Country guide · Indonesia

Getting a job in Indonesia, 2026

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In Indonesia you cannot apply for your own work permit, because no such document exists. What exists is your employer's foreign worker utilisation plan, the RPTKA, and until the Ministry of Manpower ratifies it you are not a candidate for anything. On top of that your employer owes the state USD 100 a month for every month you hold the job, seventeen named positions are closed to foreign nationals outright, and the entire labour code is being rewritten under a Constitutional Court order with an October 2026 deadline that has not yet been met.

Country guidePublished 20 September 2026·Every figure checked 20 September 2026·19 min read

USD 100

Paid to the state by your employer every month, for every month of your permit

PP 34/2021 and Permenaker 8/2021, art 35

Positions closed to foreign workers outright, every one of them in HR

Kepmenaker 349/2019, checked 20 Sep 2026

Rp5,729,876

Jakarta provincial minimum wage for 2026, up 6.17 per cent on 2025

ANTARA state news agency, 24 Dec 2025

Oct 2026

Court imposed deadline for a standalone labour law, still unmet on 20 Sep

ANTARA, DPR Commission IX, 15 May 2026

Read this before the visa section

Step one is not the visa. Step one is the interview call.

Everything in this guide about permits, thresholds and documents only comes into play after an employer in Indonesia has chosen you. Nobody applies for a work permit without an offer letter, and nobody gets an offer letter without an interview. The order is fixed:

Step 1 · what EDZER does
A strong résumé, a strong LinkedIn, and a job search strategy
Step 2
Interview calls from employers in Indonesia
Step 3
An offer, and the eligibility checks that come with it
Step 4
Only now: the visa, the permit and the documents below

There is no work permit you can apply for yourself; the employer's RPTKA is the permit, and it costs them USD 100 a month for as long as you stay. That makes every foreign hire a budget decision. Step one is the whole game, and it is the part almost everyone under-invests in.

How a résumé is expected to look in Indonesia

Indonesian convention: photograph common, personal details common, two pages, English is fine for multinational roles.

Where people actually apply

LinkedIn · JobStreet Indonesia · Kalibrr · Glints

What EDZER does for step one

Your résumé, rewritten for the country. In the format its recruiters expect, by a human writer, with a 90 to 100 ATS score guaranteed
Your LinkedIn profile, rebuilt. Every section written so recruiters searching there find you and read on
Profiles on that country's job portals. Set up and optimised to match, so every application reads the same
A job search strategy document. Which roles, which employers, which portals, in what order, for your profile
An interview prep kit. For the roles you are targeting, so the calls turn into offers
Guidance on where and how to apply for jobs. From our team, so you are not guessing which door to knock on

What EDZER does not do

Visa or work permit applications, or immigration advice of any kind
Document attestation or credential evaluation
Placing you in a job or promising an offer: the recruiter decides selection, on your profile

Our job is to make sure you are presented in the strongest way possible, so that the interview calls come. What happens in the interview is yours.

59,000+ clients across 24+ countries 90 to 100 ATS score guaranteed Delivered in 4 to 6 working days 48-hour review window for changes

Start step one for IndonesiaRésumé, LinkedIn and the interview kit is the Premium plan. With the job portals, Premium Plus. Pick a plan and pay on the next page; the writer starts the same day.

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Section 01

The gate is your employer, not you

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Indonesia does not issue you a work permit. It issues your employer a permission to employ you, and until that exists you are not a candidate for anything.

The thing almost nobody gets told before they accept an offer

There is no application a foreign worker files in Indonesia. The document that decides everything is the RPTKA, the Rencana Penggunaan Tenaga Kerja Asing, the employer's foreign worker utilisation plan. Article 2 of the Ministry of Manpower's implementing regulation puts it plainly: every employer that employs a foreign worker must hold an RPTKA that has been ratified by the Ministry.

Once ratified, Article 21(1) makes the approved RPTKA the recommendation used to obtain the work visa and the stay permit. So the sequence runs employer first, immigration second, you third. If your prospective employer has not started this, your start date is not real, however firmly it was said on the call.

Peraturan Menteri Ketenagakerjaan Nomor 8 Tahun 2021, implementing PP Nomor 34 Tahun 2021 tentang Penggunaan Tenaga Kerja Asing, in force since 1 April 2021, status recorded as Berlaku on the Ministry of Manpower legal database. Checked 20 September 2026.

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What happened to the IMTA, and what the notification system actually is

If you worked in Indonesia before 2018 you will remember the IMTA, a separate written work permit issued after the RPTKA. It no longer exists. Presidential Regulation 20 of 2018 replaced it with a notification issued through the Ministry's online system, and that Presidential Regulation was itself superseded by Government Regulation 34 of 2021, which is the law today.

Under the current rules the online notification is a step inside the RPTKA process, not a second permit you collect afterwards. Everything moves through the Ministry's web based TKA Online system: the application, the documents, the feasibility assessment, the approval, and the transfer of your data to immigration. Article 1(7) of the implementing regulation defines that system, and Article 14(2) gives the Ministry a maximum of two working days to issue the result of the feasibility assessment.

Perpres 20/2018 is recorded as superseded by PP 34/2021 on the national legal database at peraturan.bpk.go.id. peraturan.bpk.go.id, checked 20 Sep 2026

The five kinds of RPTKA and how long each buys you

Section 02

Sequence, cost, tax and social security

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Section 03

Pay, a law being rewritten, professions and the CV

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Free ATS check for Indonesia

Not ready to start yet? Get your résumé scored free, and we will tell you exactly what Indonesia recruiters would change.

Takes a minute. Your score comes back on this page. A writer from EDZER reviews the file and follows up on WhatsApp about the résumé and LinkedIn work, nothing else.

Your name

WhatsApp number

Where you live now

Where you want to work (up to 5)

Target role or roles

Experience

Highest qualification

Current designation and employer (if working)

When do you plan to apply?

Your current résumé

Used to score your résumé and for our writers to contact you about the résumé and LinkedIn work for Indonesia. We do not handle visas or immigration. Never sold or shared. Privacy.

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