Country guide · Indonesia

Getting a job in Indonesia, 2026

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
17
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
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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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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