How to Immigrate to Indonesia?
Few days ago we traveled to North Bali in singaraja to process a KITAP Visa.
Next step will be waiting for someone from the immigration office to come and check where we live and just see if we're legitimate.
This article describe things to be aware of when you're processing your Visa in Indonesia.
We want to share the information with you which we know.
We describe five different types of visas for Indonesia:
Tourist Visa
Visa on arrival
KITAS/KITAP Visa
Sponsorship
So without further delay here are some tips and information on visas in Indonesia.
Immigration office in Indonesia
Firstly some things to be aware of, number one being, when you process your Visa or your Visa renewal in Indonesia.
You always need to go to the correct immigration office and the correct one is one that is in the same Region where you have your accommodation.
In Bali, there are three or four or five different immigration officers.
Bali immigration office in Denpasar, Singaraja in north Bali and Jimbaran (nearest to the Bali airport).
Each of these immigration officers look after different regions in Bali. Depending where you're staying you need to go to the correct one.
If you are planning to travel around Bali, try to choose the immigration office where you're going to spend most of your time, for example, if you renew your first Visa in Singaraja in North Bali, you will have to renew it every time there.
But if you are not staying in Singaraja from most of your trip in Bali, then you have to keep traveling like two or three hours three times a month to process it in the same immigration office.
So just be careful with that. Make sure you're staying in the place where you going to spend most of the time in Bali and process it in the correct immigration office.
Opening hours of immigration offices in Indonesia
Number two is the opening hours of immigration offices, which is Monday to Friday.
They're open from 8:00 until 12:00. and then one until four so they always have a one-hour lunch break from 12:00 to 1:00.
You won't be able to do anything. So you'll always have to be careful of the opening hours and on Fridays they do only a half day.
So eight until 12. Also, they are closed on public holidays. So if you look at the calendar for Indonesia, if you got a red number or a red day, it's a public holiday.
Appropriate clothing
Third is that you should wear appropriate clothing to the immigration officers.
Even though Bali is pretty relaxed about what you wear, Indonesia as a whole is a Muslim country and they really value modesty.
You should never go to these places in casualty clothing, specially in a formal settings like immigration offices, police stations or governments offices.
You have to wear clothing with covered shoulders, covered knees so t-shirt, pants and long skirts.
You should not wear thongs or flip-flops. You should wear like nicer sandals or even closed in shoes.
The foreigners who come to the immigration office in their casual clothing, they may be asked to put like a cover on or even go home to change their clothing but it happens at random days.
Sometimes people care and sometimes they don't.
But definitely the immigration office in Singaraja is more strict with this.
It's nice you to just be respectful of the morals and culture in the local country.
Types of Visas for Indonesia
Tourist Visa for Indonesia
The first Visa is the tourist visa. Tourist visa for Indonesia is a 30 day free visa for pretty much every country in the world.
You can come to Indonesia and enjoy 30 days here free of charge.
Visa on arrival for Indonesia
The second Visa is Visa on Arrival.
This is also a 30-day Visa, but you pay for it at the airport. It is 35 American dollars, but you can pay in any currency so it depends on the conversion rate on that day, but if you pay for the visa on arrival, it means you can extend it at the immigration offices for an extra 30 days which needs another 350,000 rupiah or about 35 Australian dollars.
So that means you get a total of 60 days versus 30 days like with the tourist visa.
Social Visa for Indonesia
The social visa that you have to apply for outside of Indonesia.
You can apply for it in your own country.
If you have an Indonesian embassy in your country, you should be able to send the documents to them and everything is okay.
They will send back your passport with the VISA in it.
Then you enter Indonesia. This Visa is initially for 60 days and it costs ninety dollars in Australia.
Then once you're in Indonesia you can renew it four times for 30 days each.
So basically it becomes like a six-month visa and each time you have to renew it by paying 350,000 rupiah or 35 Australian dollars.
KITAS Visa for Indonesia
KITAS is a one year visa, and you can renew it a second time and there are different types of KITAS Visa.
