Indonesia
Indonesia sells long-stay permits by the dozen and permanence by almost none. Only four categories of temporary permit convert to permanent residence, and the one most foreigners qualify for is not among them.
Can you stay in Indonesia long term?
Yes, but only through three doors. Marry an Indonesian citizen, hold an investor KITAS for three consecutive years, or arrive on the elderly second home route at 55 or over. Those three convert to KITAP, which is genuine permanent residence: five years at a time, renewable without limit, free at each renewal, and strong enough to work and run a business on.
The remote worker KITAS, E33G, is the most popular route into Indonesia and it leads nowhere permanent. It is not on the statutory conversion list in article 54 of the Immigration Act, so a decade of renewals buys a decade of one year permits. If your plan has a tenth year in it, the E33G is a way to test Indonesia, not a way to settle there.
Everybody else is renting one year at a time. The system got faster and cheaper after 2023: most permits are now applied for online and decided in four or five working days, and the fees are in the hundreds of dollars rather than the thousands. What did not change is the generosity. The second home visa stops at ten years. The one year retirement permit renews forever and never becomes anything else.
The marriage route is the cheapest and fastest of the three doors: two years of marriage converts, and the fee for a spouse KITAS is IDR 6,000,000 for one year. It is also the only one that does not require capital or an age threshold.
Ways to move to Indonesia
| Your situation | Route to investigate | Quick read |
|---|---|---|
| Work remotely for a foreign employer | E33G remote worker | No family · switch required · USD 60,000 income |
| Hold USD 550,000 of shares in an Indonesian company | E28A investor | Family · PR at 3 years · IDR 10,000,000,000 |
| Financially independent, over 50, no company | E33 second home | Family · contested · USD 130,000 deposit |
| Retired, 55 or over, want five years and a PR path | E33E Silver Hair | Family · PR at 3 years · USD 50,000 deposit |
| Retired on a pension, want the cheapest year | E33F retirement | Partial · PR at 3 years · USD 3,000 a month |
| Already on a qualifying permit for 3 years | KITAP | Family · permanent · no new money |
Read the settlement column before the threshold column. Two routes on this table have the same three year clock and one has none.
The programmes
E33G remote worker. A one year permit for people employed by a company outside Indonesia, no sponsor needed, USD 60,000 income plus USD 2,000 of balance. It is the fastest and cheapest way into the country and it converts to nothing. Whether it can be extended inside Indonesia is genuinely unresolved: the immigration directorate says yes, the eVisa portal is silent, and agencies disagree. Plan for a visa run.
E28A investor. The only investment route with a clean permanent residence path. It requires IDR 10,000,000,000 of shares held personally in a PT PMA, about USD 555,000, roughly eleven times the USD 50,000 figure that circulates among founders. A board seat is part of the deal, and three years of residence plus a ministry recommendation gets you KITAP.
E33 second home. Five years, no sponsor, USD 130,000 parked in a state bank or a USD 1,000,000 apartment purchase. The deposit must stay for the life of the permit. It caps at ten years, and whether a non-elderly holder can convert to KITAP is contested between the conversion checklist and the Act.
E33E Silver Hair. Five years at 55 or over for a USD 50,000 deposit and USD 3,000 a month of provable income. This is the retirement route that actually settles, because the elderly are named in the Act. Agencies quote the wrong deposit and often forget the KITAP step entirely.
E33F retirement. One year, USD 3,000 a month, a mandatory sponsor and a fee of IDR 7,000,000. The official page states no age requirement at all, which is both why it is cheap and why it can be refused. Renews annually, and three unbroken years still convert.
KITAP. Permanent residence, five years at a time and renewable indefinitely. It is not earned by duration alone. You need the right permit category, a continuous run, and a filing at least 30 days before expiry. Leaving for more than a year ends it automatically.
What Indonesia is bad at
Permanence, from the permit most people hold. The three year clock runs only for workers, religious workers, investors and the elderly, and the remote worker visa is excluded, so the flagship digital nomad product is a dead end by design. Thresholds are published in USD and quoted by agents in rupiah at rates that have moved about 8 percent in a year, and nobody updates the rupiah numbers. The information layer is actively hostile: the official visa page and the eVisa portal disagree on whether the E33G can be renewed at all, and agency quotes for the same service differ by a factor of three.
Guides
- E33G remote worker: income evidence, the 90 day entry window, and the renewal contradiction
- E28A investor: the shareholding test, the three capital figures that get confused, and the KITAP step
- E33 second home: deposit mechanics, the property alternative, and the PR ambiguity
- E33E Silver Hair: the 55 against 60 age problem, and why the deposit is USD 50,000 not USD 130,000
- E33F retirement: the missing age rule, sponsor mechanics, and the annual renewal cycle
- KITAP: who converts, the 30 day filing window, and the one year absence rule
Sources
- Directorate General of Immigration, visa classification pages for E33G, E28A, E33, E33E and E33F, opened 2026-10-22
- Directorate General of Immigration, Immigration Act chapter 5 and ITAS to ITAP conversion checklist, opened 2026-10-22
- eVisa portal, E33G FAQ entry, opened 2026-10-22
- UU 6/2011 as amended by UU 63/2024; Permenkumham 11/2024; PP 45/2024
Last updated 2026-10-22.