Bali rent by season, when prices go up and when to negotiate

The rental year in Bali

Bali has two seasons for weather and three for prices.

The peaks come from school holidays in Europe and Australia, and from Christmas and New Year. A few other dates fill the island for a week: Chinese New Year, Easter, and the Eid holidays, when domestic tourists arrive from Java.

Nyepi, the Balinese day of silence, falls in March. The airport closes and nobody goes out for 24 hours. It is no reason to avoid March, and it is something to see.

Why monthly rent follows the nightly rate

Most villas offered by the month are the same villas that are on Airbnb and Booking the rest of the time. The owner is always comparing.

Take a two bedroom villa that sells for $150 a night in low season at 50 percent occupancy. It earns the owner about $2,250 a month before fees and cleaning. A tenant who offers $1,700 for the month, with no platform commission and no turnover, is a good deal for the owner.

In August the same villa sells for $230 a night at 85 percent occupancy. That is about $5,900 a month. The owner has no reason to accept $1,700, and will either refuse monthly bookings or quote a price close to the nightly income.

That is the whole mechanism. In the low season, a monthly tenant is better than an empty calendar. In the high season, a monthly tenant costs the owner money.

What we see in the listings

The median asking rent across the 672 listings on this site is Rp 30M a month, about $1,680. The data was last updated in October 2026.

We started collecting listings in October 2026, so we do not have a full year yet. The rent index is recomputed at each update, and this page will show the month by month curve once the data covers the seasons. Until then, the seasonal figures here come from how owners price, and from the nightly rates agencies publish.

Current prices by area are in the rent prices index.

Which rentals are affected

Not every rental moves with the season.

A room in a guesthouse in Denpasar has no tourists competing for it. A villa 300 metres from the beach in Berawa has plenty.

Yearly rentals are priced for the whole year, so the season of signing matters little for the price. It matters for choice. Many yearly contracts end and start around the same months, and more homes come up after the high season, from September to November, when owners plan the next year.

The best time to look

For a stay of one to three months. Arrive in February, March or November if you can choose. You get the lowest prices and owners who answer quickly. The trade-off is rain, most days, usually in heavy bursts of an hour or two.

For a stay over July and August. Book early, by April or May, or start your stay in May or June and negotiate a price for the whole period. An owner will accept a lower rate for August if you also take June. See the monthly rentals in Bali.

For Christmas and New Year. Either be in a contract that started before December, or expect to pay a premium for those weeks. Some owners write a holiday surcharge into monthly agreements. Read the dates in your contract.

For a yearly rental. Look from September to November. You also see the house at the end of the dry season and can come back for a second visit when the rain starts. See the long term rentals in Bali.

Negotiating by season

Asking prices in the Facebook groups are opening offers. What you can get off depends on the month and on what you give in return.

What moves an owner:

1. A longer stay. Three months beats one, six beats three.
2. Dates that fill a gap in the calendar.
3. Payment for the whole stay at once.
4. Flexibility on the start date.
5. A reply the same day. Owners in Bali deal on WhatsApp and the first serious tenant gets the villa.

Ask for the price in writing, with what it includes. Wifi, cleaning and pool care are usually in. Electricity usually is not.

Rainy season, what to check

Low season prices come with low season problems. A villa that is perfect in August can be hard to live in during January. If you visit in the dry months for a stay that runs into the rain, ask about these.

• The roof. Look for stains on the ceilings and ask when it was last repaired.
• The living room. Open-air living rooms are lovely in the dry season. In the rain they are damp, full of mosquitoes, and the sofa never dries. Many long stay tenants now want a closed living room with air conditioning.
• The road. Some lanes flood or turn to mud. Ask a neighbour.
• Mould. Smell the wardrobes. Check behind the bed.
• Power. Cuts are more frequent in storms. Ask if there is a backup for the wifi router.
• Mosquitoes. Dengue peaks in the rainy months. Screens on windows are rare, so check for nets and fans.

The dry season has its own costs. Air conditioning runs longer in the hot months of October and November, and so does the electricity meter.

Area by area

The west coast, from Seminyak through Canggu to Pererenan, has the widest gap between seasons, because it has the most short stay demand. It also has rubbish washing up on the beaches from December to March.

Uluwatu follows the surf season. The best waves on the west side of the Bukit come from May to September, and villas fill accordingly.

Ubud is steadier. It rains more there than on the coast, all year, and long stay guests come in every season.

Sanur faces east. The sea is calm, the rainy season is a little drier, and prices move less.

Booking calendar

To see what is on offer today, start with the villas for rent in Bali or go straight to the cheap monthly rentals. The guide on renting in Bali for 1 to 6 months explains how monthly deals work, and how much it costs to rent a villa in Bali has the prices by size.