Is a 15 to 20 percent net yield realistic for a Bali villa?

Usually not as a conservative base case. Public fee schedules, labor obligations, tax rules and reserve norms make that kind of net figure hard to treat as bankable unless entry price and operations are unusually strong.

Is AirDNA revenue the same as owner profit for a Bali villa?

No. AirDNA states its annual revenue figure is before host expenses and includes booked nightly rates plus cleaning and other guest fees. It is gross booking revenue, not net income.

Do I need to budget for a capital reserve on a Bali villa?

Yes. Hospitality norms commonly reserve 3 to 5 percent of revenue for furniture, fixtures and replacement. A model that omits this line is overstating its yield.

Bali villa net yield: realistic numbers

Every deck on the island shows a number between twelve and twenty percent. Here is what happens to that number once the real costs are subtracted, one line at a time.

by François, founder · four projects between the drawing board and the site, in Bali

Gross is not net, and the gap is the whole story

AirDNA's public Bali data states plainly that its annual revenue figure is earnings before host expenses, including booked nightly rates plus cleaning and guest fees. That is the top of the funnel, not the money an owner keeps. Marketing material that quotes "12 to 18 percent yield" or "guaranteed 10 percent ROI" is showing you a version of that same top line, dressed up as a conclusion.

The formula

net owner yield =
  (gross booking revenue
    − distribution costs
    − management or payroll
    − operating expenses
    − compliance and admin
    − replacement reserve
    − applicable owner tax)
  ÷ total invested cost

The waterfall, on 100 of gross booking revenue

Gross booking revenue100

Distribution: Airbnb's single-fee structure, mandatory for professionally managed listings, most hosts pay 15.5%; Booking-style OTA commission commonly runs 10 to 25%−15.5

Management: public Bali operator disclosures commonly run 15 to 20% of booking revenue−17.5

Operating costs: housekeeping, pool, garden, utilities, repairs, publicly disclosed around 10 to 15%−12.5

Replacement reserve: hospitality norm, 3 to 5% of revenue−4

Owner-retained cash, before owner-level income tax≈ 50

Roughly half the headline number, before income tax even enters the picture. If a deck is selling twelve to fifteen percent gross yield on cost, it is not a stretch for the bankable net result to land closer to five to eight percent once every real deduction above is applied. None of this waterfall includes land value appreciation, which is a separate return driver and belongs in its own line of the underwriting, not folded into a single rental-yield percentage.

If the return only works before tax, maintenance, staff, licensing, capex and vacancies, it is not a return. It is a brochure.

Why we still build here

Everything above is a market average, and a market average blends a lot of product that was never going to perform: villas with no air conditioning, open living rooms nobody wants at peak heat, dated interiors, no real staff. That long tail drags the island's numbers down. It does not describe what a correctly designed, correctly licensed, professionally run villa actually achieves.

Harmonie's three villas average more than 80 percent occupancy over the trailing 30 days, against an islandwide average of 47. That is one metric among several. Harmonie as a whole had already secured Rp 3.45 billion in 2026 revenue by 6 July, ahead of its full 2025 result, and is forecast to close the year 24 to 40 percent above 2025, double-digit growth in a market where islandwide averages stay pulled down by a massive, highly uneven pool of supply. Those are not projections dressed up as facts. They are the current numbers, and real numbers do not travel in public: they are open in a serious first conversation.

The gap between a 47 percent average and an above-80 result is not luck. It is design that removes friction, shared infrastructure that lets guests book a single villa or buy out the whole residence, and services layered on top of the stay that a generic rental never offers. We go deeper on exactly how in a separate note on our operating model.

Why "Bali average" is the wrong tool

Bali is not one market. Public hospitality data shows occupancy and rate moving in different directions by submarket:

Area	Occupancy	ADR (IDR)
Nusa Dua	79.2%	n/a
Seminyak	74.9%	2.4M
Ubud	68.6%	3.6M
Jimbaran & Uluwatu	66.0%	4.8M
Canggu & Tabanan	60.0%	2.2M

These are hotel figures, not villa figures, but the lesson transfers directly: location trades fill for rate in ways an island-wide average erases completely. AirDNA itself warns that market-level averages hide wide variation and recommends narrowing to neighborhood, bedroom count, price tier, amenities and review quality before trusting any number.

Seasonality compounds the same point. Official monthly hotel occupancy in Bali swung from roughly 46.6 percent in a low month to 69.5 percent at peak in the same year, then back down to the mid-fifties the following January. Any model assuming flat, year-round performance is underwriting against the island's own observable rhythm, not with it.

The labor line most decks skip entirely

Bali's 2026 provincial wage floor is Rp3,207,459 per month; Badung, where most foreign-investor villas sit, runs higher at Rp3,791,003. On top of base salary, employers owe mandatory THR and BPJS Ketenagakerjaan contributions, roughly 3.7 percent for old-age savings, 0.3 percent for death benefit, 2 percent for pension, plus a work-accident premium. None of that is optional, and none of it appears in a projection that lists "staff" as a single unlabeled line.

Eight red flags in any deck promising fifteen to twenty percent

Occupancy well above public market context, especially models that ignore low months and assume near-flat year-round fill.
Gross presented as net, with no acknowledgment that platform revenue figures are pre-expense.
No channel-cost line, despite Airbnb's own published fee structure reaching 15.5 percent for professionally managed listings.
Management fee excluded or buried in vague "operator included" language.
No labor overhead, despite real wage floors, THR and BPJS obligations.
No replacement reserve, even though hospitality norms reserve 3 to 5 percent of revenue for exactly this.
Tax reduced to one easy number, when Indonesia actually distinguishes between lease-style income and hotel-style services, on top of local accommodation tax.
Compliance treated as optional, despite licensing requirements that can trigger warnings, suspension or revocation if ignored.

Questions we get asked directly

What occupancy should I model? Comp-set and neighborhood data, not an island average. The submarket spread above shows why a single Bali-wide figure is the wrong input for a specific villa.

Can direct bookings fix the margin problem? They help, since direct distribution cost typically runs well below OTA commission, but they still require a website, payments, CRM and remarketing capability. Direct is a margin tool, not a shortcut.

Is PBJT the guest's problem or mine? Legally it is collected from the guest, but the operator must register, collect, remit and report it. Sloppy pricing that fails to gross up correctly still dilutes owner net.

last reviewed: july 2026

Real numbers do not travel in public. In a serious first conversation, we open the real waterfall for Harmonie: actual occupancy, actual rate, actual costs, and what we would do differently.

Talk to François

Sources: AirDNA Bali market overview, revenue and occupancy definitions, checked July 2026; Badan Pusat Statistik (BPS) Bali monthly tourism releases, 2025 to 2026; Horwath HTL Bali Hotel & Branded Residences report, 2026; Colliers Bali hotel market report, Q4 2025; Airbnb Help Center on service fees, search ranking, and Indonesia hosting requirements; Airbnb Indonesia Tax Guide 2025; Direktorat Jenderal Pajak on rental and hotel-service tax treatment; Badung regional tax regulation on PBJT; Bali provincial 2026 wage announcement and BPS Bali minimum wage tables; BPJS Ketenagakerjaan employer contribution guidance; HVS industry reporting on hospitality replacement reserves. This note is a research-based inference, not a guaranteed return or financial advice. Confirm current figures and your specific cost stack before making an investment decision.

What is a realistic net yield for a Bali villa?