Bali's scooter ban for tourists, checked against the circular that followed it

This search still returns March 2023. At a press conference on Sunday 12 March that year, the governor, Wayan Koster, said that for foreign tourists "meminjam atau nyewa itu tidak diperbolehkan lagi", borrowing or renting a motorbike is no longer allowed, and that this applied "mulai 2023", from 2023. detik reported it the next day. Several of the headlines still ranking report the ban as done.

No regulation followed. The circular signed on 31 May 2023 allows tourists on two-wheelers from a rental business or association.

The 2025 circular is less clear. On 24 March 2025 Koster put SE Nomor 7 Tahun 2025 into force ahead of any regulation: "Mendahului Perda dan Pergub, izinkan saya memberlakukan SE", ahead of the Perda and the Pergub, allow me to put this circular into force. The province's release on bmc.baliprov.go.id gives its transport clause as:

Wisman juga diwajibkan menggunakan alat transportasi laik pakai roda 4 yang resmi bernaung di bawah badan usaha atau asosiasi penyewaan transportasi roda 4.

Foreign tourists are also required to use roadworthy, officially licensed four-wheel transport under a four-wheel rental business or association.

ANTARA Bali quotes Koster reading the same clause, with "roda empat", four wheels. Neither report names the two-wheeler alternative the 2023 circular had. We could not find the 2025 circular itself, so this page gives the clause as reported and does not read it as a ban.

What the 2023 circular says

SE Gubernur Bali Nomor 04 Tahun 2023 is a four-page letter dated "Bali, Rabu (Buda Paing, Landep), 31 Mei 2023" and signed by Koster. The provincial legal database registers it, but the file behind the record returns 404. We read the signed copy republished by Kecamatan Buleleng. Its first three pages are scans with no text layer, so we rendered them as images and transcribed them.

Section C.1 lists what foreign tourists are required to do. Item j is the provision the press called a ban:

j. menggunakan alat transportasi laik pakai roda 4 (empat) yang resmi atau alat transportasi roda 2 (dua) yang bernaung di bawah badan usaha atau asosiasi penyewaan transportasi roda 2 (dua);

To use roadworthy, officially licensed four-wheel transport, or two-wheel transport operating under a two-wheel rental business or association.

The condition is on where the bike comes from. The tourist's right to ride it is taken for granted. Item i, just above, sets the terms of riding: a valid international or national licence, a helmet, decent clothing, no more passengers than the vehicle carries, and no alcohol or prohibited drugs.

No sanction of its own

Item C.3 is the whole of the circular's enforcement:

3. Wisatawan mancanegara yang melanggar ketentuan pada angka 1 dan angka 2 akan ditindak tegas berupa pemberian sanksi atau proses hukum sesuai Peraturan Perundang-undangan yang berlaku di Indonesia.

Foreign tourists who breach points 1 and 2 will be firmly dealt with, by sanction or legal process in accordance with the laws in force in Indonesia.

No penalty, no amount, no procedure. The circular points to other legislation. For the licence and the helmet, that legislation is the national traffic law. For item j we found no Perda or Pergub that attaches a sanction. Pergub 52/2021 and the regencies' rules were not read; both are listed at the foot of this page.

Item C.5 keeps the circular in force "sampai ada pemberitahuan lebih lanjut", until further notice.

A circular is not in the statute's list of legislation

UU 12/2011, the statute on making legislation, sets out what counts. Pasal 7 ayat (1) gives the hierarchy, from the Constitution down to the Perda of a province and of a regency or city. Pasal 8 ayat (1) adds peraturan, regulations, set by bodies that include a governor, and Pasal 8 ayat (2) makes them binding where higher legislation orders them or the issuer acts within its authority. A governor's peraturan is a Pergub. A surat edaran, a circular, appears in neither article.

The statute does not say a circular is unenforceable. It says nothing about circulars. The point rests on three facts read together: the statute names the Pergub and not the circular; the circular sends every sanction to "Peraturan Perundang-undangan yang berlaku"; and Polda Bali's spokesman, Kombes Stefanus Satake Bayu Setianto, told detik on 13 March 2023 that a ban "perlu aturan dulu", needs a regulation first.

The regulation officials cited does not do it

On Tuesday 14 March 2023 the head of Bali's tourism office gave ANTARA the legal basis, reported the next day: Pergub Bali 28/2020 on tourism governance, Pasal 7 ayat (4) letter g. ANTARA's report spells his name both Pemanyun and Pemayun; the province's media centre writes Tjok. Bagus Pemayun.

(4) Wisatawan yang berkunjung ke Bali merupakan wisatawan yang berkualitas, yaitu: ... g. berperilaku tertib dengan selalu menggunakan sarana transportasi usaha jasa perjalanan wisata.

Tourists visiting Bali are quality tourists, namely those who ... behave in an orderly way by always using the transport of travel-service businesses.

That is a description. It has no wajib, must, and no dilarang, forbidden, and letter g sits in the same list as letter c, stay longer, and letter d, spend more.

Pasal 56 ayat (1) settles it. It applies to "Setiap orang atau Pengusaha Pariwisata", any person or tourism business, and lists the provisions whose breach draws an administrative sanction. For Pasal 7 it names "Pasal 7 ayat (1), ayat (2), dan ayat (3)". Ayat (4) is not on the list. Pasal 56 ayat (2) then runs from a spoken warning, through suspension of activity and revocation of a licence, to an administrative fine, and ends with letter h: "sanksi administratif lain sesuai dengan ketentuan Peraturan Perundang-undangan".

