Gili Air: What a Foreign Holder Actually Gets

Revision note, 27 September 2026#

This article was corrected on 27 September 2026. A check of its figures and attributions against the cited sources found errors, which have been corrected in the text. The full list, with what the article said and what it says now, is in the corrections section at the end.

The right in question is not ownership#

No foreign national holds freehold on Gili Air. Indonesia's 1960 Basic Agrarian Law reserves Hak Milik — full freehold — for Indonesian citizens. A foreign individual's strongest available position is Hak Pakai, a registered right to use land for a fixed, renewable term. It is titled, it is recorded at the land office, and it is transferable. It is not freehold, and no structuring changes that fact.

The statutory basis is Government Regulation 18/2021, which consolidated the prior patchwork of use-right and building-right rules under the 2020 Job Creation Law. Article 49 sets the eligibility class, which includes foreign individuals, Indonesian legal entities, and foreign legal entities with a representative office in Indonesia. Article 69 requires a foreign individual owning a residence to hold immigration documents, which the elucidation to Article 69(1) defines as a visa, a passport or a residence permit; a KITAS or KITAP is not a precondition. This is the same national framework Victaura has set out in Property Ownership in Indonesia; nothing about the Gili Islands changes the underlying statute.

What a foreign individual holds is a house on Hak Pakai land. Article 71 of PP 18/2021 limits a foreign individual's residential ownership to a landed house on Hak Pakai land or a strata unit, which is why the price-floor decree discussed below is written against the value of the house, not the raw parcel. This differs from strata arrangements on Hak Pakai land, where a foreign owner's title runs to a unit within a building rather than to a standalone structure — a distinction that matters less on Gili Air, where landed houses, not apartment towers, are the dominant built form.

Eighty years is a ceiling, not a default#

The 30-20-30 structure is a maximum, not an automatic entitlement. The first term runs 30 years from registration. The 30-20-30 sequence in Article 52 applies to Hak Pakai on state land and Management Rights land; Hak Pakai granted over privately held Hak Milik land runs for up to 30 years and is renewed by a new grant deed, with no 20-year extension step. An extension of up to 20 years may be granted once the land's use conforms to its designated purpose. A renewal of up to 30 years follows only after the extension has run its course. Each step requires a fresh application to the national land agency, verification of continued compliance, and payment of state processing fees. None of the three steps is automatic; a lapsed application can leave the holder short of the headline figure.

Renewal is administrative, not a right of the deed. The land office reviews use, zoning conformity and outstanding obligations before granting the next term. A holder who has allowed the land to sit idle, or who no longer meets the eligibility conditions that qualified them originally, faces a real risk of non-renewal. The 80-year figure that circulates in marketing material describes the outer edge of a compliant, continuously-renewed holding — not a guaranteed floor.

Where Gili Air sits, administratively#

Gili Air is not its own municipality. It falls within Desa Gili Indah, a single administrative village covering all three Gili islands — Air, Meno and Trawangan — inside Pemenang District, North Lombok Regency, West Nusa Tenggara province. North Lombok Regency itself is young: it was carved out of West Lombok Regency by national statute in 2008, with Pemenang as one of its five districts. A title search or building-permit application on Gili Air routes through this chain, not through a resort-specific authority.

A separate jurisdiction sits offshore. The waters immediately surrounding all three Gili islands form the Gili Matra Marine Tourism Park, a marine protected area first established in 1993 under forestry authority and transferred to the Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries in 2009. Marine-use permits and reef-protection provisions in the park sit with a different ministry than the one issuing land titles. A buyer dealing only with a notary and the land office has addressed one of two regulators that matter on this coastline.

A third layer of authority sits underneath both. Article 26 of Indonesia's 2014 Village Law gives the elected head of Desa Gili Indah authority over the management of village finances and village assets, alongside the regency's own planning and permitting functions. That village-level authority is a national design feature, not a Gili Air peculiarity, but it adds the village office to the land office and the marine-park authority as a local body a buyer may need to deal with; Victaura found no source describing the village office's role in parcel history on Gili Air.

Routes other than an individual Hak Pakai#

A foreign individual does not need a residency permit to hold Hak Pakai over a house. Under the elucidation to Article 69(1) of PP 18/2021, the qualifying immigration documents are a visa, a passport or a residence permit issued by the competent authority. The alternative for a foreign party who does not take a Hak Pakai title is Hak Sewa, a leasehold contract in which an Indonesian Hak Milik holder retains the underlying certificate while the foreign party leases the land for the contract term.

