Drone Rules in Bali: The Altitude Limit and Who Can Register One

The market prints one ceiling for a drone over Bali, 150 metres, and one page even attributes that number to a named regulation by number. Open the regulation. PM 37 Tahun 2020, Lampiran 2.1.1.2, prints a different figure twice in the same clause: 400 feet, 120 metres.

The ceiling, and where it stops applying

a. Pengoperasian pada ketinggian mulai dari permukaan tanah sampai dengan ketinggian 400 feet (120 m) tanpa persetujuan Direktur Jenderal. b. Pengoperasian pada ketinggian di atas 400 feet (120 m) harus memiliki persetujuan Direktur Jenderal.

In uncontrolled airspace, no approval is needed from ground level up to 400 feet. Above that, a Director General approval is required. Lampiran 2.1.1.1 sets a stricter rule for controlled airspace: approval is required regardless of altitude, from the ground up. Kuta, Legian, Seminyak, Jimbaran, Sanur and Nusa Dua all sit inside Ngurah Rai's controlled and KKOP airspace, where the 120 m ceiling is beside the point. A drone there needs sign-off at any height.

The 120 m figure is not printed once. PM 63 Tahun 2021, section 107.51, sets the identical ceiling in different words, "400 kaki (120 meter)," in an instrument written for a different purpose, the current CASR Part 107 text (below). Two independent regulations print the same number. Neither prints 150 m.

A separate standoff applies to any drone carrying a camera, regardless of altitude. Lampiran 3.13:

Pengoperasian pesawat udara tanpa awak dengan kamera dilarang beroperasi pada jarak kurang dari 500 m dari batas terluar suatu kawasan udara terlarang atau kawasan udara terbatas.

A camera drone may not operate closer than 500 metres to the outer boundary of a Prohibited area (kawasan udara terlarang) or a Restricted area (kawasan udara terbatas). This standoff is distinct from both the ceiling above and the KKOP permit below: it applies by proximity to a named zone, not by altitude or by presence inside it.

UU 1/2009, Pasal 210 adds a second, separate permission for the physical airport zone itself: nobody may be present in a designated part of an airport, or conduct activity in its flight-safety operations zone, "kecuali memperoleh izin dari otoritas bandar udara", except with a permit from the airport authority. A drone near Ngurah Rai can require clearing two government gates, not one: the Director General's airspace approval, and the airport authority's KKOP presence permit.

Registration: the eligibility bar nobody prints, and the pathway KP 242/2019 never mentions

KP 242 Tahun 2019, the Direktorat Jenderal Perhubungan Udara's own staff instruction, sets the registration threshold at Chapter 1 section 5: any small unmanned aircraft weighing more than 250 grams and less than 55 pounds. That figure checks out; every drone blog repeats it. Its eligibility clause, section 6, restricted ownership to an Indonesian citizen or Indonesian legal body, and barred an aircraft already registered under a foreign country's laws. That text was built on the CASR Part 107 rules then in force, PM 163 Tahun 2015. That instrument has since been repealed and replaced by PM 63 Tahun 2021, Berlaku, and its section 107.89 is the current eligibility rule for the exact same registration procedure KP 242/2019 administers.

Section 107.89 adds a pathway KP 242/2019 never printed. Its clause c:

dimiliki oleh warga negara asing atau badan hukum asing dan dioperasikan oleh warga negara Indonesia atau badan hukum Indonesia untuk jangka waktu pemakaian tertentu berdasarkan suatu perjanjian.

Owned by a foreign citizen or foreign legal body and operated by an Indonesian citizen or Indonesian legal body, for a fixed period of use, under an agreement. A foreign-owned drone can legally be registered in Indonesia after all, so long as an Indonesian party is the operator of record under a written agreement. Clause d then closes the door a tourist might otherwise walk through: the application itself must still be filed by that Indonesian citizen or entity, not by the drone's foreign owner. The rule is broader than KP 242/2019 alone suggests. The practical outcome for a lone visitor is unchanged: nothing in either instrument lets a tourist file the registration in their own name. Registration runs through SIDOPI-GO, the government's own portal, confirmed here because it is also where PM 37/2020's official PDF is hosted. A certificate is valid for at most three years from issuance.