On 10 September 2026 BPK lists Pergub 28/2020 as in force, with no amendment listed. Its parent, Perda Bali 5/2020, places no transport obligation on tourists that we could find. Its penal article, Pasal 37, opens "Setiap orang yang melanggar", any person who breaches, and the one transport provision among those it lists, Pasal 9, requires "Pengusaha Pariwisata", tourism businesses, to provide transport that meets safety and branding standards. We searched that Perda by keyword; we did not read all 34 pages.

The promised Pergub does not exist

detik's report of the 2023 announcement said where the ban would go, in detik's own words: "Aturan tersebut akan tercantum dalam Peraturan Gubernur (Pergub) tentang Tata Kelola Kepariwisataan Bali." The closest title in force is Pergub 28/2020, above, on Tata Kelola Pariwisata Bali. The province's media centre, in a release of 12 April 2023 after the governor met the Bali motorbike rental association, wrote that the motorbike rules "nantinya akan dituangkan dalam Peraturan Gubernur", will later be set out in a governor's regulation.

The promise came back in 2025. Presenting SE 7/2025, Koster said the 2023 circular needed updating:

Karena ada dinamika, maka perlu diakomodir agar tatanan kepariwisataan di Bali berjalan sesuai dengan Perda dan Pergub yang akan ditetapkan tahun 2025 ini.

Because there have been developments, they need to be accommodated so that tourism in Bali runs in line with the Perda and Pergub to be enacted this year, 2025.

We read the title of every instrument the Bali legal database's API returns for 2023, 2024, 2025 and 2026, and ran its keyword search for wisatawan, tourist. No Pergub, Perda or circular on tourists and motorbikes appears after SE 04/2023. The 2025 Perda and Pergub with wisatawan in the title amend the tourist levy, and every Pergub of those years about kendaraan, vehicles, is about motor-vehicle tax. This was a search of titles. A clause on tourist transport inside a regulation titled otherwise would not show up in it.

The 2025 circular, as reported

The media centre establishes that the circular exists, its date, and its title, "Tentang Tatanan Baru bagi Wisatawan Asing selama Berada di Bali". Its content rests on two reports: that release and ANTARA Bali, both of 24 March 2025. Both give the four-wheel clause quoted at the top of this page, and both keep the licence requirement. ANTARA's paraphrase of the riding rules has tourists wearing a helmet "saat menaiki sepeda motor", when riding a motorbike; the release says only "menggunakan helm".

So the clause sits in the reported tier. The two reports agree, one comes from the issuer, and neither is the circular. It is not in the provincial legal database, and the one download page we found returned 404. This page does not say what SE 7/2025 requires of a tourist on a scooter, and does not read the missing two-wheeler as a ban. That was the 2023 mistake, made on an announcement; repeating it on a text nobody here has seen would be worse.

ANTARA quotes Koster on sanctions in nearly the 2023 wording: violators "akan ditindak tegas berupa pemberian sanksi atau proses hukum sesuai dengan peraturan perundang-undangan yang berlaku di Indonesia".

No report says SE 7/2025 revokes SE 04/2023. The media centre says only that "SE Nomor 4 Tahun 2023" had "sudah pernah dikeluarkan", already been issued.

What police enforce

National law. Pasal 77 ayat (1) of UU 22/2009:

Setiap orang yang mengemudikan Kendaraan Bermotor di Jalan wajib memiliki Surat Izin Mengemudi sesuai dengan jenis Kendaraan Bermotor yang dikemudikan.

Setiap orang, every person. The traffic law has no provision barring a foreigner from riding. Riding without a licence carries up to four months' kurungan or "denda paling banyak Rp1.000.000,00" under Pasal 281, both ceilings. Which licence counts is on the permit page, and the other offences are on the fines page.

On Monday 6 March 2023, six days before the governor's announcement, the Kapolda told ANTARA (reported 7 March) that a Polda circular had gone to rental businesses. Its conditions: that the renter be "cakap dalam mengendarai kendaraan", competent to ride, and carry clear identity, with helmets and plates in order. We found neither its number nor its text. On 17 November 2025 the Polri news portal quoted the traffic director, Kombes Turmudi: foreigners who cannot ride or are not skilled "diimbau", are urged, not to ride alone. "Kalau sewa harus ada motorisnya", if renting, there must be a rider. An appeal, citing no regulation and no sanction.

If you rent

The 2023 circular's one condition on the bike is its source: take it from a rental business or association, not from a private owner. The 2025 circular, as reported, names only four-wheel rental, and without its text there is no telling whether a rented scooter now falls outside it or was simply left unmentioned. The law's condition is on you. Hold a licence matching the vehicle, and wear a helmet, which item i of the 2023 circular and the traffic law both require. What your insurer pays after a crash is a matter of contract, covered on its own page.

What we could not establish

• The text of SE 7/2025. It is not in the provincial legal database, the one
• download page we found returned 404, and we found no government copy. Its
• transport clause is known only from the media centre's release and ANTARA
• Bali.
• Whether SE 7/2025 replaces SE 04/2023. No report says it revokes the earlier
• circular, and SE 04/2023 runs until further notice.
• What Pergub Bali 52/2021 says. The provincial database registers it as the
• implementing regulation of Perda 5/2020, and SE 04/2023 cites it, but its
• file returns 404 and we could not reach it on BPK. It could contain a clause
• on tourist transport.
• Regency and city rules. We did not search the regulations of Badung, Gianyar
• or any other regency or city in Bali.
• Provincial regulations whose titles mention neither tourists nor vehicles.
• The database search covered titles, not texts.
• The number, date and text of the circular Polda Bali sent to rental
• businesses in March 2023.
• Any sanction imposed on a tourist under either circular. No official source
• we found documents one.
• The Home Affairs rules on official correspondence, which define a Surat
• Edaran as an administrative document. We did not verify them, which is why
• the point about circulars above rests on UU 12/2011 and the circular's own
• wording.