Ngurah Rai Airport denies entry to 574 foreign nationals Jan–Aug 2026

Denpasar — — Immigration officers at Bali’s I Gusti Ngurah Rai International Airport denied entry to 574 foreign nationals between 1 January and 31 August 2026, while processing more than 10.2 million passenger movements over the same period, according to data released by the Ngurah Rai Immigration Office and reported by Bali Discovery and Indonesia With Me.

The head of the Ngurah Rai Immigration Office, Muhamad Novyandri, and the head of its Immigration Information and Communication Section, Husnan Handono, said the refusals involved a range of grounds including missing or invalid visas, passports with less than six months’ remaining validity, inclusion on travel-ban or Interpol watchlists, and alleged links to criminal activity.

Husnan said officers also deferred the departure of 570 travellers — both Indonesian citizens and foreign nationals — during the first eight months of 2026. The report attributed those departure deferrals to factors such as non-procedural migrant-worker status, illegal Hajj travel arrangements, documentation problems, listings on travel-ban registries and other immigration issues.

Administrative actions recorded

According to the same immigration briefing, Ngurah Rai Immigration recorded four main categories of administrative immigration action, known in Indonesia as tindakan administratif keimigrasian (TAK), for the January–August period. These cover deportations, detentions, entry bans and immigration surveillance activities.

• Deportations: 265
• Detentions: 173
• Entry bans: 230
• Immigration surveillance activities: 228

The immigration office did not specify whether individual cases may appear in more than one category, or to what extent the TAK figures overlap with the 574 refusals of entry. As a result, the totals cannot be reliably combined to produce a single count of individuals subject to enforcement measures.

The report cited Russian nationals as accounting for the largest number of TAK cases, at 35, followed by Australians with 26 and United States citizens with 24. These figures refer to administrative actions such as deportations, bans and surveillance, rather than the number of Russian, Australian or US citizens refused entry at the border.

Airport traffic and arrivals profile

Ngurah Rai Immigration reported that the airport handled 10,229,948 passenger movements between January and August 2026. Arrivals totalled 5,101,550, including 4,639,196 foreign nationals, 318,294 Indonesian citizens and 144,060 crew members. Departures reached 5,128,398, comprising 4,679,128 foreign nationals, 303,864 Indonesian citizens and 145,406 crew.

Australians were the largest foreign-arrival group over the period, with 1,171,531 arrivals. They were followed by Chinese nationals at 418,373 and British nationals at 206,333. Russian arrivals reached 189,432, a lower rank in the arrival table than in the administrative-action statistics.

Overall passenger crossings were reported to be about 2 percent lower than in the same period of 2025, although the immigration office did not release comparable figures for entry refusals, deportations, detentions, bans or surveillance activities last year.

Visa services and passport issuance

Immigration services at the airport processed 45,029 applications to extend visas on arrival during the first eight months of 2026, an increase of 20.3 percent year-on-year. Applications to extend visit stay permits numbered 9,449, while 2,685 applications were filed to convert visit permits into limited stay permits.

Ngurah Rai Immigration also issued 16,421 passports during the period, down about 14 percent from a year earlier. The office stated that since 1 December 2024 it has issued only electronic passports, in line with Indonesia’s broader shift to e-passport systems.

The figures highlight the different stages of Indonesia’s border and immigration enforcement at Bali’s main gateway. Refusal of entry occurs at the checkpoint before a foreign traveller is admitted, while deportation, detention, entry bans and surveillance are administrative measures that apply to people already inside the country or identified through subsequent investigations.

Sources

• Bali Discovery
• Indonesia With Me