Renting a home to live in Bali: who may let, contract, deposit

This page is for a foreigner who rents a house, villa or room to live in, for a year or by the month. It sets out what the written law says, with the article, and says where we found it silent. It is general information, not legal advice. It says nothing about areas, rents or where to look for a home.

The rules for a lease are in the Civil Code, Chapter VII of Book III (Pasal 1548 to 1600), which we read in full. We found no statute and no Bali rule written for a person who rents a home to live in. Where this page says that the Civil Code does not say something, the contract is the only protection you have, so read it before you pay.

A long lease of land, or of a house for many years, and the land rights behind it are on the page on leasing; this page links to it and does not repeat it. A villa let to tourists for short stays is a business, with a licence and a regional hotel tax: see the page on renting a villa to guests, which also explains where the line between a stay and a long rental falls for that tax. The tax on the rent and the ways to complain are on other pages that this one points to.

Not covered: prices, areas, how to find a home, rules for boarding houses (kost), and any tax beyond the links. The population registration of a foreigner with a stay permit, and the duty to tell immigration where the foreigner lives, are on the page on KITAS and KITAP.

The Civil Code defines a lease as an agreement in which one party gives the other the enjoyment of a thing for a fixed time against a price (Pasal 1548). The definition does not say that the person who lets must be the owner, and we found no article in the chapter that says who may let. What the chapter does say is what the party who lets owes you: to hand the home over, to keep it fit for the agreed use and to let you enjoy it in peace for the whole term (Pasal 1550). A contract applies only between the parties who made it (Pasal 1340), so a lease made with someone who is not the owner does not by itself bind the owner. If that person had no right to let, your claim is against him.

If a third party claims a right over the home, or sues you to leave, you must tell the party who let it to you and may call him as guarantor (Pasal 1558). If you are disturbed by a lawsuit about ownership, you may ask for a proportional reduction of the rent, provided the disturbance was lawfully notified to the owner (Pasal 1557). The party who lets does not guarantee you against someone who disturbs you without any right over the home; you may sue that person yourself (Pasal 1556).

If the person you pay is himself a tenant, he may not sublet the home or hand over his lease to another person without permission (the official copy of Pasal 1559 we read is garbled at the word for subletting; the standard text names it). The Civil Code threatens cancellation of his lease and damages, and the owner is then not bound by the sublease agreement (Pasal 1559). A tenant who lives in a rented house may, at his own risk, sublet a part of it unless his lease forbids it (same article). The person letting to you may hold only a lease, on the home or on the land under it: ask what he holds, and for how long. We found no article that says what becomes of a sublease when the lease above it ends first, so keep your term inside his.

A person who lets for the owner needs the owner's authority. A power of attorney (pemberian kuasa) may be given by public deed, by a private writing, by a letter or even orally (Pasal 1793), but one written in general terms covers only acts of management; acts that only an owner can do need express words (Pasal 1796). The Civil Code does not say whether letting a home for a year is management or such an act. Ask for a written power of attorney that names the home, says that letting is allowed, gives the term and says who may receive the rent and the deposit.

Letting out something that is not yours and taking money for it can also be fraud under the new Criminal Code. The page on disputes and complaints, section Police, sets out the articles and how to report it.

A deposit or a year of rent paid to the wrong person is hard to get back. These checks take a day or two and need no lawyer, although a notary can do the land office part.

The person on the certificate. Ask to see the land certificate (sertipikat), or the deed behind the home, and compare the name on it with the identity card or passport of the person you deal with. As the property check says, BHUMI shows the parcel but not the owner's name, and seeing a certificate in the ministry's app needs the holder's own login. A person with an interest may learn the data kept in the land book (PP 24/1997 Pasal 34(1)); the text does not say whether a would-be tenant has that interest, so the safe way is to ask a notary or a land deed official (PPAT) to check it at the land office.

The person you pay. The bank account that receives the rent and the deposit should be the owner's, or the account of the person the owner's written authority names. A payment to the personal account of an intermediary leaves you with a claim against the intermediary only.

The owner's consent. If the person is not the owner, ask for the owner's signed consent or power of attorney (section Who may let a home to you) and speak to the owner yourself before you pay. If the person is a tenant, ask for his lease, the owner's written consent to sublet (Pasal 1559) and the date his lease ends.

The mortgage. Ask whether the land carries a mortgage (Hak Tanggungan). The mortgage deed may bar the owner from letting, from setting or changing the term of a lease, and from taking rent in advance without the lender's written consent (UU 4/1996 Pasal 11(2)(a)). The page on leasing says to ask your notary how a mortgage affects the lease if the lender enforces it.

An agent. If an agent or broker is involved, the page on professionals sets out how to check the agent's licence, what the written agreement must say and what the commission for a rental is.

