Indonesia introduced the E33G in 2024 as the first permit written specifically for people who live here and work for someone abroad. It is widely assumed to be a tax-free arrangement, and that is the part worth looking at closely, because the visa’s conditions and Indonesia’s tax residency rules point in different directions and only one of them is being advertised.
What the permit is
The E33G is a one year limited stay permit for remote work, and the relationship it is built around is employment. The holder has to be employed by a company outside Indonesia, with the income coming from outside Indonesia. Freelance and contract arrangements with clients do not meet that requirement, and neither does working for an Indonesian company, taking on Indonesian clients, or earning Indonesian-sourced income. Any of those puts you outside the permit you hold rather than merely stretching it.
The application asks for proof of annual income of at least USD 60,000, generally evidenced with three to twelve months of bank statements or payslips depending on which post you apply through. It also requires international health insurance, and this catches people out: travel insurance is not accepted, so a policy bought for a holiday will not satisfy it and the distinction is checked.
The B211A route is closed
For years a good number of remote workers in Bali sat on a B211A visit visa and worked from it. That was never permitted, and through 2026 enforcement against it has become explicit rather than theoretical. A visit visa does not carry the right to work, wherever the employer happens to sit, and the E33G exists so that remote work has a category of its own.
How the extension actually works
The extension is done inside Indonesia, and the application is made 30 days before the permit expires. There is no exit permit and no requirement to leave the country.
What that means in planning terms is that the E33G is a permit you can live on continuously rather than one that forces an annual exit, provided the extension is filed in time. The 30 day window is the part to diarise, because an application left until the permit has lapsed is a different and worse conversation than one filed on schedule.
The tax position, which is not what you have been told
Holding the E33G makes you an Indonesian tax resident as a matter of law. There is no counting of days and no threshold to wait for, because the permit itself settles the question, and the first practical consequence is that you should register for an NPWP, the Indonesian tax identification number.
Indonesia then taxes its tax residents on worldwide income. That is the starting point, it applies to individuals rather than to visa categories, and there is no E33G carve-out from it.
The idea that E33G holders enjoy a blanket exemption on foreign income comes up constantly. There is a separate regime under which certain incoming foreign tax residents are taxed only on Indonesian-sourced income for a limited period, but it is built around defined categories of expertise with conditions of its own, and holding an E33G does not place you inside it. If you believe you might qualify, that is a question to put to an adviser against your actual circumstances rather than an assumption to move countries on.
Where you are employed by a company abroad and paid by it, the real question is which country has the right to tax that employment income, and that is answered by the double taxation agreement between Indonesia and the country concerned where one exists. It is a genuine discussion with a genuine answer, and the answer turns on the treaty, on where the work is performed, and on your own facts. What it is not is the same thing as the income falling outside the Indonesian system, and the difference between having a treaty position and having no exposure is the difference between a filing and a problem.
Everything that is not your foreign employment income sits outside that argument entirely. Investment income, rental income, gains, income from anything you run on the side: as a tax resident you are expected to declare it, and the treaty discussion that may cover your salary does nothing for any of it.
What this means if you are planning a move
The E33G is a good permit and the honest version of it is still attractive. It gives a year of lawful residence for work that was previously being done in a grey area, it extends in country, and the income and insurance requirements are clear enough to plan around. What it does not do is remove you from a tax system, and the people who will have difficulty are the ones who moved on the assumption that it did and made no arrangements at all.
Before the move, work out where you will be tax resident and what your home country expects of you after you leave, whether a treaty exists between that country and Indonesia and what it says about employment income, and what other income you have that no treaty will help with. After the move, the position is easier to manage if it was set up deliberately at the start than if it is reconstructed two years later from bank statements.
Correct at the date of publication. Tax outcomes depend on individual circumstances, on the treaty position of your own country, and on income you may hold outside employment. Ask us to look at yours, or know more about the remote worker visa.