The short answer
Most tourists cannot enter Indonesia visa-free: as of July 2026 the old 169-country visa waiver remains suspended, so the standard route for a Bali holiday is the visa on arrival (VoA) or its online version, the e-VOA. Visa-free entry survives only for ASEAN nationals plus a short list of additions (Brazil and Turkey rejoined in July 2025), and that free 30-day stay cannot be extended. Everyone else on the eligible list pays IDR 500,000 for a 30-day VoA. Longer stays need a proper visa arranged before travel.
Who needs which visa
Around 90+ nationalities qualify for the VoA and e-VOA, including the US, UK, most of the EU, Australia, Canada, Japan and India. It gives 30 days, extendable once for another 30. If you want longer, the C1 tourist visa (the successor to the old B211A, renamed in the January 2024 visa-index overhaul) gives 60 days and can be extended twice, up to 180 days total. Both are applied for on the official immigration portal at evisa.imigrasi.go.id, which also carries the current eligibility list: always check it, because the list does change.
Passport validity and onward ticket
Your passport must be valid for at least six months from the date you enter Indonesia, and you need proof of an onward or return ticket. Immigration also expects the passport to be in good condition: torn pages or a loose cover can genuinely cause refusals. In practice the onward-ticket check happens most often at check-in, where the airline verifies it before letting you board, so do not plan to sort it out after landing. A cheap refundable ticket counts; "I will book it later" does not.
The arrival card that replaced the e-CD
The old e-CD customs declaration is gone: since 1 October 2025 every international arrival, foreign or Indonesian, must complete the free All Indonesia Arrival Card instead. It merges the customs, immigration and health declarations into one digital form at allindonesia.imigrasi.go.id, and you can complete it up to 72 hours before landing. It costs nothing, so any site charging a "processing fee" for it is a lookalike, not the government. Fill it in before you fly and keep the QR code handy.
Overstay fines are not a rounding error
Overstaying costs IDR 1,000,000 per day (roughly USD 60), starting from day one, with no grace period. The fine must be paid before you are allowed to depart. Past 60 days of overstay it stops being a fine at all: you face deportation and a blacklist entry that can ban you from Indonesia for years. Two honest days of buffer when booking your exit flight are far cheaper than one miscounted week, so count your 30 days from the entry stamp, not from memory.
A pre-flight checklist
Five things cover almost every traveller: an eligible visa route, six months of passport validity, an onward ticket, the arrival card, and the separate Bali tourist levy. Buy the e-VOA a few days out rather than queueing at the counter, screenshot every confirmation, and remember the IDR 150,000 Bali levy is its own payment on its own portal. It also helps to have data the moment you land: install your Goodbars eSIM before flying so you can pull up the e-VOA PDF and arrival-card QR at the desk without hunting for airport Wi-Fi.