The home itself. See it before you pay, and make a condition list on the day you receive the keys (section Repairs, damage and the deposit).

Repairs. The party who lets must hand the home over in good order and, during the lease, have the repairs done that are needed, except those that are the tenant's duty (Pasal 1551). Small daily repairs are the tenant's. Unless the lease says otherwise, these are the repairs to shop cupboards, window shutters, inner locks and window glass and whatever local custom counts with them, but the owner bears them if they are needed because the home was damaged or by force majeure (Pasal 1583). The Code gives no figure for what is small. A roof is not among the items it names, and by our reading of its text a needed repair that is not a small daily one falls on the party who lets (Pasal 1551); because local custom is part of the test, write it down. A repair that cannot wait until the end of the lease must be accepted by the tenant, the rent is reduced in proportion if it takes more than forty days, and the tenant may end the lease if the home cannot be lived in meanwhile (Pasal 1555).

Condition and damage. If the parties drew up a condition list (pertelaan) at the start, the tenant gives the home back as the list describes it, apart from what has perished or lost value through age or an unavoidable accident (Pasal 1562). Without a list the tenant is presumed to have received the home in good condition unless the contrary is proved (Pasal 1563), and is liable for damage unless he proves it was not his fault (Pasal 1564), including damage by those who live with him or who take over his lease (Pasal 1566). A condition list signed on the day you receive the keys, with dated photographs, is therefore the strongest protection the Code gives a tenant.

The deposit. The lease chapter says nothing about a deposit: not whether one may be asked, how much, what it covers or when it is returned. We searched Pasal 1548 to 1600. The deposit is therefore what the contract says, and a claim for it is a claim for breach of contract. Put the amount, the purpose, the return date and the way a deduction is shown in the contract, and ask for a receipt that says the money is a deposit.

Pay into the bank account of the owner, or of the person the owner's written authority names, and keep the transfer record. Rent paid inside Indonesia is a payment that has to be made in rupiah, and the exceptions in UU 7/2011 Pasal 21(2) do not list rent (the page on financing sets out the rule). Name the rent in rupiah.

Keep a receipt for every payment, signed and dated, that says what it is for: the rent for which months, or the deposit. The Civil Code shows why. In a dispute about the rent of an oral lease that is already running, if there is no receipt, the party who lets is believed on his oath, unless the tenant has experts value the rent (Pasal 1569). The article is written for oral leases; with a written lease the price is in the contract, but a receipt still proves what you paid and when.

The Civil Code chapter does not limit how much rent may be paid in advance. A year paid in advance gives you no protection if the person who let had no right to do so (section Who may let a home to you) or if the home is sold. Paying by the month, or in two parts with the second after you have moved in, limits the loss; the owner may not agree. If the land carries a mortgage, the deed may bar the owner from taking rent in advance without the lender's written consent (UU 4/1996 Pasal 11(2)(a)).

A sale of the home does not end a lease made earlier, unless the parties agreed when the home was let that it would (Pasal 1576). If they did agree, the tenant has no claim for damages unless the contract expressly gives one, and if it does he need not leave while damages that are due remain unpaid (same article). A buyer who uses such a clause must give the tenant as much warning as local custom requires for ending a lease (Pasal 1578). The one year in that article is for a lease of land, so for a house the period is the custom's, which the Code does not state.

We found no article that makes the tenant's protection depend on the lease being recorded at the land office, or on the buyer knowing of it. Recording is optional (page on leasing); ask your notary whether to record yours. The death of the owner or of the tenant does not end a lease either (page on leasing).

A forced sale under a mortgage is also a sale. The mortgage deed may contain the owner's promise to vacate the property when the mortgage is enforced (UU 4/1996 Pasal 11(2)(j)). The texts we read do not say how that promise sits with Pasal 1576 for a tenant of the land. The pages on financing and on leasing say what we know; ask your notary before you sign a lease on land that carries a mortgage.

A written lease ends by law when the agreed time has passed, with no notice (Pasal 1570). A lease that is not written ends only after one party tells the other, with the notice that local custom requires (Pasal 1571). If a tenant of a house or room stays on after a written lease ends and the owner does not oppose it, the Code presumes that he stays on the same terms for the period that local custom sets, and he can leave, or be asked to leave, only after notice given according to custom (Pasal 1587). The page on leasing gives the general rule and the point that an option to renew is only a term of the contract. If you want to stay, ask for the renewal in writing before the end date, with the rent.

Nothing in the chapter lets the tenant end the lease early because he leaves Bali, changes job or finds a better home. The Code names a home destroyed (Pasal 1553) and a home that cannot be lived in during repairs (Pasal 1555). The party who lets cannot end the lease because he wants to use the home himself, unless the contract says so, and then he must give notice (Pasal 1579 and 1580). If either side breaks the contract, the other may choose between asking for performance and asking for cancellation, with damages (Pasal 1267), and cancellation is asked of the court, also where the contract says otherwise (Pasal 1266). We did not research how courts treat a clause that lets a party end the lease alone.

