Registering in Bali: what the state asks and what the village asks

This page is for a foreigner who rents or owns a home in Bali and asks what to register, with whom and in what order. It sets out what the written rules say, with the article, and says where we found nothing. It is general information, not legal advice. It does not list what an office will ask for on a given day: ask the office of your address, and ask for its list in writing.

Two registrations are easy to confuse. The first is the state's: the population office, in some places the head of the neighbourhood, and the immigration duties of a guest and of a host. The second is custom: the record that a desa adat keeps, under its own rules, of the people who live in its territory. Procedures differ by village, and often by banjar. Where a rule on this page belongs to one regency or one city, the page says so, and it is not a rule of Bali.

We used the texts in force on 6 October 2026: UU 23/2006 on population administration as amended by UU 24/2013, Perpres 96/2018, Permendagri 108/2019 and Permendagri 74/2022 on temporary residents; the regency and village rules we could find; Perda Bali 4/2019 on desa adat and its implementing Pergub; and the 2022 guideline of the Majelis Desa Adat (MDA). A bill for a second amendment of UU 23/2006 is under discussion; we found no enacted text, so read the status again before you rely on a registration rule.

Customary rules are each village's own. Every desa adat has its own awig-awig and pararem, and a rule, a form or an amount that one village uses is not a rule of Bali. This page names no village. It is written as a guest who wants to understand, it has not yet been reviewed by a Balinese co-author (the mark under the title says so), and the people of the village are the ones to ask.

Not repeated here: the residence certificate (SKTT) of an ITAS holder, its deadline, its fine and the immigration report of a new address, on the page on KITAS and KITAP; what an owner or manager of a lodging must give immigration about a guest, on the pages on renting a villa to guests and on handing a villa to a manager; the two systems of village government, on the page on how power works in Bali. What a banjar may ask in money and labour is on the page on banjar contributions, and living with neighbours and ceremonies on the page on living with the community.

The population office (Dinas Kependudukan dan Pencatatan Sipil, Disdukcapil) of the kabupaten or kota registers the residents. For a foreigner with an ITAS the rule is UU 23/2006 Pasal 20: the foreigner who plans to live in Indonesia reports to the population office, which issues the SKTT. The deadline, the count in working days, the fine, moving house and the lists that three Bali offices publish are on the page on KITAS and KITAP and are not repeated here.

What the national regulation asks. For an ITAS holder who arrives from abroad the regulation lists the passport and the ITAS card (Perpres 96/2018 Pasal 28(5)); for one who moves within Indonesia, the SKTT, the passport and the ITAS card (Pasal 27(3)). The Minister's regulation adds, for a person who lives in a home that is not his own, a signed statement from the owner that the owner does not object to the address being used (Permendagri 108/2019 Pasal 28(1)). Neither list names a letter from the head of the neighbourhood (kepala lingkungan, kelihan dusun) or from the banjar. The published lists of two of the three Bali offices whose lists we read (Denpasar, Badung) do ask for a letter from the neighbourhood head (see the table on the page on KITAS and KITAP): those are the offices' lists, and we found no text that authorises or forbids it.

The village office in the chain. The state has an officer for population registration at the village or kelurahan, the Petugas Registrasi, who assists the village head or lurah and the population office (UU 23/2006 Pasal 1 angka 20 and Pasal 12, as amended by UU 24/2013). After a move-in registration, which covers a foreigner who arrives or moves, the population office makes a list of the residents it served and sends it to the kecamatan, to be passed to the village or kelurahan for its daily book and, from time to time, to the RW and RT or their equivalent (Permendagri 108/2019 Pasal 27 and 36). So the village learns of you from the office. We found no national text that makes you go to the village first.

The immigration law puts a duty on the person who hosts. An immigration or police officer on duty may ask anyone who lets a foreigner stay for that foreigner's data (UU 6/2011 Pasal 72(1), as amended by UU 63/2024), and the owner or manager of a lodging must give the data of the foreigners who stay there when an officer asks (Pasal 72(2)). The article does not mention the banjar, the kepala lingkungan or the village office: the duty runs to immigration and police officers.

The offence for not giving the data, its penalty since UU 1/2026 and the application APOA are on the page on renting a villa to guests. Who enters the guests when a manager runs the villa is on the page on handing a villa to a manager. Whether a tenant who lives in a home for a year stays in the sense of the article the texts do not say; the page on renting a home advises you to ask the immigration office.

