Last reviewed: August 2026 | Written for people dealing with a road accident in Bali, as a victim or as the rider who caused one.
Accident Lawyer in Bali: What Your Rights Actually Are After a Crash
Most pages about accidents in Bali were written before January 2026 and are now wrong on the numbers. Indonesia replaced its Criminal Code and Criminal Procedure Code on 2 January 2026, and a third law rewrote every fine in the traffic act on the same day. The maximum fine for causing a death by careless driving went from Rp 12 million to Rp 500 million. Riding without a licence stopped being an imprisonable offence and became a fine.
This page explains where you stand, using the law as it reads today. It is general information, not advice on your situation, but it should stop you making the three mistakes we see most often.
The first hour: what to do at the scene
What you do in the first hour shapes everything that follows. In order:
- Stop. Leaving the scene is a separate crime carrying up to three years, even if the crash was not your fault (Article 312, UU 22/2009).
- Help anyone who is hurt. This is a legal duty, not a courtesy. Article 231 requires you to stop, assist, report to the nearest police, and give a statement.
- Photograph everything before the bikes are moved. Final positions, damage, skid marks, the road, traffic signs, both licence plates. Once the vehicles are moved, the scene is gone and it becomes your word against theirs.
- Get names and phone numbers of two witnesses. A police report is far stronger with independent witnesses, and they disappear within minutes.
- Go to a clinic or hospital the same day, even if you feel fine. Adrenaline masks injuries, and a medical record created days later is much easier to dispute.
- File a police report (Laporan Polisi). Without one you generally cannot claim Jasa Raharja compensation and your travel insurer will usually decline.
- Do not sign anything in Indonesian that you have not had translated. This includes statements at the police station.
The mistake that costs the most money: agreeing a cash settlement at the roadside and going home without a police report. If an injury emerges later, a fracture that was not obvious, a head injury, you have no report, no evidence, no insurance claim and no way to reopen it.
What changed on 2 January 2026
Three laws came into force the same day, and together they changed this area considerably:
- UU 1/2023, the new Criminal Code (KUHP). Introduces judicial pardon, where a judge may decline to impose any punishment at all given the circumstances and what happened afterwards.
- UU 20/2025, the new Criminal Procedure Code (KUHAP). Creates Indonesia's first statutory restorative justice process, which matters enormously in traffic cases.
- UU 1/2026 rewrote the fines in the traffic act. Custodial maximums stayed the same. The money did not.
Criminal penalties for causing an accident
In Indonesia a traffic accident is handled through the criminal system, not as a civil insurance matter. Article 230 puts even minor collisions into the criminal process. These are the maximums as they read after the January 2026 amendments:
| Situation | Maximum prison | Maximum fine (from Jan 2026) |
|---|---|---|
| Careless driving, damage to property only (Art. 310(1)) | 6 months | Rp 10 million |
| Careless driving causing minor injury (Art. 310(2)) | 1 year | Rp 10 million |
| Careless driving causing serious injury (Art. 310(3)) | 5 years | Rp 200 million |
| Careless driving causing death (Art. 310(4)) | 6 years | Rp 500 million |
| Leaving the scene / failing to help or report (Art. 312) | 3 years | Rp 50 million |
Deliberately dangerous driving is punished far more heavily again, up to 12 years and a fine of Rp 5 billion where it causes death (Article 311(5)). That is reserved for genuinely reckless conduct, not ordinary carelessness.
A court can also revoke your licence or order you to pay compensation on top of the sentence (Article 314).
Riding without a licence: the thing everybody gets wrong
This causes more confusion than any other point, so it is worth being precise.
Riding a scooter in Bali without a valid licence is an offence. Since January 2026 it is a fine-only offence, up to Rp 1 million under Article 281. The four-month detention that used to sit behind it was removed. Having a licence but not carrying it is Rp 250,000 (Article 288(2)). Riding without a helmet is Rp 250,000, and the same again if your passenger has no helmet (Article 291).
Riding unlicensed does not, by itself, make you liable for the crash. Article 310 turns on whether you were careless and what the consequences were. Your licence status is a separate, minor offence. If a car turns across you without indicating and you had no licence, the car driver's carelessness is still the cause of the accident.
Two things it does affect, and they are significant:
- It is strong evidence of fault in a civil claim. The other side will use it, and it makes a negligence argument against you much easier to run.
- It usually voids your travel insurance. This is contract law, not Indonesian law (see below).
Is my international driving permit valid here?
Yes. Article 85(4) of the traffic act recognises foreign licences where an international agreement applies, and the police regulation on licensing confirms that an international driving permit issued abroad is valid in Indonesia.
The catch is that an IDP only carries the categories already on your home licence. If your home licence does not cover motorcycles, your IDP does not either, and you are riding unlicensed in the eyes of Indonesian law, and your insurer's.
