Indonesia is not a settling destination
Most countries in this guide offer some ladder toward permanence. Indonesia, for nomads, essentially does not, and being clear about that upfront saves a lot of false hope. The remote-worker visa is a one-year temporary permit with no built-in path to permanent residency, the permanent permit is reached through routes that have nothing to do with remote work, and citizenship demands giving up your existing passport. Bali is one of the great places in the world to spend time, but it is a place to spend time, not a place to put down permanent legal roots, and the smart approach treats it that way.
This is the mirror image of somewhere like Mexico or Spain, where the first nomad visa is the first rung of a real ladder to permanence and citizenship. In Indonesia there is no comparable ladder for a remote worker, and pretending otherwise leads to disappointment.
The KITAS is temporary by design
Everything a nomad can realistically obtain sits at the temporary level. The KITAS, the limited-stay permit, is what the E33G remote-worker visa grants: a one-year residence that is renewable while its basis holds, but that remains explicitly temporary. It gives you legal residence, an ability to handle local logistics, and the right to live in Indonesia for the year, which is genuinely useful. What it does not do is accumulate toward permanent status for a remote worker the way years on a Spanish or Mexican permit do.
The practical effect is that an E33G nomad is always living on a renewable annual footing rather than building toward something more secure. For many that is perfectly fine, since the goal is a great year or several in Bali rather than a forever home. But anyone hoping the remote-worker visa is the start of a settlement path should reset that expectation now.
Permanent stay comes through marriage or capital
The permanent permit, the KITAP, does exist, and it can follow several consecutive years on a qualifying KITAS. The catch is which KITAS qualifies. In practice the routes that lead to KITAP are marriage to an Indonesian citizen, substantial long-term investment, or a formal employment track sponsored by an Indonesian entity, held over a number of years. The remote-worker E33G is not one of these routes. So while permanent residency is technically part of the system, it is reached through life circumstances or capital commitments that the typical nomad does not have, rather than through accumulating time as a remote worker.
For the small number of nomads who marry an Indonesian or make a serious investment, the KITAP becomes reachable and the picture changes. For everyone else, it is not a realistic target, and that is simply the design of the country.
Citizenship is hard, and costs your passport
If permanent residency is out of reach for most, citizenship is further still. Naturalization generally requires five consecutive or ten non-consecutive years of legal residence, Indonesian-language ability, and remains discretionary rather than guaranteed. The decisive obstacle for nomads is that Indonesia does not permit dual citizenship: becoming Indonesian means formally renouncing your original nationality. Very few location-independent workers would trade a strong home passport for an Indonesian one under those terms, and the combination of the long residence requirement, the discretion, and the renunciation rule makes Indonesian citizenship one of the least relevant options in this entire reference for a nomad.
What this means for your plan
Plan Bali as a chapter, not a destination. If you qualify for the E33G, enjoy a legal year or several on renewable annual permits, and accept that you are not building toward permanence through it. If you are on the B211A, structure your life around the roughly 180-day cycles and the need to exit and return, while remembering that working on it is not permitted. Either way, do not orient your move around permanent residency or citizenship, because the nomad routes simply do not lead there.
That weakness in the long game is the honest counterweight to Bali's lifestyle strengths, and it is part of why Indonesia scores where it does. For the visa routes that get you there in the first place, see the visa page, and for the tax rules that can bite from day one once you hold a KITAS, the tax page. For why people accept all of this friction anyway, read the Canggu city guide.