Your household goods to Indonesia: no import duty, but VAT, and the car is left out

Yes, you can ship your household goods to Indonesia without paying import duty, but not without paying. Since regulation PMK 25 of 2025, Indonesian Customs grants exemption from import duty for used household goods of those moving to Indonesia, if they arrive together with you or at most ninety days before or after. The find is a paragraph further on: the taxes on import, such as VAT (PPN) and the income tax on import (PPh), simply remain due. And the pitfall is the same as in Thailand: as foreigners who move with their goods, the regulation names only those who come to work or study.

What falls under the exemption?

Barang pindahan, household effects, are according to Customs the goods for a household of someone who lived abroad and moves to Indonesia. The conditions:

Condition	What Customs says
Type of goods	household goods for your own use, already used abroad
Origin	shipped from the country where you lived
Deadline	with you, or at most 90 days before or after your arrival
Too late	the goods no longer count as household effects, and the exemption lapses
Import duty	exempt
VAT and income tax on import	remain due
Excluded	cars and motorcycles, boats and aircraft, parts of these, excise goods, and goods in an unreasonable quantity

For goods subject to an import ban or restriction you must also meet the rules of the ministry concerned. That is separate from the exemption.

Do you qualify?

Read this twice. Customs writes that the exemption applies to Indonesians and foreigners moving to Indonesia. But where it lists who is entitled, only two groups of foreigners appear: those who will work and live in Indonesia, and those who will study and live there, each with or without family. The pensioner with an E33F or Second Home visa is not named.

On a retirement visa you are not an obvious case for Customs. The E33F visa explicitly prohibits paid work, and the household effects regulation names only work and study for foreigners. Before shipping, ask the customs office at your port of arrival whether your visa counts as a move, and to be safe budget with import duty included.

Which papers do you need?

You apply for the exemption with an electronic declaration, the PIBK, through the customs system at the office where the goods come in. According to Customs this includes:

• a copy of your travel document;
• a moving statement in the prescribed format;
• the documents showing that you meet the conditions;
• and the permits for goods with a ban or restriction.

A detailed packing list is not an explicit requirement in that list, but you need it to have the VAT calculated on the part that is not exempt. Make it per box, with what is in it and how old it is.

What do you do with the car?

It doesn't come along, and that is not advice but the regulation: motor vehicles, cars and motorcycles, are explicitly excluded from household effects, as are their parts. Importing a car is therefore an ordinary import with all levies. Sell it in the Netherlands.

If you sell or ship it abroad, register it for export with the RDW. Only then do the insurance obligation, the MOT obligation and road tax stop. You receive an export certificate and may drive for another fourteen days on export plates. If the car goes outside the EU, you also make an export declaration with Customs, and with the Tax Administration you check whether you get part of the bpm back.

And the cash in your suitcase?

If you bring cash, watch the threshold: from 100 million rupiah, or the equivalent in foreign currency, you must declare it to Customs on arrival. Whoever doesn't pays a fine of 10 per cent, up to a maximum of 300 million rupiah, deducted directly from the money brought in.

And because VAT keeps applying to everything: ship deliberately little, bring what fits in boxes with your luggage, and buy the rest locally. What a shipment costs is in the cost indication for Indonesia; the order of the move and arrival in the journey at /indonesie.

In Vertrekklaar this is phase 4 of 5 of the journey, step 4.1: the same steps, but for your situation — in your order, tickable, and with the deadlines watched. See the whole journey to Indonesia or go straight to step 4.1 in the open plan.