The chapter gives the party who lets no power to remove a tenant himself, and it forbids him to change the form or arrangement of the home during the lease (Pasal 1554). It says nothing about the owner entering the home during the lease: the contract should say when he may enter and with what notice.

Immigration. A foreigner in Indonesia must report a change of address to the local immigration office (UU 6/2011 Pasal 71(1)(a), as reworded by UU 6/2023); how is left to a government regulation (Pasal 71(2)). When you move into a rented home, that duty is yours. The owner has a separate duty: an immigration or police officer may ask any person who gives a foreigner the chance to stay for the foreigner's data (Pasal 72(1), as amended by UU 63/2024), and the owner or manager of a lodging must give the data of the foreigners staying there when asked (Pasal 72(2)). Not giving it after being asked is an offence, and the article speaks of a foreigner who stays "in the house or lodging" (Pasal 117).

The page on renting a villa to guests sets out that offence, how its penalty reads since UU 1/2026 and APOA, the immigration application for these data. The APOA registration form offers "Rumah Sewa" (rental house) among its types of lodging. None of the texts says whether a tenant who lives in a home for a year "stays" (menginap) in that sense, so ask the immigration office, and agree in the contract who enters the data and who keeps the receipt.

The banjar. Bali's village law (Perda Bali 4/2019) calls a tamiu a person who is not one of the two groups of Hindu Balinese members and who is in the village area for a time, or lives there and is recorded. "Recorded" means recorded in population administration, and how tamiu are recorded is left to each desa adat (Pasal 1 angka 12, Pasal 8(3) and the elucidation of Pasal 8(2)). The customary council's guideline of 2022 names a person who stays at least 35 days by renting in the village area a Tamiu Padunungan, says that a village's pararem on its people must cover the recording (pendataan) of tamiu, and puts the contribution called dudukan on tamiu. It lists their duties as limited to dudukan, joint work (patedunan) and voluntary gifts (punia). The ceiling for dudukan and the rest of the picture are on the page on Bali's own rules and in the FAQ answer on banjar fees.

We found no official text of a Bali rule that makes a foreign tenant, or the owner, register the tenant with the banjar. Rules of the city of Denpasar (Indonesian citizens only) and of the regency of Jembrana about the head of the neighbourhood do exist, and the page on registering in Bali sets out the texts we read and what they say about foreigners. What a banjar expects is local practice. Ask the banjar, and get the answer in writing. No text we read says which of owner and tenant pays the dudukan, so write it into the contract.

Start in writing. A debtor is in default when warned by a written order or a similar deed, or by the terms of the obligation itself (Pasal 1238), and damages for not performing are owed from when a debtor who has been declared in default still does not perform (Pasal 1243). A dated written demand, sent so that you can prove it arrived, that names the contract, the amount (the deposit, for example) and a date, is the usual first step and is often called a somasi. Ask an Indonesian advocate to write or check it.

If that does not settle it, the routes are on the page on disputes and complaints. The ones that fit a tenant are the civil court for a contract claim, which starts with the court's own mediation (section Civil court), settlement by the customary village (section Desa adat), and the police when someone let a home that was not his or took money for one that does not exist (section Police). The land office and the administrative court deal with land rights and land decisions, which by our reading a deposit or a repair is not.

Do not stop paying the rent without advice. Paying on time is the tenant's main duty (Pasal 1560), and a tenant who stops paying gives the owner a ground to ask the court for cancellation (Pasal 1266).

The owner who receives the rent owes income tax on it. The rate, who withholds it and the deadlines are on the pages on leasing, on taxes and costs and on tax deadlines for owners, and are not repeated here. A tenant who is a domestic company or another withholding agent named in the regulation withholds it; otherwise the owner pays it. Ask a tax adviser how this applies to you.

The name on the land certificate, or on the lease above the home, is the person letting to you, or the owner's written consent or power of attorney is attached and you have spoken to the owner.

The identity card or passport of that person matches the certificate or the power of attorney, and the account for the rent and the deposit is in that person's name.

You asked whether the land carries a mortgage, and what the lender's consent means for your lease.

The contract is written, in Bahasa Indonesia and in a language you read, and states the term, the rent in rupiah, the deposit and when it is returned, who pays which repairs, utilities and banjar contributions, the notice for each side, renewal and what happens if the home is sold.

A condition list with dated photographs is signed on the day you receive the keys, and every payment has a signed receipt that says what it is for.

You know who reports you to immigration, and what the banjar asks of a tenant, in writing.