There is a documented tension neither instrument resolves. Practitioner sites that walk through the SIDOPI-GO form list the identification field on both the aircraft form and the pilot form as "ID copy, KTP, SIM or Passport," meaning a passport is an accepted document type on the form itself. None of those sites address the filing requirement in section 6 or clause d above. Whether the portal's practical workflow lets a lone foreign visitor file an application in their own name, rather than through an Indonesian citizen or entity as the applicant of record, could not be established from any official source. Both facts are recorded here, and neither is resolved.

The flight permit: two clocks, and a supporting role

PM 37/2020, Lampiran 4.3 to 4.4 sets the application procedure. The request goes to the Direktur Jenderal, functionally the Director of Flight Navigation, at the latest 14 working days before the flight. From a complete file, the Director General then has up to 14 more days to validate it. Two separate clocks, one a filing deadline, one a processing ceiling, not the single "two weeks" line some pages print.

AirNav Indonesia, corporate name Perum LPPNPI, is not the permit issuer. Lampiran 4.5.l requires the application to attach AirNav's own navigation-safety assessment, and 3.12 requires the operator to coordinate directly with the local air navigation unit at least 24 hours before any flight, periodically during it, and after.

Penalties: no drone-specific fine, only the general aviation code

PM 37/2020, Lampiran 6.1 to 6.2 sets no rupiah figure anywhere in its sanctions clause. It sets three tracks instead: a criminal sanction "sesuai dengan ketentuan perundang-undangan," in accordance with statutory provisions, an administrative track (revocation of approval, a blacklist), and physical countermeasures including frequency jamming and forced landing, which the text says can be carried out using anti-drone equipment.

The statute it points to, UU 1/2009, sets the actual ceilings. Pasal 421 ayat (2), the KKOP endangerment offence: at most 3 years and a fine of at most Rp 1,000,000,000. Pasal 411, general flight endangerment: at most 2 years and a fine of at most Rp 500,000,000. Pasal 421 ayat (1), mere unauthorised presence in a restricted airport zone with no endangerment: at most 1 year and a fine of at most Rp 100,000,000. Paling lama and paling banyak mean at most, ceilings, not bills. No article anywhere in UU 1/2009 alone, read in full, authorises 5 years or Rp 5,000,000,000 for a drone offence, the figure that appears on at least two ranking pages for this question. That absence is scoped to this one statute. A newer, wholly separate instrument sets its own ceiling, and its reach into a tourist's drone flight has not been tested.

UU 21/2025: a new ceiling, not yet armed

UU 21 Tahun 2025 tentang Pengelolaan Ruang Udara has been Berlaku since 24 December 2025. It appears on UU 1/2009's own BPK status page as "Dicabut sebagian dengan," a statute that partially repeals the older one. It creates a new legal category, Wahana Udara, defined broadly enough to plausibly capture a drone: any device other than an aircraft that uses airspace. It sets a licensing regime at Pasal 43 covering aerial photography and survey activity, and a criminal penalty at Pasal 57 of at most 8 years and a fine of at most Rp 3,000,000,000 for unauthorised activity in Indonesia's air territory, a ceiling higher than anything in UU 1/2009.

Pasal 62 of the statute required its implementing regulations within six months of promulgation, around 24 June 2026. None has been found. Whether Wahana Udara in practice means a tourist's drone, whether the licensing regime at Pasal 43 applies to recreational flying or only commercial survey work, and how Pasal 57 interacts with the older UU 1/2009 articles above, cannot be answered until those regulations exist. A brand-new statute with an unimplemented penalty ceiling is not the same thing as an active enforcement risk, and this page does not treat it as one.

Customs and the border

The USD 500 personal-goods exemption already covers a tourist drone, under PMK 203/2017 as amended by PMK 34/2025, already verified in what you can bring into Bali duty free. A separate obligation the visa and customs pages both miss sits in Permenkominfo 16/2018, Pasal 7(1)(a): device certification does not apply to a passenger's carry-in baggage used for personal, non-commercial purposes, up to two units of Customer Premises Equipment. That covers a drone by category, not by name, so a tourist carrying up to two personal drones through Bali customs is, on the face of this regulation, exempt from Postel certification.