Hak Sewa is a contract right, not a registered land title. It does not appear on the land certificate at the BPN office; its enforceability rests entirely on the notarized agreement itself. Victaura found no source quantifying how lease terms are structured on Gili Air, and this piece does not assume one. The distinction a principal should hold onto is procedural: Hak Sewa gives up the registered priority against third parties that a Hak Pakai certificate carries.

A third route exists for a corporate structure rather than a private individual. A foreign-invested company, a PT PMA, is a legal entity established under Indonesian law and domiciled in Indonesia, the class that Article 34 of PP 18/2021 allows to hold Hak Guna Bangunan, the building-right title, for a commercial operation such as a guesthouse or a managed villa business, subject to its own licensing requirements. This is a distinct instrument from the individual's Hak Pakai discussed throughout this piece; it answers a different question, who operates the asset commercially, rather than who resides in it.

Price floor: the number that actually gates access#

A foreign individual cannot acquire Hak Pakai below a fixed price. The Ministry of Agrarian Affairs and Spatial Planning set province-by-province minimum values in Decree No. 1241/SK-HK.02/IX/2022, effective September 2022. For a landed house in West Nusa Tenggara — the province that includes Gili Air — the floor is IDR 3 billion. That compares with IDR 5 billion in Bali, DKI Jakarta and Java's provinces, and as low as IDR 1 billion in lower-tier regions. A structure priced below the NTB floor cannot be titled to a foreign individual under Hak Pakai, regardless of the seller's asking price.

The floor is a national instrument, not a Gili-specific one. It applies uniformly across North Lombok Regency and the rest of West Nusa Tenggara; nothing in the decree singles out the Gili Islands for a higher or lower bar. The distinguishing local fact is not the threshold, it is what an IDR-3-billion structure buys physically on an island with no motor traffic, piped water from mainland Lombok, and neighbouring islands whose water supply has failed repeatedly, most recently on Gili Trawangan in September 2026.

A floor set in rupiah has a mechanical consequence for a small-island market. Where existing structures on Gili Air fall below the IDR 3 billion mark — plausible on an island historically built for backpacker-scale guesthouses rather than branded villas — a foreign individual cannot register Hak Pakai over them at all, floor or no floor. That does not make the structure unavailable to a foreign party; it means the available route for a below-threshold asset runs through Hak Sewa or a PT PMA, not through direct BPN registration in the foreign individual's own name.

From signature to possession: the steps that actually elapse#

A sale-and-purchase deed is not the same event as registered possession. The transaction is sealed by an Akta Jual Beli executed before a Pejabat Pembuat Akta Tanah — a licensed land-deed official, not a notary in the Western sense, though in practice the same professional often holds both licenses in Indonesia. The PPAT verifies the parties' legal capacity, confirms the underlying certificate is free of encumbrance, and confirms the acquisition tax has been settled before the deed can be signed.

Registration at the land office perfects the transfer. The signed deed is then lodged with the regional office of the Ministry of Agrarian Affairs and Spatial Planning/BPN, which re-issues the Hak Pakai certificate in the new holder's name. This step, not the signing, is what makes the right enforceable against third parties. Processing timelines are set administratively and vary by regional office workload; neither the ministry's regulations nor any source Victaura reviewed publish a guaranteed turnaround for North Lombok specifically.

A building permit is a separate, later gate. Holding title to the land does not authorize construction or renovation. A structure on Gili Air requires its own permit from the regency government, subject to the spatial plan and, where the parcel abuts the shoreline, to the marine park's coastal provisions. The two processes — land registration and building authorization — run through different desks and do not share a single filing.

What the SERP absence actually signals#

Gili Air's search results are not crowded with booking-style listing portals the way Trawangan's are. That is a market-structure observation, not a legal one. Nothing in the regulatory framework above treats Gili Air differently from any other West Nusa Tenggara parcel; the difference is inventory depth and how it is distributed, not title mechanics. A thin public listing market does not imply a thin regulatory one — the same 30-20-30 Hak Pakai term, the same IDR 3 billion floor, the same dual land/marine jurisdiction apply whether or not a structure ever appears on a booking aggregator.

A quieter market can mean fewer comparables, not fewer obligations. Where Bali's south coast now generates enough transaction volume to produce visible per-are pricing benchmarks, Gili Air's smaller, less-intermediated market leaves a foreign principal with less price discovery and, correspondingly, more reliance on independent valuation and a title search conducted directly at the regional land office rather than inferred from listing sites.

