GlobeQuest

Where to live in Jakarta

Jakarta rewards choosing your neighbourhood around one question — how far you are from where you work in a city where ten kilometres can take ninety minutes — and then around a second one nobody mentions in the brochure: how high the water came. Rents are low by regional standards and the stock is enormous, from serviced towers on the MRT line to 1950s houses with gardens. The real obstacle is the payment convention. Landlords here expect twelve months up front, sometimes two years, and the deposit sits on top. Apartment platforms have made monthly and quarterly terms genuinely available in the towers, but for a house in Kemang or Menteng you should assume a year's rent in cash and negotiate down from there.

The neighbourhoods

Kebayoran Baru — Senopati, Gunawarman, Blok M

IDR 9,000,000–18,000,000 / month for a 1-bed

The centre of gravity for younger foreign professionals: 1950s garden-suburb streets that filled up with restaurants, bars and small offices

Young professionalsNightlifeWalkableTransit

Commute: MRT from Blok M or ASEAN to Sudirman in 10–15 minutes

  • The best restaurant and bar density in Jakarta
  • On the MRT line, which genuinely removes the traffic problem
  • Low-rise, tree-lined and unusually walkable for this city
  • Prices have risen faster than anywhere else in the city
  • Weekend traffic and parking on Senopati are dire
  • Very little large family housing left as houses convert to venues

Kuningan & Setiabudi

IDR 10,000,000–22,000,000 / month for a 1-bed

The embassy and multinational quarter — towers, serviced apartments and the golden triangle of offices

CentralCorporateServiced apartmentsTransit

Commute: Walk or one MRT stop to most of the CBD

  • Shortest commute in the city if you work in the triangle
  • Deep supply of serviced apartments with flexible terms
  • Embassies, international clinics and malls all within walking distance
  • The most expensive rents in Jakarta per square metre
  • Hemmed in by Rasuna Said and Gatot Subroto, so noisy and hostile on foot
  • Corporate and quiet at weekends

Menteng & Cikini

IDR 12,000,000–30,000,000 / month for a house; less for the few flats

The 1910s Dutch garden suburb — wide streets, old trees, embassies and the city's best-preserved low-rise housing

FamiliesCharacterQuietCentral

Commute: 10–20 minutes to the CBD outside peak; MRT at Bundaran HI

  • The most pleasant streets to walk in central Jakarta
  • Genuinely central without being in a tower
  • Excellent old houses with gardens, which barely exist elsewhere
  • Priced accordingly and mostly let as whole houses
  • Heritage-era buildings mean old wiring, damp and expensive maintenance
  • Parts of Cikini flood, and the flood history varies street by street

Kemang & Bangka

IDR 15,000,000–35,000,000 / month for a house

The long-established foreign-resident enclave south of the centre — villas, international schools' catchment, and a strip of bars and cafés

FamiliesSpaceCommunityCharacter

Commute: 30–60 minutes to the CBD; no rail, so traffic decides

  • Houses with gardens and space that the centre cannot offer
  • A settled international community and services built around it
  • Close to several international schools
  • Kemang sits low and parts of it flood badly and repeatedly
  • No MRT or commuter rail — you are dependent on the road
  • Jalan Kemang Raya is a single congested spine with no alternative

Pondok Indah & Cipete

IDR 15,000,000–40,000,000 / month for a house

Established South Jakarta affluence — large houses, the city's best-known private hospital, and the international-school belt

FamiliesSchoolsQuietSpace

Commute: 25–50 minutes to the CBD; MRT at Lebak Bulus and Fatmawati

  • The strongest concentration of international schools and paediatric care
  • Real gardens and quiet residential streets
  • Lebak Bulus is the MRT terminus, so a genuine rail option exists
  • Expensive, and the houses are often large and dated
  • Car-dependent for everything except the MRT stations themselves
  • Socially insulated — easy to live here and never meet Jakarta

BSD City & Alam Sutera (Tangerang)

IDR 5,000,000–12,000,000 / month for a house or large flat

Master-planned satellite cities west of Jakarta — new build, wide roads, malls, and a different provincial administration

ValueFamiliesModern buildingsSpace

Commute: 45–90 minutes to the CBD by toll road; commuter rail to Tanah Abang from BSD

  • Far more space and newer buildings for the money
  • Better planned, greener and much less flood-prone than inner Jakarta
  • Strong schools and a self-contained set of amenities
  • It is Banten province, not Jakarta — a different Dukcapil, different tax office, different everything administrative
  • The commute is brutal if you actually need to be in the CBD daily
  • Suburban and car-dependent in a way central Jakarta is not

How renting works in Jakarta

Indonesia has no rent control, no statutory deposit cap and very little tenant-protective legislation — a residential lease is largely whatever the contract says, governed by the Civil Code and, at the framework level, by Government Regulation 14/2016 on the implementation of housing and settlement areas, which repealed the older Regulation 44/1994 that most relocation guides still cite. A fixed-term lease simply ends on its date, with no automatic renewal right and no statutory notice period. The convention that costs newcomers real money is payment in advance: twelve months up front is normal, twenty-four is asked for, and getting the term down to quarterly is a negotiation rather than a right.