The rules of Denpasar and Jembrana, like the Minister's rule, list the owners or managers of rented houses among the partners of the population office (sections Temporary residents and Regency and city rules). Whatever you agree, put it in writing in the rental or management contract: who gives the guests' data, who reports the household to the kepala lingkungan where a rule asks for it, and who tells the banjar.

A regulation of the Minister of Home Affairs of 11 April 2022 (Permendagri 74/2022, in force since 18 April 2022, replacing Permendagri 14/2015) sets up the registration of temporary residents, penduduk nonpermanen. It defines one as an Indonesian citizen or a foreigner who lives for at most one year at an address other than the one on the KTP-el, the family card or the SKTT, and does not mean to settle (Pasal 1 angka 7). Such a person registers with the population office of the kabupaten or kota, with the NIK, online or on paper on form F.1-15 (Pasal 2).

The partners that the office works with, named in Pasal 6(2), include the RT and RW, the owners or managers of rented houses, boarding houses, apartments and dormitories, and companies that employ foreigners. The article speaks of coordination, and we found no article of the regulation that puts a duty or a penalty on an owner. A person who stays longer than one year and means to settle must report to the population office to obtain a move certificate (Pasal 16(1)).

Whether it reaches you. The definition names foreigners (orang asing), but registration uses the NIK (Pasal 2(2)), and we found no text that says how a foreign visitor without a NIK is registered, or whether an ITAS holder whose SKTT shows another address must register under this rule. An ITAS holder who lives at the address on the SKTT is not described by the definition. Ask the population office of your address which applies to you, and keep its answer in writing.

A banjar has two faces in the texts. In the state's administration a neighbourhood or hamlet (lingkungan, dusun) has a head, the kepala lingkungan or kelihan dusun, in some texts called the kelian banjar dinas. The regulations we read define this person as a helper of the perbekel (village head) or lurah (head of a kelurahan) who answers to that head (Denpasar regulation 86/2019 Pasal 1 angka 7; Jembrana regulation 26/2023 Pasal 1 angka 9). It is an office of the desa dinas, the administrative village.

In custom, the banjar adat (also called banjar suka-duka) is a part of the desa adat (Perda 4/2019 Pasal 1 angka 9). It carries out the social and religious activities of the banjar and is led by the prajuru banjar adat, whose make-up and election the awig-awig sets (Pasal 39). The prajuru banjar adat coordinate with the desa adat, carry out its awig-awig and pararem and arrange the social and religious life of the banjar (Pasal 40). The head of the whole desa adat is the bendesa adat, with the other prajuru named in Pasal 29(1).

Whether the two offices are held by different people or by the same person differs and the texts do not say. The page on how power works in Bali sets out both systems. What matters here: the state's record is made by the population office and kept in its database; the customary record is made by the prajuru under the village's own rules (next section). We found no text that makes one depend on the other, so do not take a letter of one for a paper of the other.

Perda 4/2019 divides the people of a village's territory in three: krama desa adat (Hindu members of Balinese society who are mipil, registered as members, and recorded), krama tamiu (Hindu members of Balinese society who are not mipil but are recorded in the local desa adat) and tamiu (anyone else who is in the territory for a time, or lives there and is recorded) (Pasal 1 angka 10 to 13 and Pasal 8(2)). The definitions of krama speak of Balinese Hindus; the definition of tamiu takes everyone else and does not name nationality (the page on disputes says more). A village's own pararem may spell it out, and some do: ask for the one that applies.

Recorded is not registered. Pasal 8(3) leaves the conditions and the procedure for mipil as krama desa adat, and the recording of krama tamiu and tamiu, to the awig-awig and pararem of each desa adat. The elucidation of Pasal 8(2) says that recorded (tercatat) means recorded in population administration and not registered as krama desa adat. The 2022 guideline of the MDA repeats this. Its preamble, however, speaks of the pendaftaran (registration) of krama tamiu and tamiu next to the mipil of krama desa adat. We read the texts together: a tamiu is not a member, and what a village keeps about a tamiu is a record; the words differ, and the village's pararem says which it uses.

What the prajuru do. The prajuru desa adat, the bendesa adat and the officers named in Pasal 29(1), carry out the village's awig-awig and pararem (Pasal 30 d). The MDA guideline says what a village does before it writes a pararem that sets duties for the people in its territory: the prajuru record the krama desa adat, krama tamiu and tamiu and the institutions in the territory, at least to know their number, their place of origin, their work and other matters thought important; from this the desa adat issues a customary record of its krama (an ilikita desa adat), which can be printed as a card, the Kartu Tanda Krama Desa Adat (KTKDA) (angka 2.3.1 and the list of the matters a pararem covers at the end of Bab II). According to the guideline, a pararem on the people of the village covers, at the least, this recording of the three groups.

