The article investigates the concept of internationalization in higher education for society (IHES) and discusses the role of social license to internationalize, its contextual variations, and implications for internationalization practices in New Zealand and Indonesia. The notion of social license to operate is common in the extraction and some service industries; however, the concept of social license to internationalize constitutes an innovative direction for research concerned with IHES and the global international education industry. Social license to internationalize emerged as a pivotal feature of internationalization practices in New Zealand and Indonesia. It reflected the public recognition of IHES, manifested in the cultural and social value of internationalization. The construction of social license to internationalize presented itself as a strategic priority for the governments and higher education institutions (HEIs) in both research settings. The conceptual underpinnings of social license to internationalize, and hence the means of constructing the latter varied depending on the local context, but they served a common purpose of reification of internationalization practices. The study of social license to internationalize contributes to a broader discussion on IHES and sheds lights on the mechanisms of building meaningful and mutually beneficial connections between the stakeholders of the global international education industry and the wider public.