What does it cost to run a villa in Bali each month?

Rental projections are detailed about income and vague about cost. This is the vague part, and it is the reason net returns disappoint.

What is actually in the number

Staff. The largest line and the least flexible. Villa staff, housekeeping, security, pool and garden, and a manager on larger properties, continue whether or not anyone is staying. Indonesian employment obligations attach to properly engaged staff, so this is not a cost you switch off in low season.

Utilities. Power is the surprise. Air conditioning across multiple bedrooms, pool pumps and water heating carry a real monthly load, and it rises with occupancy rather than replacing other costs.

Pool and garden. Continuous. A neglected pool costs more to recover than to maintain.

Maintenance. Bali is hard on buildings, humidity, salt air near the coast, and heavy rain. Budget for continuous small repairs rather than occasional large ones.

Internet, supplies, consumables. Small individually, constant collectively.

The costs that are not "running costs" but hit the same account

• Platform commission: 15–20% depending on channel mix
• PB1, the 10% regional accommodation tax, collected from the guest and remitted by you. It is not income and never was
• Management fee: 15–25%, and the base it is charged on matters as much as the percentage
• Refurbishment reserve. A rental villa needs refitting every few years. Almost never shown in a projection
• Income tax, on the profit that remains
• PBB, annual land and building tax, though on a lease this generally sits with the owner

Why "it's cheap in Indonesia" misleads

Individual costs are low by Western standards. The count is high, and the fixed portion does not flex.

A villa at 30% occupancy still pays staff, still runs the pool, still needs the roof fixed. The revenue halves; the cost base does not.

That asymmetry is exactly what break-even occupancy measures.

Getting a real number

Do not accept a monthly figure without the breakdown behind it. Ask for:

• Staff roster, roles, and who employs them
• Twelve months of actual utility bills, not an average
• What the management fee includes and what is billed separately
• The maintenance history. What has been replaced, and when

Then put your figure into the calculator and see what it does to the yield you were quoted.

If a seller cannot produce twelve months of bills for a villa they say has been running successfully, consider what that means.

The cost base of a villa

Why Bali is harder on buildings than buyers expect

Humidity attacks timber, adhesives and electronics. Salt air corrodes fittings, hinges, pool equipment and air conditioning coils, and it reaches further inland than people assume. Intense UV degrades fabric, paint and outdoor furniture within a couple of seasons. Wet season drives water into anything imperfectly sealed.

The practical consequence is a maintenance rate several times what the same building would need in a temperate climate, and a refurbishment cycle measured in years rather than decades.

Electricity deserves its own line

Air conditioning across multiple bedrooms, a pool pump running daily, water heating and a kitchen produce bills that surprise owners who budgeted from a residential baseline. It rises with occupancy, which means it rises exactly when the villa is earning, but it does not fall to zero when empty.

The costs projections leave out

Vacancy period utilities and staff. Bank charges and currency conversion on international transfers. Marketing and photography refreshes. Replacement linen, which wears out faster than anything else in the property. Void periods during refurbishment. Anything billed by the manager outside the headline percentage.

Ask for statements, not estimates

The single most useful document in a Bali villa purchase is twelve consecutive months of actual operating statements from a comparable property. Not a budget, not a projection, not an average for the area. Statements.

If nobody will show you one, that itself is the information.