Your pet to Bali: the detour via Jakarta

At every other destination on this site the pet is a step in the moving phase. With Bali it's a decision you take at the start of the whole journey — because the door everyone expects is shut. This article explains the detour, and the weighing-up.

The closed door: Bali doesn't clear pets

Bali is a rabies restriction area: the island struggles with an ongoing rabies epidemic among street dogs, and to control the introduction and spread of the disease, dogs and cats are not cleared through Denpasar airport. Flying directly from Amsterdam to Bali with your dog therefore doesn't exist, whatever the travel agencies suggest.

The detour: Jakarta

The route that does work runs via Jakarta (Soekarno-Hatta), and it demands discipline:

1. Import permit in advance from the Indonesian quarantine authority — via a specialised agent, weeks ahead.
2. Rabies titre test and the vaccination windows: microchip before the vaccination, and the blood test that shows the vaccination works.
3. Health certificate, signed off by the NVWA, shortly before departure.
4. On arrival: government quarantine of one to two weeks in Jakarta — the length varies with the outbreak status, so count on the upper end.
5. Then the domestic transport to Bali, overland and by ferry or on a domestic flight, again with the right papers.

All in all, count on two to three months of preparation and thousands of euros per animal, and work exclusively with a specialised pet relocation agent — this chain is too precise and too changeable to improvise yourself, and the rules shift with every outbreak.

The honest weighing-up

And then the conversation a good guide mustn't skip. A journey of eighteen hours, a quarantine among strangers, a tropical climate and an island with stray dogs and rabies — for a young, healthy dog that's a hurdle to be taken; for an old or anxious animal it can be too much. Weigh the animal's age, health and character honestly, and dare to see the other outcome: sometimes the most loving decision is a familiar new home in the Netherlands, with family who already looked after it anyway. Whoever does take their animal does it with the detour, the agent and the time it demands — half measures don't exist on this route.

Once on Bali

Keep the vaccinations up to date with a local vet (they're good there), don't let the animal loose among street dogs, and know that the return journey to the EU has its own chain — with a titre test and waiting periods you plan months ahead. Whoever ever wants to go back with the animal keeps every document from the outward journey.