Nyepi grounds every scheduled flight

Ngurah Rai suspends all scheduled commercial operations for 24 hours during Nyepi under a dated NOTAM, with a narrow carve-out the airport's own general manager described as staff retained "for emergency flight operations, such as medical flights or special flights," subject to approval by the relevant authorities. A recreational or commercial drone flight is not one of those approved exceptions, and no legal channel to fly one during the closure window is established anywhere in the sources for this page.

Three inventions this market keeps repeating

A portal called "SIPP-TA" or "SIPUDI" appears on at least two of the pages checked for this page. No government channel names any portal under either name. The only live government registration and permit system is SIDOPI-GO, confirmed by the fact that it hosts PM 37/2020's own official PDF. A "DGCA directive 008/2025," cited as revoking a "72-hour grace period," matches no circular, press release or JDIH entry found anywhere.

The third fabrication names a real document and misdescribes it, and it can be disproved beyond the single document itself. One ranking page cites "Bali Regional Regulation No. 12/2024" as creating a 5 km drone exclusion zone around every sacred site. Bali's own JDIH runs an open, unauthenticated JSON API behind its search interface, dashboard-jdih.baliprov.go.id, queried here on 19 August 2026 for the province's complete 2024 legal corpus: 64 entries. Exactly eight are Peraturan Daerah, numbered 1 to 8: 1, tax and retribution; 2, gender mainstreaming; 3, investment incentives; 4, budget accountability; 5, an amendment to Perda 14; 6, protection of livestock farmers; 7, the long-term development plan; 8, the provincial budget. There is no Perda 9, 10, 11 or 12 of 2024. The only instrument numbered 12 anywhere in that year's corpus is Peraturan Gubernur Bali Nomor 12 Tahun 2024, the 2025 RKPD, a regional development plan that says nothing about drones, temples or a 5 km zone. A construction-only sacred-zone radius of 5,000 m, apeneleng agung, does exist around a Pura Sad Kahyangan, sourced to Perda Bali 16/2009, Pasal 50(2), a plausible origin for the invented figure, but it restricts building, not flying.

This is the same shape of fabrication already documented on this site in the visa cluster, the invented "Molina" immigration portal covered in extending a Visa on Arrival: a plausible official name invented once, then repeated across unrelated domains that cite each other instead of the ministry.

What we could not establish

• Ngurah Rai's own KKOP boundary as an officially decreed figure. General
• KKOP doctrine, from secondary legal commentary, runs to a 15,000 m radius
• with height limits up to 150 m, not read at an airport-specific decree.
• This is a plausible origin for the market's "150 m" altitude figure,
• misapplied as a drone ceiling rather than what it actually describes, a
• KKOP surface height limit, but that link is inference, not proof.
• Whether SIDOPI-GO's registration workflow, in practice, lets a foreign
• visitor submit a passport as an applicant, given that PM 63/2021 restricts
• the applicant of record to an Indonesian citizen or entity. Not resolved
• either way.
• How UU 21/2025's Wahana Udara category and Pasal 57 penalty apply to a
• tourist's drone in practice. Pasal 62 required implementing regulations
• within six months of promulgation, around 24 June 2026, and none has been
• found, so the licensing scope and how it interacts with UU 1/2009 are
• unresolved.
• Temple-level and customary drone restrictions reported at Tanah Lot,
• Besakih and Penglipuran village. These are site-management or press
• reports, not a Perda, Pergub or written temple regulation located at
• source.
• Enforcement practice at Ngurah Rai: seizure rates, how strictly the
• 250 g threshold or the KKOP boundary is actually policed, and what
• happens operationally to an unregistered tourist drone. No official
• statistic exists. A figure of over 72 seizures in early 2025, circulating
• on one operator's site, carries no named source and was not corroborated
• anywhere official.
• Whether KP 242/2019 has itself been superseded by a later Dirjen
• instruction. No amendment or replacement surfaced, but Dirjen-level
• instruments are not tracked on peraturan.bpk.go.id's status pages the
• way ministerial regulations and statutes are.