Can You Sell a Bali Off-Plan Villa Before Completion?

Yes, you can sell a Bali off-plan villa before it is built and handed over. The mechanism is an assignment of your preliminary sale and purchase agreement, known as a PPJB, to a new buyer. You transfer your contractual position to a third party, the developer signs off on the change, and the new buyer steps into your shoes. You do not need to wait for the completed property or the final title deed (AJB) to be signed.

The assignment requires a notary-drafted addendum, often called a cessie or pengalihan hak under Indonesian contract law. Most PPJBs require the developer's written consent before you can transfer your rights to someone else, so the first step is to check your contract and approach the developer directly. Developers may charge a transfer or administration fee for the assignment; the amount and process should be set out in your PPJB. Once the developer agrees, a notary prepares the assignment deed and the new buyer takes over your payment obligations from that point.

Tax applies to both sides of the transaction. Under Government Regulation No. 34 of 2016, the original buyer (the assignor) pays a 2.5 percent final income tax (PPh Final) on the gross assignment price. This is the same rate that applies to any direct property transfer in Indonesia; it is calculated on the full transaction value, not on your profit margin. When the new buyer eventually receives the completed villa and signs the AJB deed at handover, they pay BPHTB (land and building acquisition duty) at 5 percent of the acquisition value above the non-taxable threshold set by the local regional government.

There is a secondary market for pre-completion PPJB rights in Bali, particularly in active corridors like Canggu, Pererenan, and parts of Tabanan. Buyers who purchased at early-stage or launch pricing sometimes list their PPJB position at a premium before handover, banking on price growth during the construction period. Bali off-plan listings represented about 37 percent of the total Bali property market in early 2025, which indicates a large pool of early-stage buyers and potential assignors. That said, Bali entered 2025 with rising inventory in some price bands, so the size of any paper gain depends on the specific development, its location, and how the market moved while you held the PPJB.

Bali has no equivalent to Dubai's RERA framework, which requires off-plan resales to go through a formal registry and deposits to be held in escrow. In Bali, a pre-completion assignment depends entirely on what your PPJB says and whether the developer will cooperate. Before you sign any off-plan contract, ask the developer explicitly whether assignment is permitted and under what conditions, and make sure the transfer rights are written into the PPJB. These are informational ranges drawn from current market practice and Indonesian tax regulations, not financial or legal advice.