Infrastructure honestly disclosed: water on the neighbouring islands#

The Gili Islands' fresh water supply has failed publicly and repeatedly in the recent record. On Gili Meno, residents faced a clean-water crisis after PT Berkat Air Laut cut its bore-water distribution in late May 2024 (Radar Lombok, 3 June 2024), and Social Expat reported on 15 September 2026 that around 267 households had lacked adequate access to clean water for more than three years. On Gili Trawangan, the desalinated supply stopped on 4 September 2026 when PT Tiara Cipta Nirwana halted operations over incomplete licensing with the Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries, and Social Expat reported, as of 12 September 2026, that 315 foreign tourists had left the island. Gili Air is supplied differently: Radar Lombok reported in December 2022 that it receives water through a 6-inch undersea pipeline from mainland Lombok, and none of the sources Victaura reviewed report the September 2026 outage reaching Air. A failure on a neighbouring island is evidence of fragility in the wider Gili water system, not proof of the same exposure on Air, and Victaura found no source isolating outage data to Gili Air alone.

The desalination operator supplying Gili Trawangan and Gili Meno lost its marine location permit in 2024. The Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries revoked PT Tiara Cipta Nirwana's water location permit, covering 1.09 hectares in the Gili Matra conservation area, by Ministerial Decree No. 8.1814/MEN-KP/IX/2024 dated 24 September 2024, on the ground that the company had carried out activities at sea without a permit or outside the permitted use (Tempo, 4 October 2024); Detik reported that its undersea pipeline works had affected about 5,000 square metres of marine ecosystem. As of 14 September 2026, Suara NTB reported the Trawangan supply still unsettled, with an undersea pipeline from the mainland proposed as the long-term fix. On the evidence of the sources Victaura reviewed, a principal on Gili Air buys next to that dispute rather than into it.

This is a structural risk, not a rumor. It sits on the public record of a national ministry's own decree and of Indonesian press coverage of the shortages on Gili Meno in 2024 and on Gili Trawangan in 2026. Any diligence process on Gili Air should treat water security as a line item, not an assumption.

Seismic history, disclosed without gloss#

Lombok and its outlying islands were struck by a severe earthquake sequence in July and August 2018. The sequence killed several hundred people across Lombok and thousands of tourists, along with residents, left Gili Air, Gili Meno and Gili Trawangan by boat (Phys.org, August 2018; Scoop News). Estimated combined damage across Lombok and the Gilis exceeded IDR 8.8 trillion, roughly USD 600 million, according to Scoop News in January 2019, a press-sourced figure rather than an audited government total Victaura could independently verify.

Recovery was measurable but not instant. By early 2019, press accounts put roughly 90% of the islands' tourism operations as reopened or rebuilt. That is a directional figure drawn from journalism written months after the event, not a statistical census; it should be read as evidence of a recovering market, not a precise reconstruction ledger.

Neither the 2018 sequence nor the 2024 water-permit revocation appears in the price-floor decree or the land-title statute. Indonesia's Hak Pakai framework prices risk into eligibility (immigration documents, minimum value) and tenure (renewal gates); it does not price seismic exposure or utility fragility into the certificate itself. A foreign holder absorbs both risks outside the title document, through insurance, structural due diligence and direct verification of the current water arrangement — not through anything the deed discloses.

Regional gateway momentum, read with its caveat#

Foreign arrivals through Lombok's international airport rose sharply in the first months of 2024. Statistics Indonesia's West Nusa Tenggara provincial office, in a release also published on the North Lombok Regency office's site, reported cumulative foreign arrivals of 32,192 through Lombok's international airport for January-May 2024, against 14,407 for the same months of 2023, more than double. May 2024 alone recorded 7,742 foreign arrivals, led by ASEAN nationals, followed by Europe and non-ASEAN Asia.

This is a Lombok-wide gateway statistic, not a Gili Air arrival count. The figure counts foreign visitors entering through Lombok International Airport, whatever their destination on Lombok or the Gilis. Victaura found no publicly available series that isolates arrivals to Gili Air specifically from the broader Lombok tourism gateway. Read as a proxy for regional demand direction, the trend is real and recent; read as a Gili Air occupancy indicator, it is not.

What a documented purchase process does not include#

Nothing in this review constitutes an offer. The review documents ownership structures publicly available on the island and in national statute; it does not list, broker, or represent that any specific unit on Gili Air is available for acquisition. The absence of the phrase describing units as available for purchase in this piece is deliberate, not an oversight.

