All the 157 yachts that participated in Sail indonesia 2009 did not pay any money at all as a Customs Bond on arrival in the country and all yachts departed Indonesia with no problems with Indonesia Customs whatsoever.

The situation regarding the Indonesian Customs import duty on visiting yachts is as explained below, however these regulations may not have been received at all the Customs Offices across Indonesia and sometimes some Customs Offices may be using the old regulations.

The relevant Indonesian Ministry of Finance Regulation PERATURAN MENTERI KEUANGAN NOMOR 140/PMK.04/2007 is very clear and states that items detailed in that regulation that enter Indonesia including cars, motorcycles and yachts are subject to an import duty when they arrive in Indonesia which is refundable when these items leave the country. A copy of this regulation can be emailed to you if you wish.

In accordance with these regulations, on arrival in Indonesia, foreign flagged yachts must pay an import duty to the Bank of Indonesia based on a percentage of the value of the yacht which is refundable when the yacht leaves Indonesia. The method of determining this value is not clear and can rely on your declared value.

However as is often the situation in Indonesia this system is not working efficiently as these regulations and their interpretation are not uniform across the country with some Customs offices enforcing these regulations while others are not. To make matters more difficult the process for paying this duty and obtaining a refund when the yacht leaves the country is not clear. There is no centralized reporting system for yachts and some banks are not able to accept the money that this system demands and officials in some ports sometimes misuse this difficult situation.

To avoid paying this duty an organization such as Sail Indonesia planning to hold an event in Indonesia us for them to use an Approved Indonesian Body to provide a Letter of Guarantee to the Department of Finance in Jakarta where no money actually changes hands, stating that they will take responsibility for any imported items (your yacht) while it is in Indonesia.

When any event is over the Approved Body that provided the initial Letter of Guarantee then has to show Indonesian Customs that all items mentioned in the initial letter of guarantee (in this case all participating yachts) have left the country. If they cannot do this then this Approved Body becomes liable to pay the full Import Duty. As a result of this situation it is a condition of you entering Sail Indonesia that you will advise us by email the name of the port and date that you and your yacht checked out from Indonesia.

As a consequence of some confusion about this regulation, intending participants will have no doubt heard there were some delays for Sail Indonesia in Kupang in 2008. This is in part true and the yachts were delayed for one extra day, each yacht was required to negotiate a bureaucratic procedure, fill out some forms and pay Rp50,000 (around $5 US) for their "Duty Exemption Certificate". After this was completed they were then free to travel anywhere in Indonesia.

At Sail Indonesia we are working with these regulations and their complexities; however as in past years we have an agreement with Indonesian Customs and Department of Finance Offices in Jakarta and as such our rally yachts are NOT affected by this regulation and Sail Indonesia participants DO NOT have to pay this import duty as we have Indonesian Government support for our events.

This information above is based on the official Government Regulations and, after many meetings and research is the best information we have at this time and, as explained above, it may not be followed by all Customs Officials in all ports.
There are sometimes local variations and implementation of these regulations in outlying ports so we can take no responsibility for the accuracy of this information for yachts that are not in the Sail Indonesia events.