Do you need an International Driving Permit to rent a scooter in Bali?

What you must carry on the bike

• Your International Driving Permit, showing category A (motorcycle). This is the one most people get wrong.
• Your original home driving licence — the IDP is only a translation of it and is not valid on its own.
• Your passport, and your entry stamp or visa.
• The bike’s registration (the STNK). The rental shop gives you this; keep it under the seat.

The part almost everyone misses: category A

An IDP lists the vehicle classes you are allowed to drive, copied from your home licence. If your home licence only covers cars, your IDP will only cover cars — and a scooter is a motorcycle. At a checkpoint that is treated the same as having no permit at all.

Before you fly, open your IDP and check that category A (or "A1" for small motorcycles) is stamped. If it is not, you do not have a motorcycle entitlement, and the honest fix is to get one at home, not to hope you are not stopped.

What happens at a police checkpoint

Police run document checks regularly, and Canggu and Seminyak are two of the most common spots. An officer will ask for your licence, your IDP and the STNK. If a document is missing, you are fined.

The official fine runs from Rp 250,000 to Rp 1,000,000 (about USD 15–65). In practice many checks are settled in cash on the spot, often Rp 300,000–500,000 per missing document. You are within your rights to decline and ask for an official ticket (a "tilang") instead, which you pay at a bank or in court.

The expensive part is not the fine — it is insurance

If you have an accident while riding without the right documents, you were riding illegally, and travel-insurance providers routinely refuse the claim on exactly that basis. A hospital bill after a scooter accident in Bali dwarfs any checkpoint fine. The IDP is cheap insurance for your insurance.

How to get one

Get the IDP in your home country before you travel, from the body authorised to issue it — usually a national automobile association. You bring your licence and a passport photo; it is a same-day or few-days process, costs little, and is valid for one year. Make sure you ask for the motorcycle category.

Do not count on getting one in Bali. Arranging it locally is slow, uncertain, and not how the permit is meant to work.

If you only hold a car licence

You legally need a motorcycle entitlement to ride a scooter, full stop. If you have never ridden and have no motorcycle class on your licence, the safe and legal route is a short course at home to add it, or to skip two wheels this trip. Riding on a car-only licence is the single most common way visitors end up both fined and uninsured.