Bali villa well water: the groundwater permit, the meter and the tax

Many Bali villas run on a bore well, and owners often treat the water as free once the well is dug. In law it is not: drawing groundwater for a business needs a license, a meter and a regency tax registration, and the tax is calculated on a value the governor sets. This page reads the 2022 tax law, the 2024 water regulation, the 2026 energy ministry regulation, the governor's 2026 formula and the Badung and Denpasar Perda.

Seven words on a groundwater bill

The terms in the regulations and on the regency's forms.

The permit: when a well needs one

The general rule

PP 30/2024 Pasal 103(1) requires use of water resources for business and non-business needs alike to have an approval or a business license. Pasal 104(1) exempts non-business use for an individual's basic daily needs, and leaves the groundwater volume line to other legislation (Pasal 105(3)).

The line, and the business license

Permen ESDM 4/2026, which replaced the 2024 regulation, draws it: basic daily needs of under 100 m³ a month per household or group need no approval, and 100 m³ or more does (Pasal 6). Business use needs a groundwater business license (Pasal 2(2)), and the business uses listed include tourism and other services, and housing, offices and commercial areas (Pasal 5). It is applied for through OSS (Pasal 4(1) and 7(1)) — the same system that holds the villa's business license. A villa let to guests is a business; the household exemption is written for households.

The meter

An approval holder must fit a water meter on the well outlet (Pasal 9(2)(c)). The tax is charged on volume, and the meter is how the volume is known.

The tax: who pays, on what, at what rate

The national frame

UU 1/2022 makes groundwater tax a regency and city tax (Pasal 4(2)). Its object is the extraction or use of groundwater (Pasal 65(1)); the taxpayer is whoever extracts or uses it (Pasal 66). Excluded are basic household needs, smallholder farming, fisheries and livestock, religious purposes and anything else a Perda excludes (Pasal 65(2)). The base is the groundwater acquisition value, NPA: raw-water price × groundwater weight, set by governor regulation following the energy ministry's guideline (Pasal 67-68). The rate is capped at 20% and set by Perda (Pasal 69).

In both Badung and Denpasar the NPA is set by the regent's or mayor's regulation following the governor's (Badung Pasal 38(5); Denpasar Pasal 33(5)). We could not read Badung's current regent regulation.

Bali's 2026 formula

Pergub Bali 8/2026, signed on 23 April 2026, sets how the NPA is built:

• NPA = HAB × BAT (Pasal 7). The raw-water price HAB is IDR 2,175 per m³ — IDR 1,075 for recharge wells plus IDR 1,100 for monitoring wells (Pasal 9-11).
• BAT = 60% S + 40% P (Pasal 12). S, the natural-resource weight, is 16 for good-quality water where an alternative source such as a piped network exists, 9 for good water with none, 4 for poor water with an alternative and 1 for poor water with none (Pasal 4).
• P rises with the user group and the monthly volume, in bands of 0-50, 50-500, 500-1,000, 1,000-2,500 and over 2,500 m³ (Pasal 3(6), 6). Users are grouped by the risk level of their business, not by hotel or villa (Pasal 5).

The governor's own rupiah tables and worked simulations are in annexes that were not in the published file. The example below is our reading of the formula in the articles, for one month of 300 m³ at the 20% rate. The villa license is rated medium-low risk on OSS; whether a regency places a villa in the medium group (3) or the low group (4) is its call, so both are shown.

What the example shows

The weight, not the volume alone, moves the bill: the same 300 m³ costs several times more where the water is good and a piped supply is available, because the formula is designed to steer users off groundwater where they have a choice (Pasal 2(2): conservation). An older Gianyar table shows the same instinct for villas specifically: in 2021 it priced villas with a private pool in the same price band as 4- and 5-star hotels (Perbup Gianyar 6/2021; whether it still applies was not verified).

Registering for the tax in Badung

Badung's revenue office lists the requirements for a groundwater regional taxpayer number, applied for on its E-Palapa system:

• a copy of the owner's or manager's ID, and the company deed and NPWP if a company;
• a copy of the groundwater extraction permit — or, without one, a statement of readiness to obtain it;
• a site plan of the business;
• a water meter, which is mandatory, and the business's NIB;
• a recommendation from the Bali provincial labor and energy office;
• a stamped power of attorney if someone else applies.

The list says nothing about filing periods. Denpasar's July 2026 notice requires payment within 10 working days of falling due, from the June 2026 period.

The well and the environmental document

Commercial groundwater extraction also has its own scale in the environmental list: under 1 litre a second: SPPL, between 1 and 50 litres a second a UKL-UPL, and 50 or more an AMDAL (Permen LHK 4/2021, Lampiran II A.2). One litre a second is 86.4 m³ a day — far more than the 300 m³ a month in the example. Environmental approval for a villa.

What this page does not cover

• Badung's current NPA regulation and the governor's annex tables — not available to us.
• Gianyar's current rate. Its post-2022 Perda was not available to us.
• PDAM piped-water tariffs, and any comparison with them.
• Drilling permits and contractor licensing.

Common questions