So for example, if it is for family Union, which is for marriages or family.
You can also get work KITAS Visa which would be sponsored by a business or on retirement KITAS Visa. This is a temporary visa.
KITAS Visa for family Union costs about two million 500,000 rupiah and that is for one year, including a travel pass so you can leave Indonesia and come back without getting a new Visa every time.
KITAP Visa for Indonesia
KITAP Visa is like KITAS, but it's a five-year visa and you need a sponsor for this, either a family Union or a work KITAS.
With KITAP visa you can live more like a local. You will get the national identity card. You can get a driver's license and you can get medical insurance for example.
The cost is it's like around 790,000 rupiah or 79 dollars.
But with this, the travel pass is only for the first two years and then you will have to renew that separately, but we are not sure exactly how much that cost.
Moreover, Visas in Indonesia are quiet affordable.
Sponsorship for Indonesia
You will need a sponsor for visas.
This is either a business in Indonesia or a local Indonesian Citizen and they will help you with the VISA process.
They will have to write a sponsorship letter basically guaranteeing your safety during your stay in Indonesia, and also at the immigration office, they'll help you fill out the forms there as well as provide copies of their identification.
Of course, the sponsor should be someone you trust.
It should be a legitimate relationship either a friend, a girlfriend, a boyfriend or someone in your family.
Please don't use any random local Indonesian citizen. It should be someone you trust. Someone you've known for a while and someone you have a legitimate relationship.
For each of these visas when you renew them, you will always need to go to the immigration office and get the forms to fill out for your appropriate visa, and you will also need to provide letters for your visa and copies of your identification, so for you it would be your passport and for your sponsor it will be the KTP which is the national identity card.
Each Visa varies a little bit. So you'll just have to check with the immigration office which ones exactly you need.
But overall is the same and many of the documents kind of overlap between them.
Your sponsor will be helping you with the VISA process each time.
You will be providing personal information both of you. So again, it should be someone who you know and trust.
Visa processing time in Indonesia
Another thing to be aware of is that the Visa processing time takes a while, at least, a week.
So for the visa on arrival and the social Visa it takes a week to a week and a half.
The KITAS and KITAP visas take a little bit longer than that also, but basically on the first day, you will go and submit your documents and your photo copies of your identity, then they will give you a receipt for your visa application and you will need to pay for this Visa obviously, but then two days later you will have to also come back to take photos, take fingerprints and sign for your visa and then two days again, you can finally come back and pick up your passport with your Visa in it.
The process is similar for KITAP, a little bit longer, so maybe instead of two days in between it's three or four days in between during this time.
Your actual passport will be in the immigration office.
Of course, no international travel not likely that would anyway, but you also won't have it in case of emergencies or for accommodation purposes.
So you should keep a copy of your passport at home or make sure that you have another form of identification.
Why the rule is like that it would be nice to be able to process your Visa all in one day, but there's no way around it. So just something to be aware of again.
Visa agents in Indonesia
There are many Visa agents in Indonesia, especially in Bali and the benefit of a Visa agent is that they can process it for you in one day.
So Visa agents have relationships with the immigration officers and therefore they're able to get things done quicker, but you pay the price for this.
Visa agents are quite expensive.
Not only paying the cost of the Visa itself, but you're paying the fees for the agent, but if it's important to you to do it quickly and also not to leave your passport in the immigration office for so long, then this might be a good option, but you can processed it yourself as well.
It seems a little bit difficult at first time but it becomes much easier and easier to do it every time after that.
So it's much more affordable to do it this way, but does take time so it depends what's more important to you. There are options there for you guys.
The last thing to remember is that your visas are for different things in Indonesia.
Just because you have a Visa doesn't mean you are able to do everything in Indonesia, for example, social visas are for tourist activities and study so it doesn't allow you to do work.
Make sure that you check the laws or rules associated with your visa and make sure you're clear on what things you're allowed to do while you stay in Indonesia.
Okay, guys, if you have any questions, please put them down below and be happy to answer them for you. Do you enjoy these tips? Are they helpful?
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