Bali's New Tourist Rules in 2026: What Families Need to Know

What has actually changed, and what hasn't

If you've been reading the headlines about Bali lately, you'd be forgiven for thinking the island has slammed its doors shut. Proof of funds. Visitor quotas. Crackdowns. Tourists getting deported for misbehaving. It reads like a holiday you need a lawyer to plan. I've taken my three kids to Bali more times than I can count, the last trip with my parents in tow, and I want to talk you down off the ledge before you cancel anything.

Here is the honest state of play in mid-2026. There is exactly one new cost you must budget for and pay: the IDR 150,000 tourist levy per person. There is one set of behaviour guidelines you should read and follow: the Governor's official do's and don'ts. And there is a cluster of proposed rules — financial screening, peak-season caps — that have been announced but, as of June 2026, are not the firm, enforced law that some headlines imply. I'll be straight about which is which, because the difference matters when you're planning a family trip.

None of this changes the fundamental truth: Bali remains one of the easiest, warmest, most child-loving destinations in Southeast Asia. The rules are mostly about respect and a small fee. Let's go through them like adults.

The IDR 150,000 tourist levy: how it works

This is the one that's real, enforced, and applies to your whole family. Since February 2024, every foreign visitor arriving in Bali pays a one-off tourism levy of IDR 150,000 — roughly ten Australian dollars, or about ten US dollars depending on the day. As of 2026 the amount is unchanged. It's a single payment per entry that covers your entire stay, however long that is. You don't pay it again if you stay two weeks instead of two days.

The catch parents need to know: it is charged per person, with no children's discount and no infant exemption. My four-year-old pays the same IDR 150,000 as I do. A family of five is roughly 750,000 rupiah, call it fifty dollars all up. It's not a fortune, but budget for every passport, including the baby's. Indonesian nationals and citizens of other ASEAN countries are exempt; the rest of us are not.

The money is officially earmarked for protecting Balinese culture and the environment — cleaning up beaches, maintaining temples, managing the waste that mass tourism generates. Whether you believe every rupiah lands there is your call, but it is a legitimate government levy, not a scam, and it is collected through the official LoveBali system.

How to actually pay it (do this before you fly)

Pay online before you leave home. The official site is lovebali.baliprov.go.id — note the .go.id government domain, because there are copycat sites that charge a markup. You enter each traveller's full name, passport number, nationality, email and expected arrival date, then pay by Visa, Mastercard, Amex, or QRIS. You'll get a Levy Voucher with a QR code emailed back to you.

My strong advice for families: do every family member in one sitting the week before you fly, then screenshot each QR code and save them to your phone's photo album, not just your inbox. Airport wifi after a long flight with cranky kids is the last place you want to be hunting through email. I keep a single screenshot per child, labelled with their name, so I can pull up whichever one an official asks for without fumbling.

If the website misbehaves — and it has had its wobbles — don't panic and don't pay a third-party site. You can pay on arrival at the BRI bank counter in the international arrivals hall at Denpasar airport. The downside is queueing with tired children after a red-eye, which is exactly why I push the pay-ahead approach. Either way, hold onto your QR codes for the whole trip. Enforcement has tightened: you may be asked to show proof at the airport, at some temples and attractions, and occasionally at hotels. Random checks do happen, and being unable to show payment means settling it on the spot.

The Governor's do's and don'ts, in plain English

In 2025, Governor Wayan Koster issued Circular Letter (SE) Number 7 of 2025, an updated set of conduct guidelines for foreign tourists. It builds on an earlier 2023 version. Despite the breathless coverage, almost none of it will trouble a normal family on holiday — it's largely a formalised list of don't-be-that-tourist behaviours.

The do's are common sense: dress modestly at temples and ceremonies, behave politely in public, use licensed money changers that display an official Bank Indonesia QR code rather than the dodgy back-alley ones, carry a valid driver's licence if you're driving, stay in legally registered accommodation, and keep the place clean. Bali has also banned single-use plastics — bags, styrofoam, plastic straws — so bring refillable water bottles, which you'll want for the kids anyway.

The don'ts that have made headlines: no swearing at or being rude to locals and officials, no aggressive haggling, no working or running a business on a tourist visa, no littering into rivers, lakes or the sea, and no illegal activity, drugs very much included. There's an official WhatsApp hotline and a 24-hour complaint line for reporting badly behaved tourists, which tells you the mood: Bali is tired of the small minority who treat it like a lawless playground. If you're the kind of traveller who already behaves decently, you will never bump into any of this.

