For the last few years, we’ve been taking flights from Cairns Australia to Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Vietnam, anywhere in Southeast Asia, or even on to Europe or London via Bali. DPS, is Denpasar, Ngurah Rai Internetional Airport and it’s a huge flight hub in Southeast Asia.
For most of those flights we have had to enter Bali, pass through immigration and customs and pay the “Bali Tax” to enter Bali.
On our last trip, for the first time ever, we didn’t have to pay it, here’s how you do that and negotiate changing flights in Bali DPS.
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Self-Transfer Flights or Two Separate Flights?
When you search for flights from A-B and find that those flights are marked “self-transfer” at DPS (Denpasar International Airport near Kuta, Bali) you may wonder what that means.
We never choose that option, because we’ve found over many years of travel, that it’s usually more convenient, and cheaper, to book 2 flights separately. A to DPS and DPS to B.
Whichever fights you choose, the procedure at DPS will be the same, unless you choose to break up your flights and spend a layover in Bali, which we do often. This is the hotel we use and recommend, close to the airport, with free airport transfer.
Self-Transfer at DPS
DPS, Denpasar, is a very nice, modern international airport, but the arrival procedures can be a bit painful. We’ve had to fill in online customs forms, and more, on the airport’s dodgy wifi several times.
We recommend you buy an eSIM before departure. On this trip, we had an Asia-wide eSIM for data, as we were visiting multiple countries, it worked great. We get all of our travel SIMs from SIM corner, here.
You will disembark the plane and walk towards the terminal building.
After corridors, walkways and WCs, you will enter a large hall. There will be barriers in front of you, desks, queues, all of the usual things you expect at arrivals in any modern international airport.
There may be signs relating to QR codes for a health survey form directly in front of you.
Ignore all that and turn left. Go past a short row of help desks, just beyond that you will find the transfer desk and entrance.
Before our 2026 trip, we have tried to go this way and found it closed. This time it was open. This area has been under construction, it’s now in operation. I can’t guarantee that this transfer route is always open, as the staff on the desk seemed to be in quite a hurry to get us through, asking if we were on the Sydney flight, we weren’t, we were on the Cairns flight on JetStar, we got through with no difficulties.
YOU NEED TO HAVE YOUR NEXT BOARDING PASS ON PAPER, OR ON YOUR PHONE.
If you go this way you don’t have to officially “enter” Bali, no immigration, no biometric data and passports, and no Bali Tax, AKA the Bali Tourist Levi. Find out about that and Bali visa info at the Indonesian government website. Most people don’t need to worry about visas for short stays.
I have to admit that I always used to find this process stressful and anxiety inducing. It seems that all of my travel stresses and worries have lifted in recent years, in part due to meditation. Read about travel anxiety, and beating it, here.
Boarding Passes, Electronic Check-in and Paper
Most airlines today allow electronic check-in, from your phone, 24 hours before your flight. Your seat is allocated and you’ll have an electronic copy on your phone. There are a few airlines where this isn’t the case.
VietJet’s system is a bit different. On previous flights to Vietnam from Bali, we haven’t had electronic check-in or boarding passes on our phones. Their system didn’t allow this, you had to physically check in at the airports. On this trip, VietJet did allow us to check in online.
I can’t guarantee that this is the case for all VietJet flights, but on our Brisbane to Ho Chi Minh flight, we checked in online and then VietJet printed us a paper boarding pass at the gate.
AirAsia also can be a bit troublesome. Several times we’ve had to actually check in at the desk and get a paper boarding pass and had carry-on bags weighed. The departures hall attendants, in multiple countries, wouldn’t allow electronic boarding passes for Air Asia. I don’t know why, and it doesn’t seem to happen on every flight today.
Weighing Carry-On Baggage
We very rarely face any scrutiny of our carry-on luggage. We are always 100% certain that our bags are under 7Kg and/or have the option of taking out our coats or heavy items and wearing them to board the plane. It is very easy to travel for weeks or months with just 7KG carry on and it’s the only way we travel today. We have a post on how to travel carry-on only.
If you have checked in hold luggage I guess you will have to enter Bali, but check this for yourself.
Our carry-on luggage is soft-sided, backpack style. If you plan on taking hard-sided bags on wheels (please don’t) you are much more likely to have your bags weighed and/or taken away from you at the door of the plane. This is common everywhere in the world on budget airlines. We’ve seen it happen in Europe too.
In Bali the lines for departures were split into two, people with hard-sided bags or a lot of luggage, and those without. We flew through in the “travelling light” queue. People in the other queue were having bags weighed and checked for size using those “does your bag fit in here” devices. Be very certain that they do as AirAsia’s size requirements are different to those of other budget airlines.
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