Indonesia: the E33G brings closer monitoring of income

Indonesia's permit for remote workers is aimed at people working for an employer or clients located outside the country, and requires proof of regular income.

The tighter monitoring concerns the verification of this income: bank statements, letters from employers or clients, and checks on the continuity of income at renewal.

We do not publish the required income threshold, the frequency of monitoring or the documents requested: the conditions of this visa were announced and then clarified in stages, and we have not been able to verify the version in force in an official Indonesian source.

This caveat is not a formality. Conditions announced by the press or by intermediaries have often preceded their implementation by several months, and some were changed before being applied.

One point remains constant: the permit does not give the right to work for an Indonesian employer or clients, which requires a separate work permit.

It should be noted that this tightening is part of a general trend. States that created digital nomad visas first sought volume, then found that these holders did not fit into any clear administrative category, and set about bringing them into their ordinary tax systems.

A regulation of the Indonesian Directorate General of Taxes defines a tax resident as a person who is domiciled in Indonesia, who stays there for more than 183 days¹ over twelve months, or who stays there with the intention of residing there.

The same text specifies that the duration is assessed on a continuous or cumulative basis, and that any part of a day counts as a full day. A same-day return trip therefore counts as a full day.

A holder of this visa who settles there for the long term therefore becomes, in law, an Indonesian taxpayer. Monitoring their income is not an immigration formality: it is the prelude to taxation.

And the Indonesian scale is not light: it ranges from 5%² to 35%³, by way of 15%⁴, 25%⁵ and 30%⁶.

Dividends paid to a resident individual are subject to a final withholding tax of no more than 10%⁷, and the tax on profits of resident companies is 22%⁸.

The gap between practice observed in Bali and the applicable law is real, and it is narrowing. A large share of the remote workers on the island do not hold an appropriate permit and declare no income there.

Tighter documentary monitoring is precisely the tool that brings the two closer together. It creates a trail, and that trail serves tax enforcement as much as immigration control.

Building a plan on de facto tolerance is therefore riskier than it was a few years ago. The authorities have carried out enforcement operations and deportations.

For a French national, the practical consequence is that a long stay in Bali must now be treated as an ordinary expatriation: an appropriate permit, counting days, filing returns, and coordination with France under the tax treaty.

1. Check the conditions in force with the Directorate General of Immigration, not with an intermediary.
2. Keep proof of income on an ongoing basis, as monitoring focuses on regularity.
3. Keep a count of days, with any part of a day counting as a full day.
4. Do not work for an Indonesian client without a work permit.
5. Handle the departure from France under its own criteria and under the France–Indonesia tax treaty.

One final risk, unrelated to the visa but decisive for a long-term move, should be mentioned: freehold land ownership is reserved for Indonesian nationals, and nominee arrangements are unlawful and punished by loss of the property, with no effective remedy.