You will see it claimed that IDPs issued under the 1949 Geneva Convention do not cover motorcycles in Indonesia at all. We could find no legal basis for that, and it appears to be a garbled version of the point above. Do not rely on it either way without checking your own licence categories.
Jasa Raharja: the state compensation nobody claims
Indonesia has a compulsory road accident fund, Jasa Raharja, financed through the annual vehicle levy. It pays regardless of who was at fault, and foreigners are eligible, nationality appears nowhere in the eligibility rules.
| Benefit | Amount |
|---|---|
| Death | Rp 50,000,000 to the lawful heirs |
| Permanent disability | Up to Rp 50,000,000, scaled by a statutory percentage for the injury |
| Medical treatment | Up to Rp 20,000,000 |
| Ambulance / transport to a health facility | Up to Rp 500,000 |
| First aid at the scene | Up to Rp 1,000,000 |
Medical reimbursement is paid in addition to the death or disability benefit, not deducted from it.
The gap that catches most tourists
The scheme covers people who were outside the vehicle that caused the accident. Read that carefully, because it decides most claims:
- Hit by a car or another bike while walking or riding → covered.
- Riding the scooter that caused the crash, or a passenger on it → not covered.
- Single-vehicle crash, you came off on your own → not covered at all.
That last one is the most common tourist accident in Bali and it falls entirely outside the scheme. If you lose the front wheel on gravel in Canggu and break your collarbone, Jasa Raharja pays nothing. Your travel insurance is the only thing standing between you and the bill, which is exactly why the licence question above matters so much.
Deadlines and exclusions
The claim must be lodged within six months of the accident. If the fund rejects you in writing, you have six months to sue. An approved payment not collected within three months lapses. Death or permanent disability must result within 365 days of the crash.
There is no payment where the victim was drunk, was committing a crime at the time, was racing, or where the injury came from a pre-existing condition. A rider who had been drinking loses the entitlement.
Travel insurance: read the exclusion before you ride
This is a matter of your policy wording, not Indonesian law, and it varies. The standard exclusion in Australian, British and European policies is riding a motorcycle or scooter without a licence valid for that class in the country you are in, and many also exclude riding without a helmet.
The trigger is the act of riding unlicensed, not the crash. Once that exclusion applies, the insurer declines, and a medical evacuation from Bali to Australia or Europe runs well into six figures.
Do not take "all travel insurance is void without an IDP" as a rule. Check your own product disclosure statement before you rent a bike. It takes ten minutes and it is the single highest-value thing you can do before riding here.
"Damai": the roadside settlement, and what the law actually allows
Minor crashes in Bali are very often settled on the spot with cash, informally, no police involved. It is worth being clear about where that sits legally, because most sources get it wrong.
For property damage only, bent forks, scratched paint, nobody hurt, the law expressly allows the compensation obligation to be settled out of court by agreement (Article 236(2)). A roadside settlement here is legitimate.
Where somebody is injured or killed, paying money does not end the criminal case. Articles 235(1) and (2) require the driver or vehicle owner to fund medical and funeral costs, and state in terms that doing so does not extinguish the criminal prosecution. Anyone who tells you a payment makes it go away is describing custom, not law.
There is also a practical reality worth naming plainly. Foreigners are frequently expected to pay regardless of fault, crowds gather, and the negotiation happens under pressure. Damage gets exaggerated and injuries occasionally get invented. "The foreigner pays" is not the written law. If the sum being demanded is significant, or anyone is hurt, that is the moment to stop negotiating and call a lawyer.
The new restorative justice route (2026)
The new Criminal Procedure Code created a formal settlement path that did not exist before. It matters because it is the legitimate version of what people were previously attempting informally.
In outline: the parties reach a written agreement, which may include forgiveness by the victim, payment of medical or psychological treatment costs, or compensation for other losses. The agreement must be performed within seven days. Only once it has been fully performed can the complaint be withdrawn, and the case is then terminated by a court order. If the agreement is not performed in time, the prosecution simply continues.
It is available at investigation, prosecution and trial stages. Eligibility broadly covers first offences carrying up to five years, with negligence offences treated more generously than deliberate ones.
Whether a fatal careless-driving case qualifies is genuinely unsettled on the face of the new statute. The provisions pull in different directions and the implementing regulation has not yet been issued. Anyone telling you confidently either way is guessing. Serious-injury cases sit more comfortably within it.
Can you be stopped from leaving Indonesia?
Yes, and this is the risk foreigners most consistently underestimate.
Immigration can impose an exit ban at the request of the Chief of Police. It runs for up to six months and is renewable, each time for up to another six months. You must be notified within seven days. You can object, but objecting does not suspend the ban. It lapses automatically if not renewed, or on a final acquittal.
