Guide
Moving to Indonesia from the UK: there is no reciprocal agreement
By Covered Abroad Research Desk · Last verified July 2026
The sentence that settles it
The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office's Living in Indonesia guidance states that Indonesia does not have a reciprocal health agreement with the UK, and tells you directly to make sure you have appropriate health insurance to cover any healthcare costs.
It is not hedged and it does not vary by visa route. Whether you arrive on a work KITAS, the retirement route or a second-home permit, there is no intergovernmental arrangement standing behind you.
The same guidance also asks you to plan how you will take medicine abroad — which for Indonesia matters more than most, because several common UK medicines are controlled there.
Source: GOV.UK — Living in Indonesia
The employer question most people forget to ask
One line in the guidance is unusually practical: "If you're working in Indonesia, check with your employer if health insurance is part of your employment package."
Worth asking precisely, because "we provide health insurance" can mean very different things — a local Indonesian policy, membership of BPJS, or genuine international cover. The questions that separate them:
- Does it cover treatment outside Indonesia, and specifically evacuation?
- Does it cover dependants, and on what terms?
- What happens if the job ends — does cover stop the same day?
That last one is the gap people discover at the worst moment, because a policy tied to employment ends with the employment.
60-second check
Not sure the policy you have meets your destination's written rule? Run it through the policy check now, before you build the rest of the file around it.
Check my policyWhat the NHS does once you leave
NHS entitlement follows residence in the UK, not citizenship. Moving abroad permanently ends it — a British passport does not preserve it, and neither does a history of National Insurance contributions.
Repeat prescriptions do not continue indefinitely, ongoing treatment does not transfer, and returning for planned treatment is not the free fallback people assume.
Set against that, the FCDO's assessment of what you are moving to is blunt: the standard of local medical care "can be poor and some medical tests cannot be performed reliably", and for complex cases the pathway is offshore. Evacuation cover is the line that matters most.
What we can and cannot help with
To be clear about scope: we do not give tax, visa or immigration advice, and we cannot restore NHS access. We are an insurance introducer for international health and life cover for people.
What we can do is the cover the Foreign Office is telling you to arrange. Pre-existing conditions are excluded and cover is governed by the Regency Assurance policy wording.
Get the moving-paperwork checklist
The month-by-month timeline so the insurance certificate is ready before your appointment, not after.