Central Government Rejects Bali's Draft Regional Regulation on Tourism Special Hire Transport

The central government has removed all provisions regulating Tourism Special Hire Transport (ASK) from Bali’s draft regional regulation (Raperda). The Ministry of Transportation and the Ministry of Home Affairs assessed that creating a new scheme for tourism ASK was unnecessary and could lead to legal uncertainty.

This was conveyed by the Head of the Bali Regional Secretariat’s Legal Bureau, Ngurah Satria Wardana, during a hearing with Commission III of the Bali Regional People’s Representative Council (DPRD) and the Bali Tourism Driver Struggle Forum at the DPRD Bali office on Monday (3/8/2026).

“On 9 July, the facilitation results came out. Frankly, we are disappointed, but that is the process of what we have worked on. In the facilitation, the chapter regulating ASK Tourism was entirely deleted,” Satria said.

According to Satria, the deletion of the entire Chapter IV regulating Tourism ASK was a result of the facilitation process, which referred to input from the Ministry of Transportation as the technical ministry. The Ministry assessed that tourism ASK could be sufficiently regulated under existing ASK provisions, eliminating the need for a separate regulatory framework.

Nevertheless, Satria noted that the Ministry of Transportation is still open to accommodating tourism ASK services without creating a new category of public transport for specific purposes. “Additional service features can be added to special hire transport applications in cooperation with application companies,” he added.

Head of the Bali Transportation Agency, I Kadek Mudarta, stated that the Ministry of Transportation’s considerations fundamentally refer to prevailing national regulations. Consequently, the opportunity to create a new type of transport is considered very slim.

“But if we proceed with the regional regulation, the facilitation results actually weaken several crucial aspects. In this draft regulation, the requirement for drivers to hold a Bali ID card or domicile was also dropped,” he revealed.

Mudarta suggested that future efforts be directed towards adding tourism service features to special hire transport applications. “We can certainly fight together regarding matters that need to be regulated, such as tariffs and so on,” he continued.

The draft regional regulation on Tourism ASK has been under discussion since last year after the Bali Tourism Driver Struggle Forum conveyed its aspirations to the DPRD. The DPRD Bali had previously approved the draft to be enacted as a regional regulation. One of the key provisions in the proposed regulation was the obligation for tourism drivers to hold a Bali ID card and be domiciled in Bali.