Bali Tourist Levy: Two Years of Collection

How much has Bali's foreign tourist levy collected in two years?#

Bali's foreign tourist levy collected Rp369 billion in 2025, from about a third of foreign visitors. The levy, Pungutan Wisatawan Asing (PWA), is a fixed charge of Rp150,000 per foreign visit to Bali. It has applied since 14 February 2024. Governor Wayan Koster put the 2025 total at Rp369 billion and the payment share at 34.8% on 3 January 2026 (ANTARA News Bali, 3 January 2026). BPS-Statistics Indonesia Bali Province (BPS Bali) counted 6,948,754 direct foreign visits that year (ANTARA News Bali, 3 February 2026).

The levy is useful to a property allocator as a gauge of provincial collection capacity, not as a revenue line. A charge paid online before arrival, tied to a passport number and checked at the arrival gate, is the easiest payment a Balinese authority can ask a foreigner to make. If only about a third of foreign arrivals pay it in the second year, the principal learns how far the administration reaches when the target is harder to find than an arriving passenger. This article reads the levy that way.

The first year set the baseline. The head of the Bali Provincial Tourism Office reported Rp318 billion collected in 2024 against 6,333,360 foreign visits, and estimated that 35% to 40% of visitors had paid, a figure the article describes as his own calculation (ANTARA News Bali, 5 February 2025). The governor's later comparison puts 2024 at 32% (ANTARA News Bali, 3 January 2026). Two officials, two shares for the same year. Rp318 billion at Rp150,000 is about 2.12 million payers, or 33.5% of those visits, a Victaura calculation and directional. That spread recurs through the series, and the next sections explain where it comes from.

The revised 2025 budget assumed Rp500 billion, and the levy fell short of it. The governor attributed the shortfall to the policy being in only its second year (ANTARA News Bali, 3 January 2026). The same Rp500 billion appears as the 2026 target (ANTARA News Bali, 16 May 2026). A target missed by about a quarter and then kept is a statement of intent, and the desk treats it as one rather than as a forecast.

What is the Bali levy legally, and who is exempt?#

The levy is a regional charge created by a provincial regulation under a national statute for Bali. Law No. 15 of 2023 on Bali Province, Article 8, allows the province to fund the protection of Balinese culture and the natural environment partly through a levy on foreign tourists. Regional Regulation (Perda) No. 6 of 2023 sets the levy, and Governor's Regulation (Pergub) No. 36 of 2023 sets the payment procedure (ANTARA News Bali, 13 February 2024). The desk read these instruments through that press report. It did not reopen the official texts for this article, and a reader who needs article-level detail should go to the provincial legal bureau.

Payment is non-cash and designed to happen before the arrival gate. A visitor pays Rp150,000 through the Love Bali system, by card, bank transfer, a BPD Bali channel or QRIS, and presents the receipt for scanning after document checks. A counter at the arrival gate takes payment from those who have not paid. Hotels, travel agents, attractions and cruise agents can collect through an end-point application (ANTARA News Bali, 13 February 2024). Every one of those channels is a point at which the share paying can be counted, and none of them is an inspection of a property.

The exemptions mean the levy counts tourists, not residents. The 2024 report lists holders of diplomatic and official visas, crew of transport vehicles, holders of temporary or permanent residence permits, and holders of family-unification, student and golden visas, among others (ANTARA News Bali, 13 February 2024). A foreign principal who lives on the island under a residence permit is therefore outside the count. So are the other exempt groups, and that is one reason the share paying cannot be read against total arrivals as if every arrival were liable.

The regulation was reopened in 2025, and the changes point to enforcement. On 15 April 2025 the second commission of the provincial council reported agreement on 12 points of change to Perda 6/2023. The points described in the press include a new article on administrative sanctions and new chapters on payment to parties that help the province collect, termed imbal jasa (ANTARA News Bali, 15 April 2025). The report does not say whom the sanctions fall on or what they are. The desk therefore reports that a sanctions article exists, and nothing about its content.

Is the Bali levy's 2025 payment share 34.8% or 35.4%?#

Both figures can be right, because they divide the same receipts by different visitor counts. Rp369 billion divided by Rp150,000 gives about 2.46 million payers. Divided by the 6,948,754 direct foreign visits that BPS Bali counted for 2025, that is 35.4% (ANTARA News Bali, 3 February 2026, reporting BPS Bali). Divided by the provincial figure of 7.1 million visits (ANTARA News Bali, 3 January 2026), it is about 34.6%. This is a Victaura calculation, and it is directional.

