The first thing to understand is that a tourist visa is the wrong tool for a year. A visa on arrival and its extension are designed for visits measured in weeks, and stretching a long stay across a chain of them means leaving the country every couple of months to reset the clock — the so-called visa run. It is the thing that makes a year in Bali feel precarious, and it is entirely avoidable. A family staying for a season or a year should be on a stay permit built for it, not a tourist stamp held together with flights to Singapore.

That permit is the KITAS. KITASKartu Izin Tinggal Terbatas — a limited stay permit that allows a foreigner to reside in Indonesia legally for a defined period, typically one or two years, and to renew. It is sponsored: every KITAS sits behind a recognised reason for staying, and the right route depends on the family’s circumstances. It is not one thing but a family of permits, each tied to a different reason for being in the country. The appropriate route depends on the family’s actual circumstances; below are the ones families most often consider.

The routes families actually use

The remote-worker KITAS. Introduced in 2024, this is one route some working families use. It is built for people employed by a company based outside Indonesia, earning above a set threshold, working remotely while resident in Bali. Its great advantage for families is that the primary holder can sponsor dependents — a spouse and children — onto the stay, so the household is legal as a unit rather than improvising. It runs for a year and renews.

The second-home route. For families who would rather not anchor the stay to employment, Indonesia offers a longer permit — five years or more — granted against a qualifying investment or proof of funds rather than a job. It carries no right to work locally, which suits families whose income sits abroad or who are taking a genuine pause, and it brings immediate family onto the same long-term footing. It is the heavier route to set up and the most stable once in place.

The dependent KITAS. Where one family member already holds a KITAS — through work, marriage to an Indonesian citizen, or another route — the rest of the family can usually be brought on as dependents. Children under eighteen are included on the family’s application, each receiving their own permit, processed as part of the household. It is the mechanism that turns one person’s status into a family’s.

“A family staying for a year should be on a permit built for it — not a tourist stamp held together with flights to Singapore.”

The children

Children are usually the simplest part. On the family routes, a child under eighteen is brought on as a dependent of the sponsoring parent, with their own permit issued alongside the adults’. The paperwork is mostly documentary — birth certificates, translated and legalised, and clean proof of the relationship — and it is the kind of thing that goes smoothly when prepared in advance and painfully when left to chance. A dependent permit lets a child live and attend school in Bali; it does not, of course, permit work, which is rarely the question for a seven-year-old.

Why families get it wrong

Three mistakes recur. The first is starting too late: the right permit is arranged before a family flies, and several routes are far easier to begin from outside Indonesia than to convert once you have arrived on a tourist stamp. The second is taking visa advice from forums, where last year’s rules and this year’s are indistinguishable and the confident answer is often the outdated one. The third is choosing the cheapest agent rather than the right structure — and discovering, at a renewal or a border, that the structure never fit the family in the first place.

The rules genuinely do change. Indonesia has reshaped its long-stay options more than once in recent years, and specifics — thresholds, fees, processing times, the exact documents in fashion — move with them; the authoritative source is always Indonesia’s Directorate General of Immigration. This is precisely why we treat the visa not as a form to fill once but as something to get right at the structural level and then keep current.

None of the above is legal advice, and the particulars shift; treat it as the lie of the land rather than the map. The point is simply that a workable, legal, family-wide pathway exists — and that arranging it well is what removes the anxiety that the visa otherwise casts over the whole year.

On a proper permit

The quiet luxury of a proper permit is not really about paperwork. It is that the family stops thinking about it. On the right permit, a family is not booking flights to reset a stamp or counting days remaining; with status properly settled, the household can enrol in school, settle the practicalities of daily life, and treat the year as a year rather than a sequence of borrowed weeks — subject, as always, to the conditions of the visa category. It is one of the reasons the Year prioritises identifying the right visa pathway early, coordinated through qualified immigration advisers — with eligibility, approval and processing always resting with the visa category and the authorities.

What we do

We coordinate the process for each family as part of the year — assessing the circumstances, identifying the structure that fits, and preparing the documents — working through qualified immigration advisers on the island so the application is handled properly rather than improvised. Eligibility, approval, processing times and re-entry rights remain with the relevant visa category and the Indonesian authorities. If a year in Bali has stalled on the visa, that is exactly the knot we help untie. We have written, too, on what the first month feels like once you have arrived.

This article is general information, not immigration or legal advice. Rules change; the authoritative source is Indonesia’s Directorate General of Immigration, and a family’s route should be confirmed with a qualified immigration adviser.

General information. This article provides general information only. Individual circumstances vary, and families should seek appropriate professional advice for their own situation.

Author: The Annum  ·  Published: June 2026  ·  Last updated: June 2026

— The Annum