Major New Immigration Changes Can Help Save Tourists From Bali Vacation Disasters

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Indonesia Immigration has just issued a major new policy change that will help holidaymakers in Bali avoid vacation disasters.

Every year, dozens of tourists are denied entry to their flights to Bali due to small passport damage.

Indonesia Immigration has updated its policy so that tourists can now enter the country on a visa on arrival using an emergency passport. 

The Indonesia visa on arrival is the most appropriate visa category for most holidaymakers, backpackers, tourists, and short-stay digital nomads visiting Bali.

The visa can be obtained upon arrival at any of Indonesia’s international airports, including I Gusti Ngurah Rai International Airport in Bali’s Denpasar. The visa costs IDR 500,000, and is valid for 30 days on a single entry; it can be extended for a further 30 days. 

The big change that could save tourists from vacation disaster is that Indonesian immigration will now recognise emergency and temporary passports for the tourism visa on arrival.

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Indonesia’s Immigration teams are notoriously strict when it comes to the condition of travellers’ passports. It is so rigorous, in fact, that airlines have become ultra-precautious with their passengers and deny boarding if they find even the smallest amount of damage to a passenger’s passport. 

This strategy has resulted in many travelers, most commonly from Australia, being in a situation where they must arrange an emergency passport, a temporary passport, or an urgent 24-hour processed national passport in order to board the next flight to Bali.

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A post shared by Directorate General of Immigration (@indonesiaimmigration)

This latest update will mean that if passengers who have been denied entry to their Bali flights can justify to their respective Passport Offices that they require an emergency passport in order to travel, once approved they can travel to Bali on an emergency passport or temporary passport and be eligible to be granted a visa on arrival at Bali Airport, or any other international airport within Indonesia. 

Only passports are considered eligible travel documents for foreigners to show on entry to Indonesia. Identify cards, permanent resident documents, seaman’s books, Titre du Voyage, and certificates of identification are not sufficient proof and will not be accepted. 

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Tourists planning vacations or trips to Bali or anywhere in Indonesia are advised to take the time to assess the condition of their passports in the weeks before their trip.

Indonesian Immigration officials are explicitly looking for watermarks, stains, pen marks, folds, torn pages, frayed pages, and damage within the spine of the passport book.

It is also essential that all travelers have at least one full page empty in their passports and that their passports have at least six months of validity remaining after the planned date of departure from Indonesia. 

As a general rule, if you find any damage and are in doubt, arrange a new passport before travel.

The advice from the Australian travel bureau, Smart Traveler, regarding passport damage and travel to Indonesia is as follows. 

“Indonesian authorities have strict standards for damaged passports, and travelers have been refused entry into Indonesia with a damaged passport. Normal wear and tear, including water damage, minor tears or rips to the pages, can be considered damaged.“

Smart Traveler continues to note “t’s important that: there are no tears, folds, or cuts in the passport pages, especially the photo page, everything on the photo page is legible and clear, and there are no marks across your photo or in the Machine Readable Zone (MRZ) on the photo page, no pages have been removed, there is no alteration or tampering, there is no sign of water damage on the cover of pages.”

Indonesia Immigration offers an English language Instagram account where helpful travel and visa application tips and advice are shared on a regular basis, @IndonesiaImmigration – the official eVisa website for Indonesia can be found here.