The 34.8% that the governor gave in January sits between the two and matches neither published count. It implies a denominator near 7.07 million, which the desk could not tie to a published series. The 35.4% that he gave in August 2026 for the full year 2025 matches the BPS Bali count (ANTARA News Bali, 14 August 2026). The simplest reading is that the province moved its denominator toward the BPS figure during 2026. That is an inference, and the sources do not state it.

The calculation rests on three assumptions the sources do not confirm. It assumes every payer paid the full Rp150,000, that receipts are counted before any collection incentive, and that each payment corresponds to one visit. If receipts are net of the 3% incentive paid to collection partners, the implied payer count is slightly higher. If some payers pay twice in a year, the count of distinct payers is lower. The desk therefore calls the 2.46 million directional.

For the principal, the point is the direction and the order of magnitude. Between 2024 and 2025 the reported share moved from about 32% to between 34.6% and 35.4%. That is a rise of about three points in a year, achieved in the same year that a collection incentive was introduced in August 2025 (ANTARA News Bali, 3 January 2026). Whether the gain comes from better collection or from a different denominator cannot be settled from these documents.

What do the 2026 figures of 43% and Rp235 billion say about Bali's collection?#

The governor reported about 43% for January to August 2026, against 35.4% for 2025. Koster gave the figure on 14 August 2026 at the provincial anniversary plenary session, with Rp235 billion collected (ANTARA News Bali, 14 August 2026). He also said that international airlines had agreed to display and announce the Rp150,000 obligation on flights to Bali from late August 2026. As of 14 August 2026 that was an agreement, and the desk has not seen a report that confirms its operation.

The Rp235 billion and the 43% do not reconcile on the BPS arrivals count. BPS Bali counted 3,900,965 direct foreign visits for January to July 2026, down 1.98% on the same months of 2025 (ANTARA News Bali, 1 September 2026). Rp235 billion at Rp150,000 is about 1.57 million payers. Even if August had no arrivals at all, that is 40.2% of the January to July visits. At 43% of those visits the receipts would be about Rp252 billion, and August arrivals would push the required figure higher still.

Several explanations could close the gap, and the sources do not say which one applies. The 43% may use a narrower denominator, such as visits that are liable once exempt categories are removed. It may describe recent months rather than the whole period. Receipts may lag payments, or be reported net of the incentive. The figure may also be a rounded oral statement. The desk does not choose between these. It reports both the receipts and the share as directional, press-reported.

The only January to August 2026 share in the documents reviewed is the governor's 43%. The desk found no other share for the period in the pages it reopened. One aggregator headline refers to nine months while its body reports eight (Bali Discovery, 17 August 2026), which is a reminder of how loosely these figures travel.

A straight-line annualisation of the receipts sits below 2025. Rp235 billion over eight months is Rp29.4 billion a month, or about Rp352 billion over twelve. That is under 2025's Rp369 billion, with arrivals down in 2026. The calculation ignores seasonality and any year-end collection, so it is not a forecast. It shows only that the reported rise in the share paying is not yet visible in the receipts. A fall in arrivals of about 2% does not account for the difference.

Who collects the Bali levy, and what does that say about capacity?#

Bali's collection capacity has grown by adding intermediaries. Since August 2025 at least 150 accommodation businesses have joined as collection end points, and each earns a 3% incentive on the levy it collects. The governor attributed the rise in the payment share, from 32% in 2024 to 34.8% in 2025, to the change in the regional regulation, and said the partnership with tourism businesses had already had an effect (ANTARA News Bali, 3 January 2026). He also named the immigration ministry, the airport operator Angkasa Pura and airlines as planned partners.

An incentive-based model tells the principal how the province prefers to enforce. The province pays private parties to do the collecting and relies on the arrival gate and on an airline announcement that, as of 14 August 2026, was an agreement. This is a low-cost approach for a charge of Rp150,000. It does not require the administration to inspect anything. A hotel that collects the levy from its guests is also a hotel that is registered and visible, which is a limit of the model.

