Indonesia

Indonesia is the world's largest archipelago state, spanning 17,000 islands across Southeast Asia with a population of 280 million. As the world's largest Muslim-majority nation and a founding member of ASEAN, it occupies a pivotal position astride the Strait of Malacca, through which roughly 40 per cent of global seaborne trade passes. Indonesia is a significant G20 economy and one of the largest importers of Middle Eastern crude oil.

On the nomads-and-communities track, Indonesia has used immigration policy partly as a fiscal instrument. The E33G digital nomad Visa income floor was raised to $60,000 a year ($5,000 a month) effective 2026, roughly doubling the previous threshold and placing Bali's nomad product firmly in the premium tier. A 100-person Bali Immigration Task Force patrolling ten zones including Canggu and Seminyak is now a permanent fixture; the Dharma Dewata named operation (15 April to 4 May 2026) detained 62 foreign nationals across Denpasar, Badung and Singaraja. The Directorate General of Taxes data is synchronised with Immigration, giving enforcement a single audit trail per KITAS holder. In June 2026, the KPK anti-corruption commission arrested 17 people including deputy immigration minister Silmy Karim over an alleged KITAS/KITAP permit-extortion scheme extracting approximately Rp145.5 billion from foreign nationals. KPK extended Karim's pre-trial detention by 40 days on 22 June 2026; as of that date the Acting Director General of Immigration and one other senior post in the Directorate of Residence Permits were empty or under investigation, leaving no continuity guidance for the 346,000-plus foreign residents dependent on the directorate.

Indonesia's non-aligned tradition, its Straits geography, and its oil dependence place it at the intersection of multiple global pressures. The EU's 20th sanctions package designated Indonesia's Karimun Oil Terminal, closing one VLCC transshipment route used by shadow-fleet operators. The IMO warned in March 2026 that approximately 20,000 seafarers were stranded in Gulf waters with no repatriation route, a crisis with direct relevance to Indonesia's large maritime workforce.