What It Costs to Build a Villa in Bali in 2026, Line by Line

There is no single construction price per square metre in Bali. One of the island’s larger property companies withdrew its own published figures in August 2026, on the grounds that it could not responsibly present any number as verified. That is the most honest thing anyone has said about this subject.

What does exist is two clusters of pricing, roughly a factor of two apart, and understanding why the gap is there is more useful than any single figure.

The two price clusters

Indonesian contractor rates, quoted in rupiah:

Expat design-build firms, quoted in dollars: $1,000–1,800 per m² for what they describe as investment-grade, rising above that for marine-grade specification.

At today’s rate, $1,000 per m² is about IDR 17.7 million. So the same villa is being priced at IDR 9 million and IDR 18 million per square metre by two different parts of the same market.

The gap is not mostly finish quality. It is procurement route and supervision — who buys the materials, who checks them, who is on site daily, and who carries the risk when something is wrong. Both routes produce good villas. They produce them with very different amounts of your attention.

A defensible planning figure: IDR 9–13 million per m² for solid mid-specification through a competent local contractor with real supervision, and IDR 18–32 million per m² for an expat-managed build with imported specification and a warranty.

Note also that finished villas sell at around $2,500 per m² and up. The gap between that and build cost is land, permits and developer margin — useful context when comparing building with buying.

What the per-square-metre rate does not include

Almost always excluded: pool, landscaping, furniture, architect fees, permits, VAT, and land. Occasionally a firm includes some of them, which is exactly why comparing rates between quotes is meaningless.

Ask for a scope, not a rate. Then compare scopes.

The lines that sit outside the build

Architect. The Indonesian Architects Association publishes a fee scale that steps down as project value rises: roughly 6.5% up to IDR 200 million, 5.5% from IDR 200 million to 2 billion, 4.8% from 2 to 4 billion, and 4.2% above that. Bali practices quote anywhere from 5% to 12% depending on complexity and how much supervision is included, so ask what the percentage buys. Design runs three to six months for a small residential project, and mechanical and electrical drawings and interior design are usually separate.

Permits. PBG for a villa runs IDR 15–30 million and up; the certificate of functional worthiness, SLF, another IDR 10–25 million. Processing on a complete file is roughly 75 working days nationally, six to ten weeks in Badung on correctly zoned land. The chain is unforgiving: no PBG, no SLF; no SLF, no tourism licence; no licence, no legal rental.

Pool. Around IDR 4.5–6 million per square metre of water surface once excavation, structure, plant and finish are counted — the lower per-metre rates you will see quoted are usually shell only. A four-by-eight metre pool comes in around IDR 180 million, a three-by-six plunge pool around IDR 80 million. Budget IDR 150–250 million for a two- or three-bedroom villa.

Furniture and fit-out. Basic IDR 75–150 million, mid-range IDR 250–450 million, luxury beyond IDR 500 million.

Site costs people forget. Soil testing IDR 3–8 million. Temporary utilities IDR 5–10 million. Septic and treatment IDR 8–15 million. Boundary walls and gates IDR 20–60 million. Driveway and parking IDR 10–30 million.

Ceremonies. Mecaru before construction, IDR 1–3 million. Melaspas on completion, IDR 3–10 million. Budget IDR 5–15 million in total, and treat Melaspas as a hard predecessor to occupancy rather than a nice gesture.

Contingency. Published advice ranges from 10% to 25%. Our position: 15% minimum on top of the contract sum, 20% if the build spans a full wet season or relies on imported specification. Note that the 3–5% a contractor carries inside their own bill of quantities is not your contingency — it is theirs.

A worked example

A 180 m² two-bedroom villa, mid-range specification, Canggu:

Add permits, site costs, ceremonies and a 15% contingency and the all-in lands near IDR 2.55 billion, or roughly IDR 14.2 million per square metre before land.

Land is the variable that dwarfs the rest. Leasehold in Canggu runs around IDR 27 million per are per year; Pererenan around 26 million; Uluwatu around 22 million; Kedungu 12 to 17 million, and less further along the Tabanan coast. On freehold the gaps are wider: Canggu IDR 1.5 to 3 billion per are against Kedungu at around 560 million.

How to get a real number

The ranges above are for sanity-checking a quote, not for setting a budget. The only figure that means anything is a measured bill of quantities, tendered to three contractors, priced line by line against a specification you can read.

A price per square metre offered before anyone has seen drawings is an opening position, which is fine. A price per square metre offered instead of a bill of quantities is something else, and the difference tends to appear at the point where it is least convenient to discuss.