Buying land in Bali as a foreigner: the right depends on what you build

An empty plot raises a question a villa does not: which right, if any, a foreign buyer can hold over it. The answer is set by what you mean to do with the land.

What you want to do with the land decides which right you need

Every land listing in Bali quietly assumes you know which of four routes you are on. The route is set by what you intend to do with the plot, not by the plot. Read across to the article.

Eleven intentions, four routes, and two of the intentions have no lawful route at all. The general vocabulary — hak milik, hak pakai, HGB and the rest — is resolved in the fourteen-term table.

The regulation gives a foreigner a home, not a plot

This is the point every “buy land in Bali” guide steps around, and it is the one that matters most for someone looking at an empty plot.

Permen ATR/BPN 18/2021 article 185 says what a foreigner holding an immigration document may own: rumah tinggal atau hunian — a home — in the form of a landed house on hak pakai, or a strata unit. The object is the dwelling. Article 187(2) then describes how it is acquired: the purchase of a new or an existing house or unit.

What that means for bare land

Nothing in that text describes a foreign individual buying an empty plot. The regulation’s picture of a foreign owner is someone acquiring a house, and the hak pakai that goes with it.

What we did not find, and are not claiming

We did not find a provision that expressly prohibits a foreign individual from acquiring vacant land to build a home either. So we are not telling you it cannot be done — we are telling you the text we read does not describe it, and that the two routes built for bare land are the ones below. Whether a particular plot and plan works is a question for an Indonesian lawyer, on that plot, before any money moves.

Leasing land to build on: what a lease was made for

Here the statute is unusually direct. Article 44(1) of the Basic Agrarian Law defines hak sewa as the use of another's land for the purposes of a building, in return for rent. A lease of land is, by its own definition, a lease to build on.

That makes it the natural route for someone who wants to design and build a villa rather than buy one. It also carries every property of a lease that the rest of this site warns about, and one more that is specific to building.

The term is whatever you negotiate

No statute sets a maximum or a minimum term for hak sewa. The number of years is the single most important term in the contract and the one you are best placed to negotiate before you build, when you still have alternatives. Why the remainder is the whole asset.

Who owns the building when the lease ends

Article 44 defines the lease and stops; it does not say what happens to a building standing on leased land when the term runs out. The contract does. So the clause dealing with the building at the end of the term — removal, reversion, compensation, renewal — is the clause to read before you pour a foundation, not after.

What you are really pricing

On leased land you pay twice: once for the years of use, once for the building. Only the first is priced in the lease. Run the build cost and the term through the calculator as a single price, because that is what it is.

Buying land to develop: HGB, held by a company

Article 35(1) of the Basic Agrarian Law defines HGB as the right to erect and own buildings on land that is not one's own. That is precisely what a developer needs, and it is why the development route runs through it.

A foreign individual cannot hold it. PP 18/2021 article 34 grants HGB to Indonesian citizens and Indonesian legal entities, and Perka BKPM 4/2021 article 9(9) requires foreign investment to take the form of an Indonesian limited liability company. So the developer is a PT PMA, and the land right sits in the company.

The investment floor, and the carve-out that decides it for property

The company carries a floor of more than IDR 10 billion under Perka BKPM 4/2021 art. 12(2), measured excluding land and buildings in the general case. For property development in the form of a whole building or an integrated housing complex, article 12(3)(e)(1) measures the same threshold including land and buildings. Which limb a land plan falls under changes the arithmetic completely. The company route in full.

The size of the plot: 2,000 m², or 20 are

Bali land is usually listed in are. An are is a metric unit of 100 square meters: 5 are is 500 m², 10 are is 1,000 m².

For a home in your own name, article 186(1)(a) of Permen ATR/BPN 18/2021 sets one parcel per person or family and no more than 2,000 m² — 20 are. Article 186(2) allows more parcels or a larger area with ministerial permission where the acquisition has a positive economic and social impact. Treat that as an exception that exists, not a planning route.

Land plots are where the cap actually bites. A 24-are plot listed as a home site is not a larger version of the same purchase; for a home in your own name it is outside the article, and on the Bukit that is a common size.

What the land is allowed to be used for

A certificate records who holds which right over which parcel. It does not record what the parcel may be used for — that is the spatial plan, a separate system at a separate office.

Land plots carry this risk more than villas do, because there is no building and therefore no building approval to inspect. The only evidence of what may be built is the designation and what the planning side confirms in writing. “Rice-field view” is a selling point and a warning at once: land that looks onto rice fields is often land whose own designation is still agricultural. It is the leading question in Canggu for that reason.

Land with no certificate

Some cheaper Bali land listings are “not yet certified”. The land has no registered right on it; what it has is evidence of acquisition — girik, Letter C, petok D.

Where that sits in the regulation

Permen ATR/BPN 18/2021 art. 114(1)(b)(1) ranks the evidence it will accept: a certificate, or a listed document of acquisition, or other evidence of acquisition — and, where none exists at all, a statement of physical possession witnessed by two local witnesses. Customary documents sit in the lower tiers, not the first.

The twenty-year route

PP 24/1997 article 24(2) allows a right to be registered on physical possession for twenty consecutive years or more, by the applicant and their predecessors, in good faith, openly, supported by credible witnesses and uncontested by the customary community or the village. It is a real route and much of Bali has been registered through it. It belongs to the possessor. A foreign buyer arriving with a deposit has none of the things it asks for. What a certificate does and does not prove.

Before you pay a deposit on land

1. Which of the four routes is this, in writing?

A home on hak pakai, a lease of land, a company holding HGB — or something with no route. The answer decides every question below.

2. What is the land designated for?

In writing, from the planning side, as a document separate from the certificate.

3. How many are, exactly, and is it one parcel?

Against 20 are and one parcel, if the plan is a home in your own name.

4. Is there a certificate, and which right does it record?

If not, which tier is the evidence in, and who is doing the registration, at whose cost and risk?

5. If it is a lease, what happens to the building at the end?

Read that clause before anything else in the contract.

6. Who makes the deed?

A transfer is only registrable on a PPAT deed (PP 24/1997 art. 37(1)). What that office is.

We sell no land and take no commission on any sale. The fee is fixed per enquiry and agreed in advance, which is why this page can say that the cheapest plot is often the one with no route to it.

Questions on this page