You can own the company. You just cannot say what it sells.
An investor KITAS allows you to hold a directorship but doesn't allow you to work in your own company. To promote your business legitimately, you would need a Working KITAS with a marketing manager designation, sponsored by the company. However, that would mean you can't be a director, as you cannot hold both positions at the same time.
Indonesia's E28A investor stay permit lets a foreign shareholder put money into a PT PMA, carry out activities connected to that business and sit on its board. It does not cover performing the work itself, and where management ends and selling begins is nowhere defined. A Bali visa and permit consultancy's own public FAQ puts it plainly: an investor permit lets you hold a directorship but not work in your company; to promote it legitimately you would need a working permit as marketing manager — and then you could not be a director, because both positions cannot be held at once. The same FAQ says a gift from a brand, posted voluntarily, can count as a violation if it creates commercial benefit. Since April 2026 the Dharma Dewata immigration task force has patrolled Canggu, Ubud, Seminyak, Kerobokan and Uluwatu; 62 foreigners were detained in its first three weeks. Between January and August 2026 immigration sanctioned 10,911 foreigners, 146 percent more than a year earlier. Work now includes unpaid content — a portfolio shoot, a villa in exchange for a reel, a brand ambassador arrangement — because the benefit counts even when no money changes hands. Article 122(a) of Law 6/2011 carries up to 500 million rupiah or five years, deportation at the violator's own cost, and a ban of six months to ten years.
Sources Bali Solve, Instagram storyCekindoInvestorKITASOutlook TravellerLegal Indonesia
The facts above are reported by the sources listed. What follows is our opinion.
I own a company in Indonesia, a PT PMA. I paid to set it up, I invest in it, I am its owner, and my Investor KITAS is held through it.
I can put money into it. I can carry the entire business risk. I can pay the taxes, the staff, the lawyers and every permit there is.
What I cannot do is film a video on my own Instagram, show a villa and say: "This villa is for sale for 300,000 euros."
Because at that moment, as far as immigration is concerned, I may no longer be an investor promoting his own company. They can read it as active selling. Or as marketing. Or as the work of a real estate agent. And for an activity that supposedly does not match my permit, I can be fined or deported.
I had built a personal Instagram with a large following. It was my own reach, built over years. I deleted the content anyway, because if I personally promoted my own company's properties in Bali, I could have a problem.
Their answer is simple: get the right work permit.
But which one, exactly?
If I hold a permit to work as a real estate agent, an inspection can decide that in the video I was not working as an agent but doing marketing. If I held a marketing permit, they can decide that naming a specific price is already active selling.
The same sentence can be running your own company one day and promotion, marketing, active selling or the work of a real estate agent the next. It depends on how the officer feels like reading it.
And that is exactly where the dirty part sits. The rules are written loosely enough that an inspection can always turn them whichever way suits it.
After that you never have any certainty that what you are doing is legal. You can have the company, the Investor KITAS and every document, and there will always be another name for the thing you are doing right now. Then comes the fine, the threat of deportation, or the suggestion that the whole "problem" can be settled with money.
And this is no longer just my assumption. An Indonesian firm that arranges visas and business permits explains it completely openly: as an Investor KITAS holder I can be the director of my own PT PMA, but I may not personally promote its services. For that I would need a Working KITAS as a marketing manager. Except that then, apparently, I can no longer be the director of the same company.
So the Indonesian system gives me a choice. Either I own and run the company, but I may not say what it sells. Or I promote it, but I have to give up the director's seat and get myself hired by my own company as a marketer.
This is not protection of the labour market. This is a bureaucratic trap, built so that an official always has a reason to say you are doing something other than what your permit allows.
That is how Indonesia supports foreign investors: bring the money, set up the company, employ local people, pay your taxes — and then shut up about what your own company sells.
— Editorial team