Bali for digital nomads, where to live, what it costs and how to stay legal

Why nomads keep coming

Bali is not the cheapest place in Southeast Asia anymore, and people still choose it. The reasons are practical.

• You can rent a furnished home for one month with a WhatsApp message.
• Thousands of other remote workers are here, so meeting people takes a week.
• Cafes expect laptops, and coworking spaces are everywhere in the south.
• Surf, gyms, yoga and padel are five minutes away.
• Help with cleaning and laundry is included in most rents.

The downsides are traffic, a visa that needs attention, and rents in Canggu that have climbed a long way.

Where to live

Canggu is the default. It has the highest density of cafes, coworking spaces and events, and you can run a full social life without planning anything. It also has the worst traffic. Live within a short ride of the places you will go daily, because the shortcut roads jam for much of the afternoon.

Ubud is the other hub. It is an hour inland, greener and cheaper. The crowd is older and quieter, and people go to bed earlier.

Uluwatu has grown fast. Distances are long and coworking options are fewer, but the surf is the best on the island.

The guide on where to live in Bali compares all the areas.

Monthly budget

The rent lines come from our listings. A room or studio goes for Rp 8M at the median and a one bedroom place for Rp 17M, about $950. The rest are estimates. The cost of living in Bali has every line.

Internet and where to work

Fibre has reached most villas in the south. Speeds of 50 to 100 Mbps are common and enough for video calls. Check before you sign.

1. Run a speed test in the room where you will work, not next to the router.
2. Ask which provider it is and if the line is shared with other units.
3. Ask what happens in a power cut. Some villas have a battery for the router, most do not.
4. Keep a local SIM with a big data plan as a backup. 4G is solid in the south and 5G covers parts of it.

Coworking spaces cost about Rp 2.5M to Rp 4.5M a month for unlimited access, with day passes around Rp 200,000 to Rp 300,000. You pay for stable internet, a generator, call booths, air conditioning and events. Canggu has the most, then Ubud, then Uluwatu and Sanur.

Cafes are the free option. Most are fine with a laptop for a couple of hours if you order. Few are good for calls.

Time zones

Bali is on UTC+8 all year, the same as Singapore and Perth.

Europe works well. You get the morning for surf or the gym and work from mid-afternoon. US hours are hard. People do it by overlapping two or three hours late in the evening, and it wears thin after a few months.

Visa

Three options cover almost every nomad.

• Visa on arrival. 30 days, extendable to 60. Good for a short first stay.
• C1 visit visa. 60 days, extendable twice to 180. This is what most nomads use. It does not allow work for Indonesian clients.
• Remote worker stay permit, E33G. One year, for people with an employment contract abroad and income of about $60,000 a year.

Working on your laptop for a foreign employer or foreign clients on a visit visa is tolerated in practice, and it sits in a grey area on paper. Selling services to people or businesses in Bali is not a grey area. Photographers, coaches and yoga teachers get deported for it.

A stay of more than 183 days in 12 months makes you an Indonesian tax resident. Many nomads keep their stays under that for this reason. Details are in the long stay visas for Bali.

Housing, the nomad options

A room in a guesthouse or a shared villa. The cheapest way in. You get a private room with a bathroom, shared kitchen and pool, cleaning and wifi. See the rooms for rent in Bali.

Coliving. A guesthouse built for remote workers, with desks, fast internet, events and often a coworking space on site. It costs more than a plain room, typically $700 to $1,500 a month, and you arrive with a ready-made group. A good choice for a first month alone. After that most people move out to pay less and get more space.

A private villa or apartment. One bedroom with a small pool, by the month, furnished. This is where most people end up. See the monthly rentals in Bali and the apartments.

A villa shared with friends. Three people in a three bedroom villa often pay less each than three one bedroom places, and get a bigger pool and a living room.

How to find a monthly rental

Airbnb is the easy way and the expensive one. Monthly prices there are often 30 to 50 percent above what the same owner asks directly.

The local market runs on Facebook groups. Owners and agents post there every day, and the same place appears in several groups. This site collects those posts, removes the duplicates and sorts them by area, type and length of stay.

A method that works:

1. Book three to seven nights somewhere in the area you want.
2. Shortlist five or six places from the monthly rentals and message them the same day.
3. Visit in person. Test the wifi, check the desk and chair, listen for construction.
4. Negotiate. Two or three months costs less per month than one.
5. Pay the first month and the deposit on move-in, against a written receipt or a short contract.

Prices move with the season. February, March and November are the cheap months, July and August the expensive ones. More in Bali rent by season.

What to check in a nomad rental

• A real desk and a chair you can sit on for eight hours. Most villas have a dining table and a stool.
• A closed room with air conditioning to work in. Open living rooms are hot, loud and full of mosquitoes at dusk.
• Construction next door. Ask, then look over the wall.
• Electricity. Ask if it is included and how much the last tenant paid.
• Distance to the places you will go daily, in minutes at 5pm.

Practical points

• Scooter. Rp 1M to Rp 1.5M a month. Get an international permit that covers motorcycles, and insurance that covers riding.
• Money. A multi-currency card and ATM withdrawals. Landlords take bank transfers.
• Insurance. Nomad travel insurance runs $50 to $80 a month.
• SIM card. Buy it in town. Phones staying over 90 days need registering.
• Community. Coworking events, run clubs, padel and gym classes are where people meet.

Is Bali still worth it?

If you want the cheapest base in Asia, look at Vietnam or northern Thailand. If you want the largest community of people doing what you do, with a villa and a surf break included, Bali is still hard to beat.

Come for two months, start in a room or a coliving, and move into a monthly villa once you know your area. The guide on renting in Bali for 1 to 6 months covers the details.