If you are named as a suspect in a crash involving death or serious injury, you can find yourself unable to leave Bali for months while the case proceeds. Flights get rebooked, jobs get lost, and the pressure to settle on bad terms becomes intense. This is the single strongest practical reason to involve a lawyer early rather than after charges are laid.
Claiming compensation through the civil courts
Separate from the criminal case, you can sue for damages. The basis is Article 1365 of the Civil Code. An unlawful act causing loss through fault obliges the person at fault to make it good. You must show an unlawful act, fault, loss, and a causal link between them.
Related provisions matter in practice. Article 1367 reaches beyond the rider to people and things under another's responsibility, which is the route to a rental company or an employer. Article 1370 allows a spouse, children or parents who depended on the deceased to claim. Article 1371 covers treatment costs and losses flowing from injury.
The limitation period is long. The general civil limitation is 30 years, and Indonesia has no short tort deadline. That is not a reason to wait. Evidence decays, witnesses vanish, and the six-month Jasa Raharja bar is unforgiving.
Mediation is compulsory before a first-instance civil case proceeds. The courts' own target is around five months at first instance, but a contested claim that runs through appeal and cassation takes considerably longer in practice.
Since January 2026 you can also ask the criminal court to deal with your compensation claim inside the criminal case, which avoids a separate action. The request has to be made before the prosecutor delivers the sentencing demand, so it is a decision to take early, not late.
If you were the one hit
Most of this page addresses riders who caused a crash, because that is where the legal exposure sits. If you were hit, your position is different and generally stronger:
- Get the police report. It is the foundation of everything else.
- Claim Jasa Raharja within six months. You are almost certainly eligible if you were outside the vehicle that hit you.
- Keep every receipt. Medical costs, transport, replacement equipment, lost bookings.
- Get the rental company's details if the other rider was on a rented bike. Article 1367 may put them in the frame.
- Do not accept a roadside payment as final if you have any injury. Once you have signed a settlement, reopening it is difficult.
Common questions
Do I have to file a police report for a minor crash?
Legally, Article 231 requires you to report an accident to the nearest police. In practice, property-damage-only crashes are frequently settled without one, which the law does accommodate for that category. If anyone is injured, report it.
How much does Jasa Raharja pay for a death?
Rp 50,000,000 to the lawful heirs, in the order of spouse, then children, then parents. Medical costs of up to Rp 20,000,000 are paid on top.
I crashed on my own and hurt myself. Can I claim anything?
Not from Jasa Raharja, single-vehicle accidents on a private vehicle fall outside the scheme. Your travel insurance is the only route, and whether it responds usually turns on whether you held a licence valid for a motorcycle.
The police are asking me to sign a statement in Indonesian. Should I?
Not until you understand it. You are entitled to know what you are signing. A statement made at the police station becomes part of the case file and is difficult to walk back later.
Can I just pay and go home?
For property damage, yes. The law allows out-of-court settlement for that category. Where someone is injured or killed, payment does not end the criminal case, and if you are a suspect you may be subject to an exit ban regardless of what you have paid.
How long do I have to bring a claim?
Six months for Jasa Raharja. The general civil limitation is far longer, but evidence and witnesses will not wait.
When you should call a lawyer
Not every scrape needs one. These situations do:
- Anyone was seriously injured or died
- You have been named as a suspect, or asked to attend the police station for questioning
- You are being asked to sign anything you do not fully understand
- The sum being demanded is substantial, or is rising each time you speak
- Your passport has been retained, or you have been told not to leave
- Your insurer has declined and you need to understand what you are personally exposed to
We handle traffic accident matters for both foreign residents and visitors in Bali, police station attendance, dealing with the other party, Jasa Raharja claims, and civil compensation. If you are in the middle of something right now, get in touch and we will tell you plainly whether you need us.
This page sets out general information about Indonesian law as at August 2026. It is not legal advice and no lawyer-client relationship arises from reading it. Outcomes turn on the specific facts. Legislation and regulations change. The January 2026 reforms are recent and implementing regulations are still being issued.
Sources
- UU No. 22/2009 on Road Traffic and Transport. Articles 229-236, 281, 288, 291, 310-312, 314, 316, 77, 85
- UU No. 1/2026 on Adjustment of Criminal Penalties, Annex I no. 67 (amending the fines in UU 22/2009)
- UU No. 20/2025 (new Criminal Procedure Code). Articles 79-88 (restorative justice), 189-192 (joining a civil claim)
- UU No. 1/2023 (new Criminal Code): Article 54(2) (judicial pardon)
- PP No. 18/1965. Articles 10, 12, 13, 18 (eligibility, exclusions, time limits)
- PMK No. 16/PMK.010/2017, Jasa Raharja benefit amounts
- UU No. 6/2011 on Immigration: Articles 91-97 (exit bans)
- Indonesian Civil Code: Articles 1365, 1367, 1370, 1371