How do you actually make money from Bali property?

There is more than one way a Bali property returns money, and buyers who only model nightly letting are ignoring options that often suit them better.

Nightly letting

The default, and the highest gross.

How it pays. Guest bookings through Airbnb, Booking.com and direct, at rates that vary across four seasons.

What it costs. Management at fifteen to twenty-five percent of gross. Maintenance at ten to fifteen percent. Staff, utilities, licensing, platform commission at fifteen to twenty percent, tax, and a capital reserve.

Net outcome. Typically fifty to sixty percent of gross reaches you, producing seven to nine percent net on capital for a well-run property and eleven to fourteen for a strong one.

Effort. It is a hospitality business with one unit. Two to four hours a month with a good manager, plus a quarterly performance review and an annual visit.

Licensing. Requires appropriate zoning, a correctly classified entity, PBG and SLF, and operational licensing — noting Bali closed new foreign-owned villa and homestay registration to PMA companies on 22 July 2026.

Monthly and long-term rental

Considerably underrated, and for a lot of owners the better business.

How it pays. A single tenant on a monthly or annual arrangement, commonly at forty to sixty percent of the equivalent nightly rate.

What it costs. Far less. One changeover instead of thirty, no platform commission if arranged directly, no guest management, minimal turnover cleaning, much less wear per occupied night.

Net outcome. Lower gross, but the cost base falls faster than the revenue does. Against a nightly strategy at realistic occupancy, a long let frequently nets similarly with a fraction of the workload and none of the seasonality.

Where it works best. Umalas, Kerobokan and the residential areas, where long-term demand from residents and families is steady and nightly demand is not. Also anywhere, in low and base season, as a seasonal strategy.

Licensing. Letting to a single tenant on a longer term sits differently from commercial accommodation, which for some owners resolves a licensing problem rather than creating one.

Your own use

Not income, and it is real value that belongs in the calculation.

Six weeks a year in a villa you would otherwise pay to rent is worth something specific. Count it explicitly — at what a comparable villa would cost you — rather than pretending the decision is purely financial.

Then subtract the income you did not earn in those weeks, which if they are peak weeks is a large number. Six peak weeks in a four-bedroom is materially more than six base-season weeks, and owners routinely take the expensive ones.

Capital return at exit

On a registered right — Hak Pakai or HGB — you can realise land and building value, subject to the 2.5 percent final tax on transfer value.

On a leasehold, you are assigning the remaining term. The value declines as the term runs down and the decline accelerates near the end, because the buyer pool for a short remainder collapses. You do not capture land appreciation; that accrues to the landowner.

This is the line most commonly left out of a Bali investment model, and it is the largest one.

Selling the company

If the property sits in a PT PMA, the shares can be sold rather than the asset. Sometimes cleaner and faster for the right buyer, and it narrows the pool to those willing to take on an Indonesian company with its history and liabilities.

Clean accounts and current filings well in advance, or this option is not available in practice.

Running it to expiry

A legitimate and underused plan on a shorter lease bought cheaply.

If the net income across the remaining term exceeds the purchase price plus costs with a margin, you never need a buyer. Nobody purchases it from you and the arithmetic still works.

This requires the purchase price to be right, which is why term and price matter more than the building.

The tax layer

Ten percent final on Indonesian-source rental income for a resident individual, twenty percent for a non-resident, corporate rates inside a PT PMA, plus a regional accommodation tax the platforms do not collect for you.

Your home country generally assesses the income too, with treaty relief. The Indonesian component is low, so the balance frequently falls at home.