The same logic may not extend to unlicensed property. A villa that operates outside the registry is not a collection end point, will not be asked to be one, and cannot be reached through an airline. The desk draws this as an inference from the structure of the levy, and no source reports it. It is the reason the levy is worth reading at all, because it shows what the province can do when a third party can be paid to help it.

The 2025 amendment extends the same approach to a formal fee. The council's twelve-point revision includes chapters on imbal jasa for parties assisting collection and an article on administrative sanctions (ANTARA News Bali, 15 April 2025). Together, a payment for helping and an article on sanctions, whose content the report does not give, write the intermediary model into the regulation. Whether the sanctions are in force in October 2026 is not stated in the documents reviewed.

Does the same administration have to enforce Bali's villa licences?#

Partly, and the division of tasks is not fully mapped in the sources. Villa and homestay licensing in Indonesia runs through the national Online Single Submission (OSS) system under a risk-based licensing framework. At its year-end press conference, reported on 5 January 2026, the Ministry of Tourism said that all accommodation properties must hold valid operating licences and appropriate business classifications by 31 March 2026 (TTG Asia, 5 January 2026). The report describes supervision mechanisms and administrative sanctions in the new rules. It does not say which tier of government in Bali performs which task, and the desk has not mapped that.

The ministry's own data show a gap between listings and registrations in Bali. As of October 2025, more than 29,000 non-hotel accommodation units in Bali were listed on online travel platforms, and about 14,500 were recorded in the national business registry (TTG Asia, 5 January 2026, citing ministry data). The two counts are not matched unit by unit, since one property can carry several listings, so the desk reads the ratio of roughly one to two as directional. It is a gap of the same order as the levy's, with roughly one registry record for every two listings against about a third of arrivals paying.

The enforcement tool in the ministry's plan is the platform, not the inspector. Providers that miss the deadline risk removal from online travel platforms, and formal notices went to companies in December 2025 (TTG Asia, 5 January 2026). That mirrors the levy, which reaches visitors through accommodation and, by a reported agreement, airlines. In both, the administration reaches the market through the intermediary that already holds the data. On 26 May 2026 the tourism minister announced that about 1,600 unlicensed accommodations nationwide would be delisted from 1 August 2026 if they did not obtain licences (ANTARA News Jogja, 27 May 2026). The desk has seen no report that confirms the delisting took place, and does not report any.

For the principal, the lesson from the levy is to expect uneven enforcement, not none. A charge with a gate, a passport and a payment screen reached about a third of foreign arrivals in year two. A licence regime that has to find houses, not passengers, starts from a harder position. That is a view on capacity. It does not predict which properties will be inspected, and it does not say that any one property is or is not licensed. A principal who needs to know should ask the seller or operator for the property's operating licence and its record in the OSS system. The permit calendar for Bali and Lombok sets out the building-permit gates, KKPR, PBG and SLF, which run on a separate track from the operating licence.

What can the levy tell the principal about Bali's arrivals?#

Levy receipts are a second count of arrivals, but only a lower bound. Receipts divided by Rp150,000 give payers, and payers are a floor under liable arrivals. They cannot replace the BPS Bali series, which is the official count. BPS Bali recorded 6,948,754 direct foreign visits in 2025, up 9.72% on 2024 (ANTARA News Bali, 3 February 2026). The levy series adds a check on direction, and it is only useful when the share paying is stable.

The 2026 arrivals series is flat to down, and the levy share is up. January to July 2026 visits were 3,900,965, down 1.98%, and July alone was 697,809, up 0.10% year on year and 15.34% on June (ANTARA News Bali, 1 September 2026). The first half stood at about 3.2 million, down 2.42% on 3.28 million a year earlier (Katadata Databoks, 4 August 2026, citing BPS Bali). If 2026 receipts rise, the cause on these figures would be a higher share paying rather than more visitors, unless arrivals recover later in the year.

An allocator should not read the levy share as a demand signal. A higher share paying says the province collects more, and says nothing about whether visitors stay in villas. The signals for villa demand are occupancy and rate. Victaura Research covers them in Bali luxury villas, ADR and occupancy, measured and in the note on the nightly rate board as a free comparables set.

The levy does carry one demand-relevant question, the visitor's tolerance of a per-visit charge. Arrivals fell in the first half of 2026, in the months after collection end points were added from August 2025. The sources do not link the two, and the desk does not claim that the levy reduced arrivals. It notes only that no source shows the levy to be a visible drag on the 2025 arrivals growth of 9.72%.

