Business visa in Indonesia – How To Get It?
According to Law of the Republic of the Indonesia Number 6 of 2011 concerning Immigration (“Immigration Law”), Visit Visa is a visa that is granted to the Foreigner that will travel into the Indonesian Territory in order to the visitation of government tasks, education, social-culture, tourism, business, family affairs, journalistic, or transit to proceed any travel to other country.
Therefore according to Immigration Law, business visa means visit visa that is used for business interest. Immigration Law specifie that visit visa for business can only be done for the following scope of business:
Visa visits in its application may be provided for conduct activities, among others:
- tourism;
- family;
- social;
- art and culture;
- government duties;
- non-commercial sports;
- comparative studies, short courses, and short courses;
- provide guidance, counseling, and inner training application and innovation of industrial technology to improve the quality and design of industrial products and work overseas marketing for Indonesia;
- perform emergency and urgent work;
- journalism that has received permission from that agency authorized;
- making a film that is not commercial and has obtain permission from the competent authority;
- make business talks;
- make purchases;
- give lectures or attend seminars;
- the international exhibition;
- follow the meeting held with the head office or representatives in Indonesia;
- perform an audit, control of production quality, or inspection on branch companies in Indonesia;
- foreign workern candidate in deep ability test work;
- Continue traveling to another country; and
- incorporated with a conveyance located in the Territory Indonesia.
While it is considerably easier to get a business visa than a Work Permit, there are still several conditions a foreign national needs to meet in order to be eligible for the visa.
How long can you stay in Indonesia with a business visa?
Business visa allows a foreign national to stay in Indonesia for up to 60 (sixty) days per visit.
Once the person has at least three Indonesian visa stamps (can be any type of Indonesian visa), it’s possible to apply for a multiple entry business visa which is granted for 12 (twelve) months.
This is a great option for visiting Indonesia frequently but it still enables maximum 60 (sixty) days of stay with each arrival. However, the benefit is that the same visa can be used unlimited times to arrive to the country.
Business visa sponsorship
All business visa must be sponsored by a legal entity registered in Indonesia. Both foreign – and locally owned companies, representative offices and institutions can act as sponsors. As mentioned before, this visa strictly forbids any kind of local employment. In case a foreign national does not have a local sponsor or does not wish to use them,
Only limited amount of visas are approved
Before the foreign national can even apply for the business visa, the sponsor company must submit visa invitation to Indonesian Immigration.
This is the trickiest part of the process since only 500 (five hundred) invitations are approved each working day. Once that quota is full no other applications will be even considered.
Therefore it’s crucial that the sponsor company either knows exactly how to submit an invitation to the Immigration Any small mistake would mean a delay.
It generally takes 3-5 (three until five) working days for Indonesian Immigration to handle the invitation and telex it overseas.
Applying for the business visa in the Indonesian embassy
Once the sponsor has successfully obtained an invitation to the Immigration it will be sent to an Indonesian embassy of your choice. For foreign nationals that are already in Indonesia the most common choices are Singapore and Kuala Lumpur but you can choose any Indonesian embassy.
Note that the actual visa application process happens here and the sponsor invitation was just a precondition for that. But if you have the approved invitation then there won’t be any reason for the embassy to reject the visa.
The embassy will take about 5-7 (five until seven) working days to process your visa. Therefore we suggest starting the business visa invitation and application process at least 2 (two) weeks before your expected arrival to Indonesia, even though a week would be sufficient in most cases.
Suria Nataadmadja & Associates Law Firm
Advocates & Legal Consultants