Work Permit & Immigration Indonesia

Three approvals, in sequence: an approved RPTKA — the foreign manpower utilisation plan, filed online with the Ministry of Manpower, which serves as the work permit basis — a VITAS limited-stay visa issued by the Directorate General of Immigration, and, on arrival, a KITAS stay permit valid for up to two years and renewable. Work authorisation must be in place before work begins. For each, we prepare and file applications, manage renewals ahead of expiry, and coordinate cancellations on departure.

Since August 2025 the application runs as one consolidated online dossier, and the criminal record certificate can be applied for in the same submission through the National Public Service Portal — both are returned electronically together. If the assignment totals under 90 days in a calendar year, a work permit exemption applies instead — see below.

The employing company must be an Indonesia-incorporated entity (PT or PT PMA) or a registered representative office, and it remains the sponsor throughout — work permits attach to a direct employment relationship, and Indonesian law does not permit an agency or EOR arrangement to stand in for it. Beyond that, the dossier must evidence role justification and the candidate's qualifications, legalised and translated to current standards.

We review your entity profile and the candidate's documents against these criteria before any application is filed — and tell you plainly if the sponsorship base isn't there yet, with options to strengthen it before submission rather than after a rejection.

If your filing volume is high enough that bundling makes sense, or if you want work permit administration combined with broader HR function outsourcing under one retainer, see our HR Shared Services page — that's the right framing for those engagements.

Short-term assignments still need work authorisation — Indonesia provides a short-term RPTKA track for temporary work of up to six months, and a business visit visa does not permit productive work. Getting that boundary wrong is one of the more common compliance gaps we're asked to clean up.

We assess upfront which track an assignment sits on, prepare the short-term RPTKA filing where it applies, and file the full application where it doesn't — with honest advice on which side of the line an assignment sits.

RPTKA assessment typically takes one to three weeks from a complete dossier, and the VITAS is usually issued within about ten working days once the RPTKA approval and DKPTKA payment are in place. In practice, document collection, legalisation, and translation usually take longer than the official window, so the timeline is driven by how quickly the dossier comes together.

One step worth planning for: the VITAS is collected at an Indonesian embassy or approved channel abroad and converted to a KITAS on arrival. Where timing matters, entering on the right visa class from the outset avoids rework — when you engage us for a filing, we share current expectations for your specific filing type and flag any unusual queue behaviour we're seeing.

Yes. The spouse and children of a work permit holder can apply for dependant KITAS, linked to the primary applicant's stay permit. A dependant KITAS does not carry work rights — if a spouse intends to work in Indonesia, they need their own RPTKA-based work permit sponsored by their own employer.

We coordinate dependant filings in parallel with the primary application — relationship documentation, legalisation, and residence applications aligned to the primary holder's dates — so the family relocates on one timeline. One passport rule to plan around: a passport needs at least 12 months' remaining validity for a one-year stay permit and at least 18 months for a two-year permit.

An Indonesian KITAS is typically issued for a maximum of two years and is renewable, with the underlying RPTKA approval and the monthly DKPTKA levy (USD 100 per month, paid in advance) kept current for the same period — so we plan renewals well ahead of expiry rather than in the final weeks. Employers also carry ongoing obligations: BPJS enrolment for foreign employees working six months or more, tax registration where the employee becomes tax-resident, and annual manpower reporting. Departures require stay-permit cancellation. We track these cycles for every filing we manage.

If you'd rather have renewals, reporting, and the broader HR function — payroll, employee lifecycle, statutory filings — handled under one retainer, see our HR Shared Services page. Standalone per-application engagement remains the right fit for employers who only need the immigration filings themselves.