Moving to Bali Checklist: A Step-by-Step Timeline for 2026

A moving to Bali checklist for 2026, from six months out to your first month: visa, budget, schools, villa, phone, bank, driving and village life.

This moving to Bali checklist puts the steps of relocating to Bali in order, from six months before you fly to your first month on the island. In short: choose your visa route and budget first, rent monthly for your first weeks, and sign a yearly lease only after viewing villas in person. Each step links to a detailed guide.

3–6 months before: visa, budget, schools and insurance

If you are working out how to move to Bali, start with the decisions that take longest.

• Choose your visa route. Visit visas cover 30 to 180 days and do not let you work. To live here, you need a KITAS (limited stay permit), for example for remote work, a second home, retirement at 60 or over, a local job or family. Our guide to visas for living in Bali compares the routes.
• Set a budget. Rent and school fees are the largest costs, and yearly leases are usually paid in full upfront, plus a refundable deposit. Our guide to the cost of living in Bali adds up sample monthly budgets for a single person, a couple and a family.
• Apply to schools. If you are moving to Bali with family, start early: schools charge application and registration fees, and some take a refundable deposit. Choose the school before the villa, because the school run shapes where you should live. See our guide to international schools in southwest Bali.
• Arrange health insurance. Get cover that starts the day you land, including medical evacuation, and ask a travel clinic about vaccinations for a long stay. Read about healthcare and hospitals in Bali.
• Check the rules for pets. Bali has rabies. A 2010 Bali governor’s regulation (Pergub 19/2010) bans bringing dogs, cats and monkeys onto the island from outside Bali to keep as pets. Before you make plans for a pet, check the current position with Indonesia’s quarantine agency (Barantin) and Bali’s agriculture office.
• Decide what to ship. Ask whether the villas you like come furnished before you ship furniture. If you ship household goods, use a mover who knows Indonesian customs, and ask about documents and any duty exemption.

1–2 months before: a first base, the villa search and documents

• Book a first base. A monthly rental gives you time to view villas and test an area. Monthly rentals often cost around 10–20% more per month than a yearly lease, but you can move on sooner. Browse monthly villa rentals.
• Start the villa search. Shortlist areas and villas online, then view them in person before you pay for a year. Our guide to long-term villa rental covers prices, what rent includes and the lease. We help you find a villa before or after you arrive: tell us what you need.

Documents to bring

• A passport with at least six months’ validity (some permits ask for more).
• Your visa approval, printed and on your phone.
• Your national driving license and an international driving permit from your home country.
• Birth and marriage certificates if family members will hold dependent permits; ask your visa agent whether they need translating.
• Your health insurance policy, your children’s school reports and the invoices for the phones you bring.

Arrival week: declaration, phone, transport and money

Before you land

Since 1 September 2025, international arrivals at Bali’s Ngurah Rai airport must complete the All Indonesia arrival declaration, which combines the immigration, customs, health and quarantine forms. On a visa on arrival or a visit visa, you also pay the IDR 150,000 tourist levy through Love Bali; KITAS and KITAP (permanent stay permit) holders are exempt (2025 rules).

Phone and SIM card

Your phone works with your home SIM card on roaming. To use an Indonesian SIM card for more than 90 days, register the phone’s IMEI (its unique device number) with customs.

• At the airport: declare the phone in the customs part of your All Indonesia arrival declaration, then register it at the customs desk in the international arrivals hall, right after immigration (the airport customs office’s page, bcngurahrai.beacukai.go.id, explains the steps). Only there do you get the USD 500 duty-free allowance, which covers everything you bring; you pay import duty and taxes on any value above it. The limit is two devices per passenger.
• Missed it? A customs office can register the phone within 60 days of arrival, but without the allowance.
• Staying 90 days or less? Tourists can get network access at a mobile operator’s booth instead, valid for 90 days.
• Buying a SIM card: bring your passport, or your stay permit once you have it. Since 1 July 2026, registering a new number includes a face scan (Permen Komdigi 7/2026).

Getting around

• Scooter: In 2026, a monthly rental costs about IDR 750,000–1 million, plus fuel. Wear a helmet on every ride.
• License: Indonesia recognizes international driving permits issued abroad under international road traffic agreements. Carry yours with your national license, and check that it covers motorcycles if you plan to ride.
• Indonesian license: some foreigners who live here can get an Indonesian SIM (Surat Izin Mengemudi, driving license) from the police. Police Regulation 5/2021, as amended in 2023, lists a passport with a KITAP, or with a KITAS for experts and students; a driving-school certificate; biometric recording; and proof of active membership of the national health insurance (BPJS Kesehatan). Ask the police licensing office (Satpas) whether your permit type qualifies.

Money

Bring two cards from different banks and some cash for the first days, and tell your bank you are moving. A local bank account usually comes later, once you hold a KITAS.

First month: lease, registration and bank account

• Sign the yearly lease after viewing in person. Pay only after both sides have signed, only to the person entitled to rent out the villa, and against a receipt. If your landlord is Indonesian, choose a bilingual Indonesian–English lease. On move-in day, photograph the villa and the meters and sign an inventory. Our villa rental contract checklist goes through the lease clause by clause.
• SKTT for KITAS holders. Register with your regency’s civil registry office (Disdukcapil) for an SKTT (Surat Keterangan Tempat Tinggal, certificate of residence), and carry it: traveling without it can bring an administrative fine. KITAP holders get an electronic ID card (KTP-el) instead. Report a move to another regency, for example from Badung to Tabanan.
• Address reporting. Landlords and villa managers are expected to register foreign tenants with immigration through the APOA app (Aplikasi Pelaporan Orang Asing, foreigner reporting app). Give them your passport and permit details, and ask them to confirm.
• Bank account, if eligible. Expect to need your passport and your KITAS or KITAP: BCA’s savings account page, for example, asks foreigners who live in Indonesia for both. Without a stay permit, it depends on the bank’s own checks.
• Utilities. Note whose name the electricity and internet accounts are in, and who to call for repairs.

Settling in: village life, Nyepi and the rainy season

Your banjar and village

A banjar is a neighborhood unit of the desa adat (customary village). Under Bali’s regulation on customary villages (Perda Bali 4/2019), foreign tenants are tamiu: residents with limited duties in village community and environmental matters. Everyone who lives in a village must help keep it sacred, clean and orderly. Each village sets the details in its own rules (awig-awig and pararem), including whether residents pay a contribution, so ask your landlord; our long-term rental guide has a section on the banjar contribution. Expect ceremonies, processions and the odd blocked road.

Nyepi, the day of silence

Once a year, on Nyepi (the Balinese Saka New Year), Bali stands still for 24 hours. The day is observed with four restraints, the catur brata: no fire or lights, no travel, no entertainment and no work. The airport closes too: in 2026, regular commercial flights stopped from 6 a.m. on 19 March to 6 a.m. on 20 March. Nyepi 2027 falls on Monday, 8 March. Do not plan to fly that day, and stock up on food and drinking water beforehand.

The rainy season

Before your first rainy season, ask how the villa copes with heavy rain: roof leaks, and whether the villa, garden or access road floods. Bali saw deadly floods in September 2025. In the wet months, keep drains clear, air the rooms against mold and report leaks at once.

Keep your permit valid

Note your permit’s expiry date and start renewals early. Overstaying costs IDR 1 million per day (as of August 2026). If you move, change sponsor or marry, ask your sponsor or a licensed visa agent whether you must report it.

Your moving to Bali checklist at a glance