Temple and sacred-site etiquette with kids

Temples are where the rules get specific, and where a little prep saves an awkward moment. At any temple you'll need a sarong and sash around your waist — for everyone, including children. Most temples loan or rent them at the entrance for a small fee or donation, so you don't have to buy your own, though I usually carry one lightweight sarong in the day bag because it doubles as a sun cover, a picnic mat and a feeding cover.

The firm rules: you may not enter the innermost sacred zones of a temple — the areas called Utamaning and Madyaning Mandala — unless you're a worshipper in traditional Balinese dress. These are roped off and signed; you simply admire them from the permitted areas, which is what everyone does anyway. There's also a long-standing rule that menstruating women should not enter temple grounds, tied to Balinese beliefs about ritual purity. It's rarely policed at the gate, but it's there, and it's worth knowing so you're not caught off guard by a sign.

Do not climb on sacred trees, statues or shrines for a photo — this is the rule that gets influencers deported, and it's the one I drill into my older kids. No clambering on anything to get the shot. Never touch or step over the little daily offerings, the canang sari, you'll see on the ground everywhere — those woven palm trays of flowers and rice are active offerings, not litter. Teaching kids to step around them rather than through them is a five-second conversation that earns a lot of goodwill.

The proposed 2026 rules everyone's panicking about

Here's where I need to be careful, because this is where the scary headlines live and where the facts are softest. Through late 2025 and into 2026, Bali's provincial government floated a set of tighter entry rules aimed at foreign tourists. The most talked-about is a proof-of-funds screening: visitors might be asked to show they have enough money to support their stay, potentially including bank statements covering the months before arrival, a return or onward ticket, and a declared plan of how long they're staying and what they'll do. Reporting suggested it could begin as early as March 2026, alongside talk of capping visitor numbers in peak season.

Read that paragraph again and notice the words might, potentially and could. As of June 2026, I have not seen evidence that a hard proof-of-funds requirement is being enforced on ordinary tourists arriving for a normal holiday. It was announced and proposed by Governor Koster as part of a broader 'quality tourism' push — the same push behind the levy and the conduct rules — but proposing a policy and enforcing it at the immigration desk are very different things, and Indonesian tourism policy has a long history of announcements that arrive slowly or quietly soften.

So my honest advice: treat proof-of-funds and quotas as a watch-this-space item, not a packing-list item. Don't let an uncertain proposal cancel a real trip. What I do as basic travel hygiene anyway — and would do regardless of any rule — is carry evidence of onward or return flights and have a card with available funds, which covers you for standard immigration questions that already exist. Before you fly, check your government's official travel advisory and the LoveBali site for the current, confirmed requirements, because this is the one area genuinely in flux.

What this means for planning a family trip

Strip away the noise and your actual to-do list is short. Budget the levy for every passport, including the baby. Pay it online a week out and screenshot the QR codes per person. Pack a sarong or two and have a quiet word with the kids about temple manners — no climbing, step around the offerings, quiet voices during ceremonies. Bring refillable bottles because of the plastics ban. Carry proof of onward travel and a funded card, which is sensible anyway. That's genuinely it.

For first-timers specifically: none of these rules make Bali harder to enjoy with children. The levy is a small line item, the conduct rules reward the behaviour you'd want to model for your kids regardless, and the temple etiquette is part of what makes visiting one a real experience rather than a photo stop. My nine-year-old learning to fold her hands and wait respectfully at the edge of a ceremony at Tirta Empul is one of my favourite memories from our last trip, and it cost us nothing but a little awareness.

If you're travelling multi-generation, as we often do, brief the grandparents on the levy too — they pay it as well, and they're the ones most likely to assume a 'tourist tax' is collected at the hotel. It isn't. It's on each of you to pay before you arrive.

The bottom line

Would I still take my family to Bali in 2026? Without hesitation — I'm planning our next trip now. The rules that are real are minor and reasonable: a ten-dollar levy per head and a list of behave-yourself guidelines that any decent traveller already follows. The rules that sound alarming — financial screening, quotas — remain proposals as I write this, and I won't tell you they're law until they actually are.

Do the boring prep before you fly. Pay the levy online, save the QR codes, pack a sarong, talk to your kids about respect at sacred sites, and check the official LoveBali site and your country's travel advisory in the fortnight before departure for anything newly confirmed. Do that, and Bali in 2026 is exactly what it's always been for families: warm, affordable, endlessly welcoming to children, and entirely worth the small bit of homework.