What's Included in a Long-Term Villa Rental

What’s included in a long term villa rental in Bali is set individually by each owner or manager, not by any industry standard, so the honest answer is: ask a specific list of questions before you sign, because “fully included” means different things to different landlords. Furniture, staff, utilities and internet are the four areas where inclusions vary most, and each one changes your real monthly cost.

This matters more for long stays than short ones. On a week’s holiday, a missing detail costs you an awkward conversation. On a 12-month lease, an assumption that turns out wrong can cost real money every month for a year.

The four areas that vary most

Furniture and appliances. Most long-term villas in Bali are offered furnished, but “furnished” ranges from a fully equipped kitchen with a washing machine to bare essentials with no cookware. Ask for a room-by-room inventory, ideally photographed, attached to the lease. See our guide on furnished versus unfurnished villas in Bali for how to weigh the trade-off if you have a choice.

Staff. Some villas include a gardener or pool person as part of the rent because the owner needs the grounds maintained regardless of who’s living there; daily housekeeping and cooking staff are far less commonly included and usually cost extra if you want them. Confirm which staff, if any, come with the villa and which you’d need to arrange and pay separately.

Utilities. Electricity is almost never included in the base rent for long-term villas, because usage varies enormously with air conditioning habits. Water is included more often, sometimes capped at a reasonable monthly volume with overage charged separately. See our guides on electricity costs and on water and internet bills for the typical ranges.

Internet. Increasingly included as standard, especially in villas that market to remote workers, but speed and reliability vary. If Wi-Fi quality matters for work, ask for the actual plan (fibre or not, advertised speed) rather than just “Wi-Fi included.”

A quick comparison of what typically varies

Questions worth asking before you sign

• What exactly is in the villa now, and can we get a written inventory?
• Is electricity metered separately, and is there a prepaid token system or a monthly bill?
• Is a gardener or pool person included, and how often do they come?
• Is Wi-Fi included, and what speed is actually delivered, not just advertised?
• Who handles maintenance if something breaks, and how quickly?
• Are pest control, rubbish collection and security part of the deal or arranged separately?

Why “fully furnished” needs a second question

Listings that say “fully furnished” or “everything included” are describing a marketing category, not a checklist. We’ve seen “fully furnished” mean a complete home with linens, cookware and appliances, and we’ve also seen it mean beds and a sofa with an empty kitchen. Neither is dishonest exactly, but the gap between the two changes your moving-in budget by a meaningful amount if you have to buy cookware, an iron or extra linens on arrival.

Ask specifically about linens, towels, a full set of kitchen equipment, and small appliances like a kettle or rice cooker, since these are the items most often missing even from villas marketed as fully furnished.

How area affects what’s typically included

Villas aimed at remote workers in Umalas or Canggu tend to include faster Wi-Fi and a dedicated workspace as standard, because that’s what the market there expects. Family-oriented long stays in Sanur more often include a fuller kitchen setup, since the audience is cooking more at home. This isn’t a hard rule, but it’s a useful prior when comparing listings across areas.

Reading a listing critically

Villa listings, whether on the owner’s own site or a portal, are marketing documents written to make the property sound appealing, not a legally binding inventory. Phrases like “fully equipped,” “all amenities” or “everything you need” are common and rarely mean the same thing from one listing to the next. Treat every inclusion claim in a listing as a starting point for a question, not a settled fact, and don’t assume a photo of a nicely stocked kitchen in the listing reflects exactly what will be there when you move in months or years later, since photos age and contents can change between when a listing was shot and when you actually sign.

A useful habit is to ask the owner or manager to confirm each inclusion claim in writing, ideally as part of the lease document itself rather than a separate WhatsApp message that’s easy to lose track of. If something in the listing turns out not to match reality at move-in, having it in writing gives you a clear basis to raise the issue rather than a dispute over who said what.

How inclusions affect your total cost comparison

When you’re comparing two or three villas, it’s tempting to compare headline rent first and inclusions second, but this often leads to a misleading comparison. A villa with a lower rent but no included utilities, no staff and a bare kitchen can end up costing more per month in total than a villa with a higher rent that includes electricity up to a reasonable cap, weekly gardening, and a genuinely complete kitchen setup.

Build a simple side-by-side list for each villa you’re seriously considering: rent, what’s included (staff, utilities, internet, furniture completeness), and what you’d realistically need to add or arrange yourself. This gives you a much more honest total cost picture than comparing rent figures alone, and it’s a comparison we’re happy to help with directly if you’re weighing villas across our own portfolio.

Negotiating inclusions rather than just price

Owners are often more flexible on what’s included than on the headline rent itself, particularly for a longer lease term where they’re securing a reliable tenant. If a villa you like is missing something that matters to you, whether that’s a specific piece of kitchen equipment, an extra gardening visit, or Wi-Fi upgraded to a faster plan, it’s worth asking directly rather than assuming the listing is fixed. Many long-term tenants successfully negotiate small inclusion changes even when the rent itself doesn’t move, since a small addition costs the owner little relative to keeping a good tenant for a full year or more.

How inclusions typically change over a longer tenancy

What’s included at move-in isn’t necessarily fixed for the whole lease term, particularly on a yearly agreement. Owners sometimes adjust staff hours seasonally, upgrade internet plans as better options become available in the area, or change garden maintenance schedules based on the season. If any of these changes would materially affect you, it’s worth asking whether the lease locks in specific inclusions for the full term or leaves them at the owner’s discretion to adjust, and getting anything that matters to you specifically written into the agreement rather than left as an assumption based on move-in conditions.

What to do if inclusions turn out different from what was promised

If you move in and find the villa doesn’t match what was verbally agreed or listed, raise it promptly and in writing rather than letting it slide, since a delayed complaint is harder to resolve than one raised in the first week. Reasonable owners and managers generally want to fix a genuine gap between what was promised and what’s delivered, both because it’s the right thing to do and because a dissatisfied tenant in month one of a twelve-month lease is a problem worth solving quickly. Keep records (photos, messages) of what was promised versus what you found, since this makes any conversation about fixing the gap considerably more straightforward for everyone involved.

What to do next

Before signing anything, get a written, room-by-room inventory and a clear answer on electricity, water, staff and internet, since these four areas cause almost all the disputes we see on long-term rentals. Ask for these in writing as part of the agreement, not as a verbal assurance.

• Request a photographed inventory as part of the lease document
• Confirm electricity metering and whether water has a cap
• Ask us for current monthly rates and inclusions across our villas