  1. 1

    Land somewhere flexible for the first six to eight weeks

    A serviced apartment, a monthly Airbnb or a Travelio-style furnished let buys you time to see neighbourhoods at rush hour and in the rain, which is the only way to judge them. Signing a twelve-month house lease from abroad, sight unseen, on a map that makes Kemang look close to Sudirman, is the most expensive mistake available here.

  2. 2

    Check the flood history street by street, in centimetres and by year

    Jakarta's flood risk is hyper-local: two streets can behave completely differently. Ask the RT head, the security guards and the neighbours how high the water came in specific years, not whether the area floods. The provincial disaster agency publishes flood maps and the news archives are searchable by kelurahan. In a house, also ask where the electrical distribution board sits and whether the ground floor has been raised.

  3. 3

    Negotiate the payment term as hard as you negotiate the rent

    Twelve months in advance is the default ask and is genuinely negotiable, especially in apartment towers with a lot of empty stock and with agents on a monthly platform. Six months, quarterly and monthly all exist. A discount for paying the full year is normal — quantify it, because paying twelve months for a 5% saving is expensive money if it locks up your entire cash buffer.

  4. 4

    Read what the rent actually includes, then read the service charge

    In an apartment, the monthly service charge (IPL) and the parking fee are frequently separate from the rent and are charged per square metre — on a large unit this is a meaningful sum. Electricity is usually prepaid by token and is not cheap when air conditioning runs all day. Establish in writing who pays IPL, who pays the internet, and what happens to the water bill.

  5. 5

    Get the lease stamped, and know what the stamp does and does not do

    Indonesian practice is to affix e-meterai stamp duty to the signed agreement. The stamp is about admissibility as evidence in court, not about validity — an unstamped contract is still a contract, and duty can be paid retrospectively. Anyone telling you an unstamped lease is void is wrong. For a long or high-value lease, having it drawn or witnessed by a notary is worth the fee.

  6. 6

    Register yourself with the RT and RW after you move in

    The head of the block and of the neighbourhood cluster expect foreign residents to introduce themselves, and their letter is the informal-looking document that the police report and then your SKTT residence certificate both depend on. Do it in the first week, bring a copy of your passport and permit, and it is a five-minute conversation rather than an obstacle.

Upfront cost

Assume twelve months' rent in advance plus a deposit of roughly one month, and possibly an agent's commission where an agent is involved. In apartment towers, quarterly and monthly terms are increasingly available through the rental platforms, which reduces the upfront requirement dramatically. For a house in Kemang, Menteng or Pondok Indah, twelve months up front remains the working assumption and two years is sometimes requested for a discount.

Where to search

Rumah123 and 99.co Indonesia — the two largest general property portals, sale and rentalTravelio and Jendela360 — apartment-focused platforms with monthly terms, furnishing and video tours, which is where the flexible leases liveLamudi Indonesia, useful for houses and for the Tangerang and Bekasi satellite citiesThe marketing or leasing desk inside the apartment tower itself, which holds units that never reach a portalFacebook groups for foreign residents in Jakarta, where sublets and handovers circulate firstRelocation agents, standard for corporate moves and worth it if your employer is paying, since they handle the RT/RW and utility steps too

Insider tips

  • Judge the commute by doing it, not by the map. Test the actual journey at 08:00 on a Tuesday and again at 18:00, ideally in the rain. Distance in Jakarta tells you almost nothing; the presence of an MRT station tells you a lot.
  • Living on the MRT line is worth paying for. The north–south line from Lebak Bulus to Bundaran HI is the one part of Jakarta transport that is immune to traffic, and the extension to Monas and Kota is not due until 2027 and 2029 respectively — so today's line is today's map.
  • If your employer rents on your behalf, know that Indonesian law imposes a final tax on rental income from land and buildings and the corporate tenant is the party who withholds it. Landlords sometimes quote a net figure and expect the company to gross it up. Settle who bears it in the contract, not afterwards.
  • Ask which fibre providers the building actually has before you sign. Apartment towers are wired by whoever negotiated access and management will not always admit another provider, so working from home can come down to a decision made years before you arrived.
  • In a landed house, ask whether water comes from the PAM Jaya piped supply or a well. Piped coverage is around four fifths of the city and rising, and a house on a well in a dry-season year is a different proposition — as is the fact that the city sinks partly because of those wells.
  • Take photographs and a dated video of everything at handover, including the air-conditioning units and the water heater. There is no deposit-protection scheme here and no statutory dispute process; your evidence is the whole of your protection.

Avoid these

  • Signing a twelve-month lease from abroad without seeing the street, the commute at rush hour, or the flood history.
  • Paying a full year up front without negotiating either the term or a stated discount for doing so.
  • Missing the service charge and parking fee, which in apartment towers are charged separately and per square metre.
  • Believing that an unstamped lease is invalid — the stamp affects evidence in court, not the contract's existence.
  • Renting in Tangerang or Bekasi without realising you have left Jakarta province, and with it your Dukcapil office, your tax office and your provincial tax rules.
  • Skipping the RT and RW introduction, then finding your SKTT application stalled for want of a letter you could have collected in five minutes.

Some of this may be out of date. Spotted something inaccurate? Help us keep it right for the next newcomer.

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