Thread: Visa - no clue how this system works

Hey,

If I get the single entry tourist visa which last 60days - can I get it renewed within Bali,
and if so how much does it cost? If not - does this mean I have to fly to KL or Singapore every month until
it runs out after six months.
Or I can get a social visa which is more expensive and needs a sponsor. I think i saw somewhere that I
can get an agency in Singapore to sort out everything including the sponsor - is that right?
However, even with that visa I think that I would need to leave the country every two months?
Sorry, I am trying to look all the different visas up but nowhere is it just written simply.
Please help!!
Thanks

Thank you - I meant how much does it cost to renew the visa if you can do so inside of Bali - obv you cannot so that is not a question.
I appreciate how much the single entry visa costs - it is the same price in Singapore.
However the social visa is more expensive in Japan as they would need to apply to Jakarta and in Singapore they do not.
I wasn't sure how much it cost to renew the social visa from inside of Bali - I googled the Singaporean website myself earlier today
and saw you can renew it there but with great cost to flights. If you can renew it inside of Bali that would be great.
I appreciate that the sponsor needs to be Indonesian but frm the sounDs of things on the internet post I read, you pay some guy who does it
all. It sounds somewhat dodgy but this has been my experience before in renweing visas for other countries and I thought that they may have
contacts within Bali.
I appreciate that people do not have to help but the whole point of a forum is that people can go on there and ask for it.
I am sorry if my posts have asked questions that people have previously asked and had answered before, but moving to another country
isn't easy as I am sure you will appreciate, and I want to make sure I have got all my facts.

Effie,
A certain amount of misinformation here.

A sixty day tourist visa CAN BE EXTENDED INSIDE INDONESIA, JUST LIKE A 60 DAY TOURIST OR SOCIAL VISA. It has the same code as the other two - B211. The only difference is that you do not need a sponsor to get it...
In theory, just like a social visa, you can extend it four times, 30 days at a time, up to six months.

Though you don't need a sponsor to get it in the first place, you DO need a sponsor to extend it, but this can be anyone; they only need to fill in a form and provide a photocopy of their ID card. And here's the good thing - unlike a social visa which is tied to its original sponsor for its entire validity, you can have different sponsors, in different places, for each extension of a tourist visa....

In Bali, reliable agents like Bali Ide will charge Rp650,000 for an extension of a 60-day tourist visa (though you will have to find the sponsor yourself); it apparently takes about ten days to process (for an insight into haw much money is being made and how much time is being wasted, in Surabaya it costs Rp265,000 to extend the 60 day tourist visa if you do it yourself, and takes three or four days).

From reports of people who have extended a tourist visa beyond three months, things get trickier on the second and third extensions, and I've not heard of anyone extending it up to the full six months, but the first extension IS very EASY...

At worst, for a six month stay in Bali, you could certainly manage it on 60-DAY TOURIST VISAS with just ONE visa run to Singapore (you can get a 60-day tourist visa there yourself in three days, or using the service of an agent - Hanna Express is good in my experience - get one in one day. The only thing they do want to see to support the application is a ticket out of Indonesia. This can simply be the cheapest Air Asia flight to Singapore, and they seem not to be concerned about it being dated beyond the initial validity of the visa).

ALL OF THIS INFORMATION IS ABSOLUTELY, CATEGORICALLY CORRECT AND BASED ON FIRST-HAND EXPERIENCE. Anyone who tells you that you "cannot extend a sixty day tourist visa" is misinformed. It WAS the case that until several years ago the 60-day visa issued to tourists had a different code to the social visa, and couldn't be extended, but about three years back they changed it, made it a B211 too, and since then it has been extendable - and lots of people HAVE extended it...

A very new change has now, supposedly made the 30-day visa on arrival extendable, but - I think - only once. This is certainly an improvement, but probably of limited use for someone planning a six-month stay.
I would go for the 60-day tourist visa.

A very good reply timdog, i think that will clear up many things for the expats... but Bali is Bali... last time i arrived Bali i got VOA.. stayed in Bali for 8 months... no problem... and cheaper than bali-singa flight... everything is possible with the right connections in Bali.Next time i will get a VOA 2 and i can stay for as long i want :-)

Hello, thank you so much for this very clear explanation.
I will do this as it seems more than reasonable, especially the fact that you only have to do the visa run once in six months.
Thanks again! x