Visitors to Indonesia can now apply for and pay for an electronic visa on arrival (e-VoA) through a government website.
The process is available for 26 nationalities at the launch of the new system and for those arriving in either Bali or Jakarta. These countries are:
- Australia
- South Africa
- United States
- Saudi Arabia
- Argentina
- Netherlands
- Belgium
- Brazil
- Denmark
- India
- The United Kingdom
- Italy
- Japan
- Germany
- Canada
- South Korea
- Mexico
- France
- Russia
- New Zealand
- Spain
- Switzerland
- East Timor
- China
- Turkey
- Ukraine
On 3rd November, Interim Directorate General of Immigration Widodo Ekatjahjana said, “the e-VoA was launched today. Its first user will arrive in Indonesia on Friday, 4th November from Hong Kong.”
The e-VoA was an advanced instruction of the President of Indonesia regarding immigration services, particularly in providing a VoA service and investor visa, as well as support for the G-20 summit.
“We were going to have a trial in our system today. It was going to be officially launched by the Minister of Maritime and Investment Affairs,” said Widodo Ekatjahjana.
Why is the e-VoA important?
Long queues have been reported for some time at I Gusti Ngurah Rai Airport because there were many commercial airplanes arriving at the same time.
Manual payment was causing crowds of visitors at a bottleneck in the airport. With the e-VoA, people are now able to pay for their visas more easily using mobile phones with their credit cards or other digital payments.
“Thus, all the foreigners only needed to get their passport stamped once they got off the plane,” said Widodo Ekatjahjana.
It was believed that by using this convenient way, more tourists will be attracted to come to Indonesia. It is hoped that those planning to visit other countries in the region such as Singapore, Malaysia, or Thailand may change their plans and visit Indonesia now the visa process is streamlined.
The offline VoA counter will still be in the airport to anticipate electrical errors, if any, as well as service arrivals from countries not yet eligible for the online process
“Those who were on vacation in Singapore could immediately pay the e-VoA by swiping in the app. Then, they might enter Indonesia,” said Widodo Ekatjahjana.
Visa contribution to non-tax revenue
The non-tax revenue of immigration in 2022 has broken new records. Income from visitor visas reached Rp500 billion in October 2022 and Rp 3.5 trillion between January and 30th October 2022.
The exact number of non-tax revenue in January-October 2022 was Rp 3,504,750,787,551. Of that amount, the largest income was from visas, which was Rp1.5 trillion and passport making of Rp1 trillion.
“We continued to encourage working on various immigration policies and facilities such as Immigration on Shipping (IoS), VoA on shipping and e-VoA,” explained Widodo Ekatjahjana.