Living in Indonesia

Renewal of KITAS in Jakarta

Every year, we have to process the renewal of our KITAS here in Jakarta. All foreigners living here in Indonesia have to have KITAS or the Kartulzin Tinggal Terbatas. It is the Residency Permit issued by Immigration to all foreigners living or working here in Indonesia.

We are thankful to the staff in my husband’s company for facilitating the renewal of our KITAS every year. All that we need to do is to submit our passports and we will be scheduled to appear at Immigration to have our photo, and fingerprints taken. We also need to do the digital signature as well as sign on the printed application form.

Dress Properly

It is important to dress properly when you visit the Immigration Office (or any government offices). We didn’t think about clothing so my sons went to Immigration dressed in their usual comfortable clothes: shorts and shirts. They were going to school after our appointment. But you cannot go inside the building dressed improperly.

The agent had to do something about it since we cannot go back all the way home and change clothes and miss our appointment. He borrowed jogging pants from the guard so the boys had to put that on to be able to enter.

This is a lesson learned to us and I hope you will learn from this, too. In any case you go to there dressed in shorts, kindly ask a favor from the guards. They might have some spare that they are ready to lend since they know a lot of foreigners mess up on this one requirement.

Renewing our KITAS

Living here in Jakarta has been comfortable for us and there is nothing to complain about. As foreigners, we just need to abide by Immigration rules and this is just one of them. It is easy and necessary.

Do you have any Immigration stories?

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7 thoughts on “Renewal of KITAS in Jakarta

  1. Most of my Immigration-related stories happen with the Philippine Immigration and are always a hassle and lots of power-tripping, local -KARENs.
    I have never been to Jakarta. I hope the renewal fees of your residency permit weren’t expensive.

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