Indonesian Social Cultural Visa

I promised in a previous post about extending a Visa on Arrival that I would detail the process of getting a social/cultural visa. Based on the random hits I got from that post I think this might be useful.

A social/cultural visa will allow a foreigner to stay in indonesia for 2 months and then extend that visa every month for 4 additional months. Also, if you’re living in Jakarta it means you can do the extension in the Jakarta Pusat (Central) office and not the Jakarta Utara (North) office, which is a nightmare.

First off, you will need a sponsor. Your sponsor will need to sign a letter with a Matarai stating they are sponsoring you. They will need to submit a photocopy of their national ID card and provide bank records showing their account balance. I’m not sure what the requirement is however.

You will need to give them a copy of your passport as well. The process will cost 450000 IDR for expedited next day service of 250000 IDR for 4 day service. Im not sure these are published rates as I didnt see a fee listing or if they are just what the guy felt his time was worth.  You will also have to pay an additional 250000 IRD at the issuing consulate.

You will have to tell them in advance what consulate you will be taking it to. Note, you cannot get this done in Indonesia.

You will then receive a notarized paper with your name, your sponsors name and the city you will be applying in.

Supposedly you must surrender your passport to the consulate noted for 2 business days, however, keep in mind Indonesian consulates observe many holidays. I believe there are about 30 – 60 national holidays including the ones celebrated by the host country, so that 2 days could easily turn into a week if you catch it on the wrong day.

Also, of the 3 cities Lida and I dealt with none of them handled this the same. In Singapore they wanted the 2 days. However when I went to Kuching, Malaysia, they took only 4 hours and I received it the same day. When Lida went to the embassy in Moscow, they refused to give it to her because she couldn’t produce documentation of a return ticket or a bank account with $2000 USD. This was something that was never requested of me any where nor stated by the Immigration Office in Jakarta.  I have a feeling that it was a Russian policy.

If you have the option I strongly suggest choosing a consulate in a small city as they seem they work the fastest.

Indoensian Visa On Arrival Extension.

Ok, so I’m posting this more for my own sake than anything else as a result of the poor information I’ve found on the internet, perhaps this will help others.

Just a bit of background in case anyone hasn’t been keeping up. I came to Indonesia in February under the premise that I’d be getting a KITAS visa through the company which I had set up prior to arriving. This would allow me to stay and work in Indonesia without having to go to the dreaded Kantor Imigrasi for an entire year. Upon getting here I decided I wanted to save my money until I actual had work in Indonesia, since the process was going to cost about 30 juta rupiah ($2500 USD). Visa On Arrival costs 250,000 rupiah ($30 USD) and a one time 30 day extension costs the same. So every 2 months I’ve had to leave the country for a day and then return. Even with an average cost of $300 USD per trip(round trip flights to Singapore or KL are rarely more than $100 USD) at 5 trips per year its still cheaper than the KITAS, however after experiencing Kantor Imigrasi twice (5 hours of going from station to station to get one stamp) I understood the real value of the KITAS.

Iwan and I had set up a local PT which is the equivalent of a limited liability company in the States. When I sat down with the lawyer to talk about getting my KITAS I was informed that it is almost impossible for a local PT to sponsor a KITAS as the Department of Manpower wants to only given them out to PMAs which are foreign investment companies and, as they see it, the only companies that would need foreign workers. In order to create a PMA it will take 50 juta rupiah ($5500 USD) plus the KITAS fee and will take about 3 to 6 months. So in short, I get to do the following process at least 2 more times until our PMA is completed.

The following details the process to extend a Visa On Arrival for 30 days at the Central Jakarta Immigration Office.

First off, finding the address for this was a massive pain. Keep in mind that there is only ONE office you can do this at.  You cant do it at the main office and you cant do it at the airport. There are locations in Sumatra and Bali I believe but Ive never done it. All the government sites that I visited listed the main office in Jakarta Pusat (Central Jakarta). Even doing a google search for Kantor Imigrasi and the street that I was fairly certain it was on (Julan Merpati) didn’t return any results. I finally googled Kantor Imigrasi Jakarta Selatan (South Jakarta) and it got me what I was looking for oldly enough. Even though the office I wanted is technically Jakarta Pusat it must be on the very boarder of North and West Jakarta as its a good 30 min ojek ride:

Kantor Imigrasi Klas – Jakart Pusat
Jl. Merpati Blok B12 No. 3
In the Kemoryan district

The office opens at 8am and I strongly suggest getting there as early as possible. By 10am everything is in full swing and you can expect it to take upwards of 4 hours, especially given the lunch break that EVERYONE takes at noon (they had a French efficiency consultant structure their work days apparently).

Once you walk in the building you want to go to the 3rd floor. Just take the stairs to the right of the main entrance to the very top. You will need a few things:

1. Passport (duh)
2. Sponsor letter signed by your sponsor with a Materai
3. Photocopy of your sponsors Indonesian ID
4. Extension packet with the form signed by your sponsor. You get this from the photocopy window which is the first one when you get to the top of the stairs for 6000 rupiah ($0.75 USD)
5. Photocopy of the information and photo page of your passport, which you can get at the same window for 500 rupiah ($.04 USD)

Once you have all this in your red folder, go to the window in the waiting room on the left between the two sets of chairs. Now is when the fun begins. Depending on the mood and what futbol team won last night the Imigrasi Officer will ask you to do a number of useless tasks. They could include but are not limited to:

1. Photocopying your passport photos again in a different size and or shade
2. Having the typist next to the photocopy room type the salutation ABOVE the date instead of just after it where you, apparently ignorantly, placed it
3. Use their formatted sponsor letter and then sign your name under your sponsors name
4. Do the hookie-pookie and turn your self around

Once you are done with the first check point you now have no fewer than 5 more check points. There is:

1. The basement dweller with his Zuma playing assistant who relishes your attention and will do anything to extend your visit with him
2. Both windows back up on the 3rd floor across from the first window
3. The cashier down on the 1st floor
4. Finally the photocopy window one last time and if they are really slow, the 3rd floor copy window closes at 3:30pm so you’ll have to go to the first floor copy room
5. Then back to the first window

Keep in mind that the cashier closes at 3:30pm also even though the office closes at 5pm. If you start the process on your last day and don’t finish you should be ok, at worst you will have to pay 200,000 rupiah ($25 USD) per day that you stay over on your visa, but again, the intrinsic cost is far more by having to go to the Kantor Imigrasi two days in a row.

Later I will post the details of getting a Social/Cultural visa which is really the way to go. This allows you a two month stay, then every month you can get a 30 day extension but you don’t have to leave the country for 6 months.

If you speak Bahasa (obviously) it will probably get you through faster. My friend came in the same day as me 3 hours later and had an extra step to go through and yet he got his finished at the same time as me by standing next to them joking around.

Final note, if you want to skip all this you can hire an agent. It will run you 1 juta ($110 USD) but you’ll save years on your life for the lack of stress.