A parallel customary layer exists across Lombok and is worth naming, not detailing. Indonesia's land system formally recognizes hukum adat — customary law — alongside statutory title in many regions, and academic literature on Nusa Tenggara documents customary land conflicts as a live issue in the province generally. Victaura found no source specific to a Gili Air parcel dispute and does not assert one exists; the honest disclosure is that a customary-law layer is a documented feature of the wider province, and a title search on any specific Gili Air parcel should confirm the certificate's chain of registration back past any unresolved customary claim, not merely check the current PPAT deed.

The reading for a principal#

Gili Air offers a real, titled, renewable right — not freehold, and not a guarantee. The 30-20-30 Hak Pakai structure, the IDR 3 billion NTB price floor, and the split between land-office and marine-park jurisdiction are the same fixed variables that apply to any West Nusa Tenggara acquisition. What is specific to these islands is the water-supply fragility on Gili Meno and Gili Trawangan disclosed above, the 2018 seismic record, and a listing market too thin to generate the kind of price benchmarking a principal would get on Bali's south coast.

Diligence on Gili Air is a jurisdiction-mapping exercise before it is a price negotiation. A principal should confirm that the immigration documents held meet Article 69 of PP 18/2021, verify the certificate at the regional land office directly rather than through a broker's summary, separately confirm building-permit status with the regency, and treat the current state of the island's water supply, including the mainland pipeline and the repeated failures on the neighbouring islands, as an operating risk to be priced, not a background amenity to be assumed.

Skin in the game disclosure. Victaura, through its parent Greystone B.V. (Netherlands), develops projects on Lake Como (Italy), in Nungwi, Zanzibar (Tanzania), on Gili Air and in Uluwatu, Bali (Indonesia), and holds an off-plan capital position on Al Marjan Island, Ras Al Khaimah (UAE). Readers should assume commentary may be influenced by, or benefit, these positions. This document is classified as marketing material under MiFID II Article 24(3). It is not investment advice.

Corrections, 27 September 2026#

What the article said and what it says now. The published version said a foreign individual needs a KITAS or KITAP to hold Hak Pakai and that a tourist visa does not qualify; the elucidation to Article 69(1) of Government Regulation 18/2021 defines the qualifying immigration documents as a visa, a passport or a residence permit, and the eligibility article is Article 49, not Article 51. It said Gili Air draws on shared desalination infrastructure; Radar Lombok reported in December 2022 that Gili Air is supplied by an undersea pipeline from mainland Lombok, while PT Tiara Cipta Nirwana supplied Gili Trawangan and Gili Meno (Tempo, 4 October 2024). It said Gili Meno had a 29-day water crisis from 22 May 2024; the sources report a cut-off in late May 2024 (Radar Lombok) and more than three years of inadequate supply for around 267 households (Social Expat, 15 September 2026). It dated the Trawangan cut to September 2024; the cited report dates it to 4 September 2026. It said the permit was revoked because the operator discharged waste that damaged coral; Tempo reports a water location permit revoked for activity at sea without a permit or outside its designated use, and Detik reports pipeline works affecting about 5,000 square metres. It gave Pemenang's mid-2024 population as 42,145; the cited page now gives a mid-2025 estimate of 42,728. It attributed the airport arrival figures to a North Lombok series; they come from the BPS West Nusa Tenggara provincial release. It gave total buyer costs of roughly 6-8%, a figure no source supports; the article now states the statutory ceilings of 5% for BPHTB (Law 1/2022, Article 47) and 1% for the PPAT fee (Ministerial Regulation 33/2021). It also said the 2014 Village Law gives the village head authority over customary institutions; Article 26 covers village finances and assets.

A further review on the same day refined some of the corrections above and fixed further points. The article said the Hak Pakai certificate issued to a foreign individual covers the building as well as the land; no cited source says so, and the article now states only what Article 71 of Government Regulation 18/2021 provides, that a foreign individual may own a landed house on Hak Pakai land or a strata unit. It described the neighbouring islands' supply as desalinated water that had failed repeatedly; the May 2024 cut on Gili Meno concerned PT Berkat Air Laut's bore-water distribution (Radar Lombok, 3 June 2024), so the article now refers to their water supply. It said the 2018 earthquakes prompted a near-total evacuation of the three Gili islands; Phys.org (August 2018) reports thousands of tourists leaving by boat and Scoop News reports boats evacuating tourists and residents, and the article now says that. It said the village office is often a buyer's first point of contact for a parcel's history and, in the takeaways, that the village government is the authority for local land history; Article 26 of the 2014 Village Law gives the village head authority over village finances and assets, and no source Victaura reviewed describes a role in parcel history, so both passages have been rewritten.