Is buying a villa in Bali actually a good investment?

Sometimes. The honest answer depends on four numbers, and three of them are usually missing from the pitch.

It can be. It frequently is not, and the difference is arithmetic rather than opinion.

Four numbers decide it. Most projections show you one.

1. Gross revenue

Nightly rate multiplied by occupancy, across the whole year. The trap is the occupancy assumption. High season is not the year, and sustained figures above 75% are unusual once low season is included.

2. What reaches you

From gross, subtract platform commission, the 10% regional accommodation tax, management fees, staff, utilities, upkeep, a refurbishment reserve and income tax.

An advertised 12% commonly lands between 4% and 6% after all of it.

3. What the right costs you each year

This is the one nobody shows.

If you hold a 25-year lease, you are consuming the premium at roughly a twenty-fifth a year. On USD 300,000 that is USD 12,000 annually, before a single expense, because at the end the land and everything on it reverts to the owner.

A yield calculated without that number is not a return. It is a drawdown described as income.

4. Whether you can legally rent it at all

Zoning decides whether nightly rental is permitted on the plot. The business classification decides whether your company may operate it, and several were closed to new foreign-owned companies in July 2026.

If either answer is no, the first three numbers are irrelevant.

Run it yourself

The calculator applies all four. Put in the seller's own figures and watch what happens to the headline.

If a projection cannot survive being typed into a spreadsheet, that tells you what it was built for.

When it does work

Pink-zoned, properly permitted, with a classification that matches the operation. The legal position is settled and the income is defensible.
Freehold-equivalent or long-remaining HGB, where amortisation is small or absent.
Bought for use, with rental offsetting cost rather than justifying the purchase.
Land in a genuine appreciation corridor, bought as land rather than as a yield story.

When it does not

Short lease, high price, rental income assumed to make up the difference
Green or yellow zone with the licence "to be arranged"
Off-plan where permits are pending and the projection assumes day-one occupancy
Any deal where the numbers only work at 80% occupancy

The Bali market is not short of demand. Arrivals keep climbing. It is short of properties that can be legally operated at the price being asked.