (aka the 211 Social-Cultural Visa also known as Social Buddaya) is by far the easiest, legal way to stay up to 6 months in the exotic country of Indonesia. We have covered the requirements for a Social Visa Application in a different article here.
What Exactly are the Tourist Visa Requirements For Indonesia?
Indonesia practices “Visa On Arrival” for nationals from more than 168 countries. If you are a national of any of these countries, you don’t have to do apply in advance; you receive your visa stamp when you arrive in Indonesia.
The Visa On Arrival is non-extendable, unless you pay $35 for an extendable Visa On Arrival; this particular rule is unknown to many, and the cause of some frustration, as you have to leave Indonesia after 30 days if you don’t have the extendable visa.
Even though Indonesia offers Visa On Arrival for 168 countries, there are still some nationals that are required to apply for a visa in advance.
Beneath you will see a visa map (as of June 2016) that shows you which countries are eligible for Visa On Arrival and which are not:
Please not that visitors arriving in Indonesia from cruise ships in Benoa outside Bali do not have a Visa Free Facility available, which means you have to apply for a visa in advance. A great resource website to check the requirements for your specific country, is Visa Indonesia entry requirements.
In this article we will break down the Tourist Visa Requirements for Indonesia.
General Tourist Visa Requirements for Indonesia:
- Passport, valid for 6 months after your intended date of arrival, and with at least two blank pages left. Do not try to get around this rule, as you risk being refused entry and forced to go back to your home country if you don’t have this!
- 2 passport photos; 2×2 inches (51 mm x 51 mm), bare head, light background
- One filled out application form (find the correct form that applies to your country at your regional Indonesian Embassy).
- Copy of your return ticket itinerary, The problem with getting a return ticket itinerary, is that you risk losing thousands of dollars should your visa application not be approved, or face being stuck to a rigid time schedule. To get around the tourist visa requirements for Indonesia, some people buy cheap tickets from low fare airlines to the closest destination they can find (for example Singapore or Malaysia) and just opt not to use them, but this still means shelling out $60+ for tickets you don’t use. Luckily there is now a way to get 100 % authentic and fully cancellable flight itineraries for a small fee. No need to pay for expensive flights in advance anymore with Schengen Travel.
- Copy of confirmed hotel bookings, due to the increasing amount of tourists coming to Indonesia and staying illegally, the authorities strictly enforce their immigration and tourist visa requirements for Indonesia. For nationals that are required to apply for a tourist visa in advance, hotel bookings are listed as a requirement by the Indonesian/UK embassy, and adding a hotel booking will only be beneficial to your application. If you don’t know where you want to stay, use our same solution as above and make your refundable hotel bookings for a very small fee here.
- Bank statement, dated less than a month showing a minimum balance of £1,000.
This list of tourist visa requirements for Indonesia is general, and entry requirements are subject to change at the discretion of Indonesian authorities. For example, yours truly once called a visa agency in Bali to ask about extension possibilities for the tourist visa, receiving the reply “If the rules are still the same in 2 months, your visa is extendable.”
Indonesia is known for changing their rules frequently, and enforcing them strictly, so be wise. Follow the rules, have all the necessary documents and don’t overstay your visa!
Be smart and double-check the tourist visa requirements for Indonesia before applying, and do let us know in the comments below if anything has changed since the publishing of this article, and we will update accordingly!
