Beach club investment in Bali: capital, licences and the entertainment tax question.

What a Bali beach club business is, in licence terms.

“Beach club” is a format, not a licence. On paper a Bali beach club business is a stack of activities, each with its own classification code (KBLI): a restaurant (56101), a bar (56301) and often a recreation activity for the pool, the day beds and events.

Which code leads is not a formality. The 2025 edition of the classification is reported to describe the bar group 56301 as one that “also covers beach clubs that mainly provide beverages”; we have seen that wording only in a published summary. Recreation-led clubs are pointed towards codes 93290 or 93224 in consultants' summaries (XPND; kbli.co.id).

The leading code sets three things at once: the risk tier, and with it whether a new foreign-owned company (PT PMA) can register the activity in Bali at all, since the low and medium-low tiers are blocked (Emerhub, May 2026); the list of certificates; and the tax on drinks. Fix it with a licensing agent before anyone opens a spreadsheet. Details are in our licence map.

Beach club investment in Bali starts with capital scale.

We found no published construction benchmark for beach clubs in Bali. The honest way to size one is from floor area.

How much are beach clubs in Bali to build

Our calculator allows about 4.5 m² of gross area per guest place for a beach club, against 2.6 m² for a restaurant, because of pools, decks and several service points. A club for 300 guests therefore needs roughly 1,350 m² of built and decked area before parking. Our range for a new restaurant building is IDR 8.5–18 million per m²; these are indicative ranges for 2026, and a fixed price follows drawings and a bill of quantities. Pools, retaining walls, a large power connection and water treatment come on top, by quote. The cost calculator has a beach-club setting for a first range.

Land and company capital

Land is the second budget: a club needs many ares (one are is 100 m²), and beachside plots are priced well above inland ones in the table below. The company is the third. A PT PMA needs IDR 2.5 billion of paid-up capital and an investment plan above IDR 10 billion, land and buildings excluded (BKPM Regulation 5/2025). Food and beverage codes are pooled per regency, so restaurant and bar share one plan. A recreation code is counted separately under the general rule, so a club registered under both groups may have to show two plans. Ask the notary first.

The entertainment tax question: 10% or 40% and more.

Law 1/2022 caps the regional tax on restaurant food and drink at 10%. The same law sets a band of 40–75% for discotheques, karaoke, nightclubs, bars and spas, and Badung, the regency that covers Canggu, Seminyak and Uluwatu, was reported to be planning a move from 15% to 40% (Pajakku, 6 November 2023).

Whether a venue's bar sales fall under 10% or 40% depends on how the venue is licensed. That sentence is the whole problem. We cannot tell you which rate applies to your concept, and nobody should build a model before a tax consultant has asked the regency in writing.

The size of the gap, as plain arithmetic: a drink listed at IDR 100,000 before tax costs the guest IDR 110,000 at 10% and IDR 140,000 at 40%. Either the guest pays about 27% more, or the venue cuts its own price to hold the bill. On a format that lives on drink sales, that decides whether a beach club investment works. The bar version of this question is on opening a bar in Bali.

Coastal zoning: check the plot before the concept.

Four checks come before any design fee is paid.

1. Land status. The plot must be land that can lawfully be leased and built on, not state land.
2. Zoning confirmation. A written confirmation (KKPR) that the exact plot is zoned for tourism or commercial use, with the coastal or cliff setback marked on the survey. We do not quote setback distances; they are read from the regency's plan for that plot.
3. Productive land. Governor's Instruction 5/2025 forbids building on protected rice fields. On the dry limestone Bukit this is less often the issue. Around Pererenan and Seseh it is the first question.
4. Height. Bali's long-standing limit is 15 metres (Regional Regulation 16/2009, reported). We have not checked the height article of the current spatial plan.

Policy can move in both directions. A proposal for a two-year moratorium on new hotels, villas and clubs in South Bali was dropped in January 2025 (Skift). It can come back. Local detail is on the Uluwatu page.

Seasonality: a pool does not sell in the rain.

No public data set tracks beach-club trade by month. Hotel occupancy is the closest proxy, and it swings: 85.9% in the peak month of July 2025, with revenue per room weakest in February and March (Horwath HTL, March 2026). Domestic arrivals fell about 5% in the same report.

Length of stay matters for a day venue. Hotel guests stayed 2.4 days on average in Canggu and Tabanan against 4.0 in Legian (Horwath HTL). A shorter stay leaves fewer afternoons in which one visitor can choose your pool.

Costs do not swing with the weather. The lease is prepaid, and a large team is paid every month from the Badung minimum wage of IDR 3,791,003 upwards (Governor's Decree on 2026 minimum wages). Build the model on February, not on July.

What we build, and what to send us.

We open, build and co-own restaurants in Bali, and the build team is Kimo Construction. For a beach club we do the same work at a larger scale: zoning check before the lease, design, building approval and worthiness certificate (PBG and SLF), structure, power, water, drainage, kitchens and bars, and the licences with partner notaries and consultants. The scope is on the beach club build page. We recommend building in phases: restaurant and main bar first, pool decks and a second kitchen once the first season's figures exist.

If you want a share and not a whole club, the structure is the one we use for restaurants: shares in the Indonesian company (PT PMA) that holds the lease and licences, with a shareholders' agreement drafted by a notary; ticket size, reporting and exit terms are set per project and sent as a project sheet on WhatsApp. We state no expected return. See restaurant investment and how co-ownership agreements work.

Send us a WhatsApp message with the location pin, the land area in ares, the lease term on offer and the guest capacity. We reply with the zoning questions for that plot and a first budget range.