RELOCATION
UPCOMING
INSIGHTS • RELOCATION
What to Decide
What to Decide
Before Moving to Bali
Moving to Bali involves considerably more than finding somewhere to live and arranging your journey.
The decisions you make before you arrive can affect your budget, where you live, how practical your daily routine becomes and how smoothly you settle into life in Indonesia.
What to Decide
Before Moving to Bali
Moving to Bali involves considerably more than finding somewhere to live and arranging your journey.
The decisions you make before you arrive can affect your budget, where you live, how practical your daily routine becomes and how smoothly you settle into life in Indonesia.
Before committing to flights, long-term accommodation or major financial decisions, it helps to work through a few fundamental questions first.
This guide is designed to help you do exactly that.
BEFORE YOU BEGIN
Key Takeaways
01
Be clear about why you are moving and what you want everyday life in Bali to look like.
02
Understand how you will support yourself and which immigration, work, business or tax questions need professional checking.
03
Choose where to live around your real weekly routine, not simply where you enjoyed spending time on holiday.
04
Budget for the cost of relocating and getting established, not only your expected monthly living expenses.
05
Families should consider schooling, healthcare, transport and daily journeys early in the planning process.
06
Avoid making every permanent decision before you have had time to understand how life on the ground actually works.
Why Are You Moving to Bali?
Start with the reason for the move.
You may be relocating for work, establishing or managing a business, moving with your family, joining a partner, planning a longer-term lifestyle change or simply exploring whether Indonesia could become a more permanent base.
Those are very different situations.
Your reason for moving influences almost every decision that follows, including how long you intend to stay, the type of accommodation you need, the area that suits you, your budget and the professional advice you may require.
It is useful to go one step further than saying, “I want to live in Bali.”
Ask yourself what you actually want the move to achieve.
The clearer the answer, the easier it becomes to judge whether individual decisions support the life you are trying to build.
How Will You Support Yourself?
Your financial plan and your intended activities in Indonesia need to make sense together.
Someone employed overseas, someone establishing an Indonesian business, someone relocating with an employer and someone living from investments or retirement income may face very different practical and regulatory questions.
Do not leave this until after you arrive.
Before making major commitments, establish:
• where your income will come from
• whether you expect to work or conduct business while in Indonesia
• whether your intended activities fit the immigration arrangements available to you
• whether you need specialist immigration, business or tax advice
• whether your income remains comfortable once relocation and first-year costs are included
Living in Indonesia, having permission to stay in Indonesia, working in Indonesia and becoming subject to Indonesian tax obligations are not automatically the same question.
Treat them separately and obtain appropriate current advice where necessary.
How Long Do You Actually Intend to Stay?
A three-month experiment and a multi-year relocation require very different levels of preparation.
If you are genuinely testing whether Bali suits you, flexibility may be more valuable than immediately recreating an entire permanent household.
If you already know that the move forms part of a longer-term family, professional or business plan, you will probably need to think much further ahead.
Your expected timeline can affect decisions around:
• accommodation
• possessions and shipping
• schooling
• healthcare and insurance
• business arrangements
• banking and financial administration
• transport
• household setup
You do not need every answer on day one, but you should know whether you are planning an extended stay or building a longer-term life.
What Will Your Normal Week Look Like?
One of the most useful relocation questions is also one of the simplest:
A place that works beautifully for a weekend or holiday does not automatically create an efficient everyday routine.
Think about where you may need to travel regularly.
That could include your workplace, children’s school, meetings, medical care, exercise, shops, friends, clients or other regular commitments.
Then consider how often you will make those journeys and how much time you are comfortable spending travelling between them.
This approach often makes the location decision considerably clearer.
Our upcoming Where to Live in Bali guide will look at individual areas in much more detail.
What Standard of Housing, Schooling
and Healthcare Do You Need?
There is no single version of “living in Bali”.
Housing standards, household requirements, education needs, healthcare expectations and daily routines vary substantially between individuals and families.
Define your non-negotiables before you begin searching.
For housing, this might include space, privacy, reliable access, working space, proximity to school or business commitments and the level of maintenance you are comfortable managing.
For families, schooling can become one of the most important location decisions. A house may appear ideal until the daily school journey is included.
Healthcare deserves similar attention.
Rather than asking only whether healthcare is “good in Bali”, consider what you or your family actually need. Routine healthcare requirements are different from ongoing specialist treatment, paediatric needs or emergency planning.
The goal is not to find a universal answer. It is to determine whether the options available can support your particular household.
Have You Budgeted for the Move,
Not Just Life Afterwards?
Monthly cost-of-living figures are one of the easiest things to find online.
They are also only part of a relocation budget.
Moving creates expenses that may happen before you have experienced anything resembling a normal month.
Depending on your circumstances, these can include travel, temporary accommodation, immigration administration, insurance, housing deposits or advance payments, school-related costs, household setup, transport arrangements and professional support.
There may also be expenses that occur annually or irregularly rather than monthly.
Most importantly, plan for your first year, not only your first month.
We cover this properly in our companion article, The Real Cost of Moving to Bali: Why a Monthly Budget Isn't Enough.
What Should You Arrange Before You Arrive?
Some decisions are much easier to make before travelling. Others are better made after you have spent time on the ground.
Before arrival, concentrate on the things that would create serious problems if they were ignored.
These may include confirming your immigration plan, organising essential documents, arranging appropriate insurance, establishing access to money, booking suitable temporary accommodation and identifying any family, medical or business matters that have long lead times.
At the same time, resist the urge to organise every detail remotely.
You may discover that a neighbourhood feels different from what you expected, that your daily journeys are less convenient than they appeared on a map or that your priorities change after a few weeks.
Good preparation should create options, not remove them.
Give Yourself Permission Not to Rush
Relocation creates pressure to make decisions.
You have arrived. You need a home. You need transport. You need routines. You may feel that everything should be resolved immediately.
It does not have to be.
Where practical, temporary arrangements can give you time to understand an area and make better-informed longer-term decisions.
This is particularly useful for housing.
Photos can tell you what a property looks like. They cannot fully tell you what the surrounding environment will feel like every morning, how convenient your regular journeys will be or whether the location fits your actual routine.
The same principle applies more broadly.
The objective of your first weeks in Bali is not to prove that every decision you made before arriving was correct.
It is to learn enough to improve the decisions that come next.
Planning Your Move to Bali
A successful relocation is rarely one single decision.
It is a sequence of practical decisions involving your timeline, finances, location, household, work, family and everyday life.
Getting those decisions into the right order can make the process considerably easier.
Hello New Horizon supports individuals, families, entrepreneurs and professionals with the practical side of relocating and settling into Indonesia, including relocation planning, local orientation, housing-search coordination, family-settling support and coordination with appropriate local service providers.
Where regulated immigration, legal, financial or tax advice is required, the relevant matter should be checked with the appropriate qualified professional.
Sources & Official Information
Directorate General of Immigration, Republic of Indonesia
Official e-Visa and immigration services information
Directorate General of Taxes, Republic of Indonesia
Current regulation on domestic and foreign tax-subject status
Official information checked September 2026. Requirements can change; always verify your own circumstances.