Entertainment/freelancer KITAS as evasion of law
There are many agents that promote ‘entertainment KITAS’, ‘artist KITAS’, ‘freelancer KITAS’, and so on.
In fact this typically constitutes penyelundupan hukum (evasion of law, or literally ‘legal smuggling’).
A KITAS, properly an ITAS, is a (kartu) izin tinggal terbatas, or limited stay permit, i.e. temporary residence permit.
There is no separate category of ‘entertainment KITAS’. Instead an entertainment KITAS refers to a work KITAS to be hired by an impresario company.
There is a lot of blurring of fact, law and language by agents promoting such visas, however an impresario company is one that acts as an impresario, providing ‘jasa impresariat’ (from the Dutch ‘impresariaat’, the services of an impresario). As in English an impresario stages musical/arts performances, as well as sporting performances.
This diagram from the Ministry of Finance shows the difference between an impresario company and an event organizer.
In the first case an impresario company hires artistes, sports stars, etc., and puts on a show directly for the public, the impresario company being exposed to the financial risk and reward of ticket sales. In the second case, the event organizer company is paid to stage a show by the client. Although the difference is perhaps not so important for a foreigner wanting to work in Indonesia, it does show the kind of services involved.
The definition of ‘impresario service company’ is in KM.103/UM.201/MPPT-91:
kegiatan pengurusan penyelenggaraan hiburan, baik yang berupa mendatangkan, mengirimkan maupun mengembalikannya serta menentukan tempat, waktu dan jenis hiburan;
the activity of managing entertainment (hiburan), whether that be by bringing, sending, or returning, as well as setting the place, time and type of entertainment.
Hiburan (entertainment) is defined as
segala bentuk penyajian/pertunjukan dalam bidang seni dan olah raga yang semata-mata bertujuan untuk memberikan rasa senang kepada pengunjung dengan mendapatkan imbalan jasa
“all forms of performance or presentation in the fields of art and sport that have the sole purpose of giving pleasure to visitors, and receive compensation for said service”
The actions of an impresario company are in Article 3:
- These comprise:
a) organizing the departure and return of Indonesian artists or sportsmen both within Indonesia and abroad
b) organizing the arrival and return of foreign artists or sportsmen in Indonesia - Apart from this, an impresario company can organize performances in art and/or sport in Indonesia.
The ministerial regulations 8/2021 define in Article 8 a temporary RPTKA (foreign worker usage plan, or work permit) approval:
- for film making
- audit, QA issues, inspection of branches of companies in Indonesia beyond 1 month
- after-sales support of machines
- for an impresario business
- one-shot work, or that which will be completed within six months
The advantages of applying for a temporary work permit are that it avoids:
- naming and training up an Indonesian replacement for the foreigner
- Indonesian language education for the foreigner
On the other hand, it is only for six months and not extendable. Therefore, the KITAS will earn a new fee for the agent to create a new one if it is needed after six months.
Jobs of the entertainment KITAS
Given that no such thing as an ‘entertainment KITAS’ exists in law, and it is merely an attempt to exploit a ‘short-term ITAS working for an impresario company’, there is in fact no official list of jobs which can be carried out with this KITAS,
The official list of jobs that can legally be filled by foreigners in Indonesia is in Keputusan Menteri 228/2019 (jobs not in the list can still be granted by ‘special permission’). This regulation replaced around twenty separate regulations, most importantly 708/2012, which covered allowed jobs for foreigners in the categories of entertainment, arts, creativity, and other basic sport and recreation.
The list of 708/2012 comprised a list of jobs that logically, in most cases, could be employed by an impresario company (although there is no formal link whatsoever between regulations relating to ‘impresario companies’, and the ‘allowed foreign jobs’ regulations), i.e.:
- musician
- singer
- DJ
- film director
- show manager
- lighting director
- dancer
- karaoke hostess
- acrobat
- circus performer
- magician
- model
It can be seen that the 2012 list included some jobs outside of the scope of impresario companies, such as karaoke hostess. A foreign karaoke hostess would be employed full-time by a karaoke bar.