What could change the Bali levy, and what would that mean?#

The rate has not moved, and proposals to move it are on record. A few months after launch, some Bali leaders flagged raising the charge to as much as Rp800,000 (Karryon, 12 January 2026). The 2026 reports still give Rp150,000 (ANTARA News Bali, 14 August 2026). The desk found no adopted change. A reader tracking policy risk should treat the rate as a parameter that officials have discussed, not one that has been decided.

Because the charge is per visit, it weighs most on short stays. Rp150,000 is the same for a three-night trip and a three-month stay. For the long-stay visitor who rents a villa, the levy is a small part of the total outlay, and for the short-stay visitor it is a larger one. The desk offers this as arithmetic about the structure of the charge. It has no measured evidence on how stays of different length respond.

The levy is small beside what the province says visitors spend. Governor Koster put 2025 foreign tourist spending in Bali at Rp176 trillion (ANTARA News Bali, 14 August 2026). Rp369 billion is about 0.2% of that figure, a Victaura calculation and directional. On the same occasion he floated a proposal for Rp5 trillion a year for Bali's infrastructure, which the report describes as an idea that has been floated. The scale of that request, set against the levy, shows where the province's fiscal ambition lies.

A fiscal ambition of that size is a reason to watch how the province treats the base of payers. The desk does not forecast new charges, and no source announces any. It records that a province which sets a Rp500 billion target, misses it, and keeps it has an incentive to widen the base of those who pay. Which groups that would reach is not known. This is an assumption about incentives, not a finding.

Where is the evidence on Bali's tourist levy thin?#

The denominators are not fixed, and that limits every share quoted here. The province cites 7.1 million and, implicitly, 7.07 million visits for 2025, and BPS Bali counts 6,948,754. The first-half 2026 figures rest on a different report again. Until the province publishes the denominator with each share, the percentages stay directional.

The headline facts rest on press reports of the governor's statements. The desk found no provincial document at a working address that it could reopen for the 2025 payer count. It therefore relies on the ANTARA report of the governor's statement for the receipts and the share. The payer count of about 2.46 million is the desk's own calculation from the receipts.

The legal texts were read through the press. The statute, the Perda and the Pergub were not reopened in their official versions for this article. Details such as the exemptions, the 3% incentive and the sanctions article rest on ANTARA's reports. The sanctions are reported as agreed in the council, and the desk found no report of their entry into force.

There is no like-for-like 2025 comparator for the 2026 year-to-date figures. The January to August 2025 receipts were not found. That prevents a clean year-on-year comparison of the Rp235 billion. The comparison offered by the governor sets a part year against a full year.

The link between levy compliance and villa licence enforcement is an inference. No source says that one predicts the other. They share a digital payment or registration step and an intermediary model, although licensing runs through a national system and the levy through the province. That is a structural parallel, not a causal result. The licence figures come from a single press report of ministry data, and the desk could not open the ministry's own release.

The press record is noisy. A travel trade site gave 2024 as about 2.1 million payers, which agrees with the Rp318 billion receipts at Rp150,000 (Travel And Tour World, 19 May 2026). The desk does not use secondary trade summaries for its headline numbers, and uses them here only as a consistency check.

What should a Bali allocator watch next in the tourist levy?#

The first test is the full-year 2026 total against Rp369 billion. The governor's 43% for January to August is a claim about the share paying. The year-end receipts will show whether that share produced more money when arrivals are flat to down. The principal should wait for the province's year-end statement, then compute the implied payers and compare them with the BPS Bali count.

The second test is a published denominator. If the province states the number of visits that its share is calculated on, the 43% can be checked, and the gap with the receipts either closes or does not.

The third test is the licence follow-up. Whether the platform delisting announced for 1 August 2026 took place, and whether sanctions followed, is the best evidence on enforcement reach beyond the arrival gate. As of 30 October 2026 the desk found no report on the outcome. A report of unit counts before and after would make the comparison with the levy direct.

The levy is one input among several. It informs the principal about the administration, the arrivals count informs about volume, and the occupancy and rate series inform about the market. For the wider frame, see Bali and the Indian Ocean villa market. None of these inputs is a recommendation, and the desk draws no conclusion about any property from them.

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.