The controversial, but growing, Israeli presence in Bali

Israeli travelers are reaching Bali through limited, case-by-case visa approvals and, in some instances, second passports from other countries, according to Indonesian immigration authorities.

Faisal Assegaf, a journalist and founder of Albalad.co, told i24NEWS that reports of Israelis holidaying and running businesses on the island have become a viral issue in Indonesia.

Indonesian authorities have confirmed that Israeli nationals may enter through a tightly controlled “calling visa” system, while dual nationals can travel on non-Israeli passports.

“Many Israelis [are] coming to Bali for having pleasure or holidays,” Assegaf said, describing widespread discussion on Indonesian social media. “We do know that Israelis are in Bali. Some are running businesses, using other passports.”

A visible presence

There is no reliable, publicly available annual total for Israeli visitors to Bali specifically, in part because some Israelis enter on passports from countries such as Portugal, Germany, or Greece. Bali’s official visitor-arrival tables track foreign visitors by nationality, but they do not provide a clear standalone annual figure for Israelis who arrive using a second citizenship.

What is clear is that Bali is a huge international tourism market: the island recorded 6.95 million direct foreign arrivals in 2025. That scale makes it difficult to gauge the Israeli presence from anecdotes or social-media posts alone.

Assegaf said the controversy is being driven less by the number of visitors than by the symbolism surrounding Israel’s war in Gaza. “For pro-Palestine activists in Indonesia, especially from the Muslim communities, they are very concerned about this phenomenon,” he said.

“They don’t like if there are many Israelis coming to Bali or other places in Indonesia.”

Some Israeli citizens have been creating their own businesses, largely focused around the tourism sector and targeted towards fellow Israelis.

i24NEWS has spoken to some entrepreneurs, who want to remain anonymous, who say that they have to hide their true identities from authorities, and from anti-Israel protesters.

How Israelis enter

Indonesia does not have formal diplomatic relations with Israel, but Israeli passport holders are not subject to an absolute, automatic ban. Israel is included in Indonesia’s “calling visa” regime, under which applications face additional interagency security and policy scrutiny and must be approved case by case.

The Indonesian Immigration Ministry said that relatively few Israelis enter through that standard approval route. It has also found Israelis living or doing business in Bali who hold dual citizenship and entered with another country’s passport.

“Today, Indonesia still has no diplomatic relations with Israel,” Assegaf said. “Yet we do know that Israelis are in Bali.” He added that the response from the authorities has appeared to be “only case by case,” rather than a broad new policy.

Recent cases have put the issue in sharper focus. In August, Indonesian immigration officials said they were investigating Israeli-born foreign nationals in Bali who held Bulgarian and Romanian passports after a viral incident at a fitness center.

Looking to the east

East and Southeast Asia have long been especially popular with Israeli travelers, with Thailand standing out as the region’s biggest destination. Thai immigration data recorded 420,202 Israeli arrivals in 2025, while Israeli visitors made 405,712 departures—figures that indicate extensive short-term travel rather than a large-scale permanent relocation.

Thailand’s tourism authorities projected roughly 442,000 Israeli visitors for 2026, after 181,872 arrivals in the first part of the year. Israeli visitors there stay for an average of 19 days, according to figures presented by Thai and Israeli officials.

The numbers underline the broader appeal of Asian travel among Israelis: Thailand alone accounted for about 4 percent of Israeli outbound travelers in 2024, ranking 15th among their overseas destinations, according to Kasikorn Research Center. Bali, although harder to quantify because of Indonesia’s visa restrictions and dual-nationality travel, is part of that wider regional travel pattern.

Tourism and politics

Bali is Indonesia’s Hindu-majority province, unlike the Muslim-majority country as a whole. Assegaf said this helps explain why the issue may generate less local political intensity on the island than it does among activists elsewhere.

“Bali is Muslim minority. They are mostly Hindu people,” he said. “For Bali locals, they are welcome.” But he added that Palestinian activists and Muslim groups in Bali are “worried about this.”

Indonesia has consistently backed Palestinian statehood and has publicly tied any eventual recognition of Israel to the establishment of an independent Palestinian state. President Prabowo Subianto has reiterated that position, while officials have denied reports of a secret agreement to normalize relations in return for Israeli support for Indonesia’s OECD membership bid.

For Assegaf, the disconnect is the story: a government with no formal ties to Israel is still confronting the practical reality of Israeli visitors, entrepreneurs, dual citizens, and visa applications. “It’s become a viral phenomenon,” he said, “about many Israelis [who] come to Bali and start to have business there.”