The 2019 regulation significantly expanded the list of jobs in the field of sport and entertainment:
- sports consultant
- boxing promoter
- referee
- soccer coach
- table tennis coach
- basketball coach
- volleyball coach
- softball coach
- polo coach
- rowing/canoe coach
- badminton coach
- bowling coach
- boxing coach
- judo coach
- platform diving coach
- scuba diving instructor
- swimming coach/instructor
- synchronised swimming coach/instructor
- taekwondo coach
- athletics coach
- wushu coach
- karate coach
- golf coach
- karate coach
- volleyball player
- soccer player
- boxer
It should be noted that this list is not exhaustive — if a tennis coach was needed by an elite player, or even just by a normal tennis club, the department of manpower could grant permission for a qualified foreigner to do this work.
It mus tbe repeated that there is no link defined in law between this list and the issue of a ‘temporary ITAS to an impresario company’ (mislabelled as ‘entertainment KITAS’ by agents). This is merely the list of jobs that qualified foreigners can be employed in, in Indonesia, in the sector of sport/entertainment/exercise.
Therefore it is reasonable to assume that a soccer player might be employed on a long-term contract by an Indonesian team, and would be unlikely to be employed by an impresario company. On the other hand, it is possible to imagine actors being employed by an impresario company to stage a series of shows in Indonesia before going back home.
The elements of evasion in the provision of entertainment KITAS
There are various elements of evasion in the supposed entertainment KITAS:
- the foreigner is often told that this is a freelance KITAS, i.e. that they can work as a DJ in random nightclubs. In fact, they are to be paid by an impresario company to provide entertainment. There is no freelancing involved at all in this process. If the impresario company is not getting paid by the audience, then this is a sham impresario company, and the foreigner is involved in illegal activity.
- the foreigner is told that an ‘entertainment KITAS’ allows you to work (e.g.) as an athletics coach. Since there is no such thing as an ‘entertainment KITAS’, this is a meaningless statement. The foreigner works with a temporary work permit for an impresario business. If they are training people in athletics, this is more likely to be for an athletics club, and does not typically relate to the business of ‘providing entertainment to the public for money’, so an ‘impresario business’ has no role here. The only situation in which an impresario business could legitimately employ an athletics coach would be for something like a one-off sporting event where the impresario business for some reason needed to hire coaches (as opposed to those working for the athletes themselves).
- the foreigner is told that they can work as an athletics coach but they then in fact teach yoga. This is a straightforward violation as a work permit to work as an ‘athletics coach’ means just that. Yoga is not athletics.
- if a foreigner is working as an athletics coach this is likely, in practice, to extend beyond six months. The reason that the ‘entertainment KITAS’ is issued for six months is to evade laws by taking advantage of the more lenient regulation for temporary work permits. The reason in law that the work permit is temporary is that the nature of the work of people employed by an impresario company is indeed temporary — a foreign circus, ballet, band, etc., is typically in Indonesia for a short duration to make money before they move on elsewhere. In the case where the foreigner is told from the outset that they get a six month ‘entertainment KITAS ‘after which they can apply for a replacement ‘entertainment KITAS’, they are being encouraged to evade laws.
Legitimate KITAS in the area of sport, exercise/recreation and entertainment
If you are not involved in an entertainment/sporting performance being staged directly by your employer who receives payment from the public, you are not eligible for a temporary work permit for an impresario company (‘entertainment KITAS’).
You can be employed by an Indonesian company for one of these jobs if you are properly qualified, but this would not be freelance. This would be for an extendable period of one or two years. They would need to pay you a proper salary, and pay for the KITAS and work permit expenses. A scheme where the foreigner pays the expenses of the work permit ($100/month foreign worker compensation) and residence permit/KITAS (1.6 million rupiah for six months), is another form of evasion in that the purpose of manpower law is to meet labour needs of Indonesian employers that cannot be met using local manpower, not to allow foreigners to act as self-employed yoga/fitness instructors.
References
- Decision of the Ministry of Tourism, Post and Telecommunications KM.103/UM.201/MPPT-91 on Impresario Businesses
- Ministry of Manpower Regulation 8 of 2021 on the Implementing Regulations for Government Regulation 34 of 2021 on Use of Foreign Manpower (TKA)
- Decision of the Ministry of Manpower Number 228 of 2019 on certain positions which can be filled by foreigners
- Decision of the Ministry of Manpower Number 708 of 2012 on certain positions which can be filled by foreigners in the fields of entertainment, art, creativity and other sporting and recreational categories (repealed)