What this means for you. We found no provincial text that makes a foreign owner or tenant register with the desa adat, sets a form, a list of papers or a time limit, or says that a desa adat must keep a register of tamiu. What exists is a framework: the Perda says that a village records tamiu under its own rules, and the guideline says what a pararem on residents covers. So whether a village keeps a record of tamiu, what it asks, whether it gives a card, and whether it charges anything, are for its own awig-awig and pararem. The Governor's regulation that implements the Perda, Pergub 4/2020, deals with other articles (Pasal 13(5), 17(2), 19(4), 63, 75, 81, 88 and 91), not with Pasal 8.

A tamiu has limited duties and rights, in the fields of pawongan (relations among people) and palemahan (land and surroundings) and not of parahyangan (the temple and worship); the content is set by the village (Perda 4/2019 Pasal 9). What a banjar may ask in money, joint work and gifts is on the page on banjar contributions; the page on Bali's own rules sets out the provincial framework.

A duty of law, with an office behind it: report to the population office if you hold an ITAS (UU 23/2006 Pasal 20); report a change of address to immigration (UU 6/2011 Pasal 71); give the data of foreign guests to an officer who asks, if you own or manage a lodging (Pasal 72(2)). Each has a state office that enforces it and a penalty set by law. The first two are on the page on KITAS and KITAP, the third on the page on renting a villa to guests.

A duty by local rule, where there is one: a regency or city regulation may ask newcomers to report to the head of the neighbourhood (Denpasar for Indonesian citizens only, Jembrana through its heads of hamlets). Ask the kepala lingkungan or the village office whether a rule applies to your address, and ask to see the text. We have not confirmed how the rules we read apply to foreigners.

Custom: the record of the desa adat rests on Perda 4/2019 Pasal 8(3) and on the village's own pararem. It is not a state registration, a state permit or a condition of the SKTT in the national texts we read. It is also not a mere courtesy: the Perda gives the village authority over its own affairs, and its prajuru carry out its rules (Pasal 30 d). A guest who wants to live well in a village does well to ask early how the village records the people who live in it.

Procedures differ by village, and sometimes by banjar. The answer from one banjar is not the answer for the next. Ask in writing, and keep the answer with your contract.

To the population office of your address: Which papers do you need for my registration, which of them are national and which are yours, and do you need a letter from the owner of the house or from the kepala lingkungan? Do I register as a resident with an SKTT or as a temporary resident? May I have the list in writing?

To the kepala lingkungan or the village office: Does a regulation of this regency or of this village ask newcomers, or the owner of a rented home, to report to you? Which one, and may I have the text? What do you need from me, and what do I receive as proof?

To the banjar or the desa adat, politely and in writing: Which pararem on the people of the village applies to me, and what is its registration number? Do you keep a record of tamiu here, and how? What do you ask of me for it, what do I receive, and does it cost anything? Whom should I speak to, and when?

To the owner or the manager: Who reports foreign guests to immigration, who goes to the kepala lingkungan and to the banjar, and who keeps the receipts? Write down each answer with the date and the name of the person, and keep it with your contract.

How Permendagri 74/2022 is applied to foreigners: how a foreign visitor without a NIK is registered, and whether an ITAS holder who lives away from the address on the SKTT must register under it.

Whether the other regencies (Badung, Gianyar, Tabanan, Karangasem, Klungkung, Bangli) have rules on registering temporary residents that name the neighbourhood head or the banjar. We found none, and did not read their population regulations beyond a search; a text may exist that we did not find.

Whether the Denpasar regulation of 2019 has been replaced or adjusted after the Minister's rule of 2022, which replaced the rule it was made under. Whether the regulations of Jembrana and Buleleng are applied to foreigners.

Whether a desa adat may require a foreign owner or tenant to register or to carry a card, and with what sanction. Perda 4/2019 leaves the recording to the village's rules (Pasal 8(3)); we found no provincial text on a sanction for not being recorded, and we read no village's awig-awig or pararem for this page.

Whether the MDA guideline of 2022 has been replaced. The list of guidelines on the province's customary-law site on 6 October 2026 shows no later guideline on krama. Whether any state office treats a banjar's letter or a village record as a condition for a state paper: the national texts we read do not, and the published lists of two of the three Bali offices whose lists we read (Denpasar, Badung) name the neighbourhood head.

Whether the second amendment of UU 23/2006 has been passed. We found no enacted text; read the status again before you rely on a registration rule.