Moving House

Moving to Indonesia

Getting your household across the water is the easy part. Clearing it through Indonesian customs is where relocations come unstuck. The rules changed on 27 June 2025, when Ministry of Finance Regulation PMK 25/2025 replaced the old regime for barang pindahan ("removal goods"), so any advice written before then, including anything printed in a mover's brochure, should be treated with suspicion. Sort the customs position first; everything else is ordinary logistics.

Customs and your household shipment

Duty-free import of household effects rests on one credential: a KITAS/ITAS limited-stay permit for work or study, valid for at least twelve months. A six-month permit does not qualify, and customs will assess full duty and tax. The declaration is now filed electronically as a PIBK (Pemberitahuan Impor Barang Khusus), after which customs issues a release authorisation. This is not a process to improvise at the port.

Timing is the trap. Under PMK 25/2025 your goods must arrive within roughly ninety days either side of your own arrival in Indonesia, not, as the old rule had it, within six months of your permit being issued. Expect one sea shipment and one air shipment per person under the relief; a second sea container must land within three months of the first to stay duty-free. Goods that miss the window are reclassified as commercial imports and taxed at standard rates. Those rates change and are best confirmed with your agent, but they climb steeply once the relief is lost.

What qualifies, and what you cannot ship

Effects must have been owned and used abroad for at least a year and be for continued personal use, not resale. New goods in their original boxes invite duty or seizure. Customs generally allows one unit of each major appliance; several identical items read as a commercial consignment.

• Alcohol may not go in a removal shipment at all. It is excise goods, outside the relief, and will be confiscated. The one-litre allowance you may have read about applies to a traveller's accompanied baggage on arrival, a separate regime entirely.
• Motor vehicles are excluded from the duty-free relief. Importing one is slow and costly; buy or rent locally.
• Phones and network devices must have their IMEI registered with customs, and each passenger may register only a limited number of them. Register on arrival at the airport to keep the personal-goods exemption.
• Pornographic or politically sensitive material is prohibited outright, in any medium.

Documents

Prepare, at minimum: passport and visa carrying the Indonesian entry stamp; the KITAS/ITAS and work authorisation (RPTKA/IMTA); a relocation or moving certificate; a domicile letter or confirmed Indonesian address; an itemised packing list; proof of more than twelve months' residence abroad; and the bill of lading or air waybill. Immigration and manpower rules shift often and are now enforced across agencies, so confirm the current checklist before you ship. For the visa and work-permit side, Okusi Associates is the authoritative reference.

Choosing a mover

Beyond price, judge a mover on whether it treats the job as a physical process: a named supervisor, a numbered inventory, and signed checks at both origin and destination. The recognised international benchmark is FIDI-FAIM accreditation, run by the FIDI Global Alliance and independently audited (currently by EY). Find an accredited firm through the FIDI affiliate directory; the old fidi-faim.com address no longer resolves. Insure at replacement cost at destination, check whether cover includes mould, mildew and mechanical breakdown, and note that owner-packed cartons are usually excluded from any claim.

On delivery

Time the shipment's arrival to when your clearance documents are ready. Goods left uncleared past the storage deadline can be auctioned or destroyed under the current customs-warehouse rules, so an empty house is far cheaper than a stranded container. Keep the delivery date flexible too: loading in the wet season is a losing battle, and it rains hard here for months at a stretch.

Contributor: Santa Fe

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