Rates are set nationally as a ceiling and fixed locally. Anyone quoting one number for all of Bali is rounding.
The price is the number everyone discusses. It is not the number you pay.
Send the question. It goes to a person, not a form, and the answer comes back with the document it sits on.
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Indonesian property taxes are set nationally as a ceiling and then fixed locally by each regency, which means a single figure quoted for the whole of Bali is an approximation at best. Badung, Tabanan and Gianyar are under no obligation to match each other, and they do not.
What follows is what is knowable from public sources, and, just as usefully, what is not.
Paid by the buyer. The national maximum is 5 per cent, applied to the transaction value less an allowance.
The actual rate and the size of that allowance are set by each regency. We could not verify the current figures for the Bali regencies from a primary source, so anyone who gives you a confident single number should be asked where it comes from.
Ask, before you budget: what is the current BPHTB rate and allowance in the regency this property sits in, and on what value will it be assessed?
The last part matters. Duty is generally assessed on the higher of the transaction value and the official valuation, so a price negotiated below the tax office's number does not necessarily reduce the duty.
2.5 per cent of the transfer value, paid by the seller.
It appears here because it is frequently negotiated into the deal. A seller who says the price is net to them is asking you to carry it. That is a legitimate negotiating position and it is not always disclosed as one, so establish early whose obligation is whose in writing.
The recurring cost. National ceiling of 0.5 per cent, reported in Bali at between 0.1 and 0.5 per cent depending on local regulation.
Ask for the SPPT PBB and the receipts for recent years. Arrears attach to the property rather than to the person who accrued them, so an unpaid history becomes yours on completion.
For a resident, 10 per cent final on gross rent.
For a non resident, it is reported as 20 per cent withholding, subject to relief under any applicable double taxation treaty.
How those two interact for a non resident individual letting a property in Indonesia is a question we could not resolve, and the primary source does not address it. This is one of the places where confident answers are cheap and correct answers are not.
Ask your tax adviser: as a non resident individual letting a property in Indonesia, which rate applies to me, and does my country's treaty change it?
For a freehold or HGB transfer, the PPAT fee is capped by regulation at 1 per cent of the transaction price.
For a lease, the deed is drawn by a notaris rather than a PPAT, because a PPAT has no authority to draw a lease deed over freehold land. Notarial fees are governed by a different statute with tiered caps, and we could not verify the tiers. Market practice is commonly quoted at around 1 per cent of lease value.
Ask for the fee in writing before instructing anyone. It is a professional fee, it is quotable in advance, and a refusal to quote it is informative.
Several real expenses sit outside the tax framework and outside most conversations about price.
Certificate verification at the land office through your own notary, which is cheap and non negotiable. A physical survey to reconcile the plot against the Surat Ukur, covered in the documents to ask for. Independent legal review of the deed, particularly the extension clause on a lease. Furnishing, where a property is not sold turn key, which on an off plan purchase is often quoted separately after the headline price. And on a lease, whether any ground rent or service charge continues to be payable during the term, which is a matter for the deed rather than for custom.
Because an honest one cannot be produced without knowing the regency, the structure, the valuation and your tax residency, and a number produced without those is a guess dressed as guidance.
What can be said is that the additional cost is material rather than marginal, that most of it is knowable in advance, and that every figure above is obtainable in writing before you commit. A seller or agent unwilling to put the applicable rates in writing has told you something worth knowing.
This is also the reason no yield, occupancy or return figure appears anywhere on this site. A projected return calculated without the actual cost base is arithmetic performed on an assumption, and the party doing the calculating is usually the party being paid when you sign.
This page describes publicly available tax rules and is not tax or legal advice. Bali Property Sourcing is a real estate agency and buyer's agent, not a tax adviser or a law firm. Rates change and vary by regency. Confirm every figure with a qualified adviser for your own circumstances before committing money.
Every property listed here has been vetted before it went up. Ask what those documents actually say before a deposit changes hands, not after.