Laws on the consumption, production, import, taxation, and purchase of alcohol in Indonesia

6 min readApr 27, 2023

The first thing to say about alcohol in Indonesia is that it is considered immoral, haram, by most of the population of Indonesia. It is against the teachings of Islam.

Therefore most law and policy is based on that premise, and not as for example in Western countries primarily on public health or safety.

Alcoholic beverages are commonly referred to in Indonesian as ‘miras’ or ‘minuman keras’ i.e. ‘hard drinks’.

Alcoholic drinks are divided into three categories:

Category A, containing up to 5% alcohol
Category B, containing 5 to 20% alcohol
Category C, containing 20% to 55% alcohol

According to the law PerPres 74/2013, Category A beverages may be sold in retail stores, while A, B and C can be sold in certain hotels, bars and restaurants, duty free stores, and other regionally desginated places. Restrictions on sale of A, B and C beverages are designated by the Bupati/Walikota for Kabupaten/Kota, and the Governor for Jakarta.

Under 06/M-DAG/PER/1/2015, it is only legal to sell Category A beverages at retail in supermarkets and hypermarkets, not in minimarkets. Despite this, alcoholic beverages are widely sold in minimarkets in Bali.

Local regulations specify the sale of alcohol. In order therefore to determine this in greater detail it would be necessary to refer to each individual kabupaten/kota regulations (there are more than 500 in total).

As a simplified view, for off-premises consuption Category A can be sold in supermarkets, while Category B & C only in specially licensed liquor stores, but this would need to be confirmed locally. Meanwhile local regulations will also specify for on-premise consumption between A, B and C, and would typically provide for local licensing requirements and business permits.

Drink driving

Road deaths are far higher in Indonesia than in most developed countries, and this is not primarily due to alcohol consumption. Drink driving is not a major priority and narcotics such as methamphetamine are bigger concerns.

It does not appear that roadside alcohol breath tests exist. However in the event of an accident alcohol consumption can influence the punishment.

The Road Traffic law article 311 provides that those who drive dangerously, including in a state that is dangerous (e.g. drunk) can be sentenced:

1 years, 3 million rp fine
2 years, 4 million rp fine if damage is caused to another vehicle or property
4 years, 8 million if injury occurs
10 years, 20 million if serious injury occurs
12 years, 24 million if death occurs

Alcohol bans

It is potentially illegal to produce, sell or drink alcohol in each of the 500+ areas of Indonesia. This follows a Supreme Court ruling in favour of the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) in 2013. This meant that PerPres 3/1997 was revoked, and PerPres 74/2013 was passed in its place.

PerPres 3/1997 defined Category A as 1–5%, whereas 2013 defines it as up to 5%, and under the 1997 law Category A beverages were considered uncontrolled, and hence regional restrictions on the sale of Category A beverages were void. Since the Islamic Defenders’ victory, such bans are now likely constitutional.

As an example of a local ban, Peraturan Daerah Sukabumi 1/2014, defines three offences:

producing alcohol, punishable by up to 3 months in prison
selling/distributing alcohol, punishable by up to 2 months in prison
consuming alcohol, punishable by up to 1 month in prison

Meanwhile, Peraturan Daerah Tegal 5/2006 states:

no-one may produce, dilute, deliver, trade, hoard, store, provide, serve, use, send, transport, or import alcohol into Tegal
no-one may be drunk

It is not exactly clear from this whether it is legal to ‘drink’ (as opposed to ‘use’) alcohol in Tegal.

There are an extremely large number of regional restrictions on alcohol, and it is very difficult to find out what they might be. For example, this 191-page study on alcohol laws in Indonesia identifies approximately 100 different regional laws criminalizing alcohol in Indonesia, but is incomplete.

For example, it is illegal to consume alcohol in Papua province, by law 15/2013. It is not really clear why this law has been implemented at a provincial level, in contrast to the regency level specified at the national level.

Local laws can impose prison sentences up to six months, as per Article 15(1) of UU 12/2011.

The province of Aceh is subject to Sharia law, which provides that the consumption of alcohol is punished with 40 strokes of the cane.

Some other local laws restrict consumption of alcohol to certain premises, some prohibit consumption in public, and so on. Enforcement is very weak, so you might not even be made aware that you are breaking a law…..

Here are some laws criminalizing consumption of alcohol in certain popular tourist destinations:

Aceh — 40 strokes of the cane for drinking
Bukittinggi — 250,000rp fine for drinking in public
Langkat (Bukit Lawang) — drinking Category B and C in public places is imprisonable
Padang — those drinking alcohol aged under 25 can be sentenced to 6 years/50 million prison. Same applies for anyone drinking in kaki lima, kiosks, camping grounds, places near schools, religious buildings, hospitals, and settlements.
Badung, Bali — no restrictions
Jakarta — no restrictions
North Sulawesi — it is illegal to be drunk in public, and to drink Category B/C drinks in public, carrying a penalty of 3 months in prison. (Note, this is applied at the provincial level.)
Manggarai Barat (Komodo) — no restrictions
Kab. Magelang (Borobudur) — public drunkenness carries a prison sentence of 3 months, as does drinking anywhere other than a 3*+ hotel, OR a hotel with at least 10,000 foreign visitors per year.
Yogyakarta — it is illegal to drink more than 187ml of category B/C alcohol in your hotel room. (It does not appear that this restriction applies to restaurants selling B/C alcohol). Prison sentence of one month.
East Java (Banyuwangi, Surabaya). It is illegal to sell alcohol for off-premises consumption except for duty free (leaving the country). It is only legal to drink in licensed premises being 3*+ hotels, bars, and restaurants with gold and silver classifications. Violations carry a six month prison sentence.
Banyuwangi — no restrictions on the consumption of alcohol

Drinking age

The drinking age in Indonesia is 21. This could be enforced at certain times, for example a bar in a mostly Muslim area would often be raided at Ramadan, and if patrons under 21 were found, they could be punished. At other times of year, and in general, they don’t enforce the age limit, particularly against foreigners. However for example a bar full of 13 or 14-year-old Indonesians is likely to face enforcement action.

As the drinking age is 21 it’s usually deemed that those under 21 cannot bring any alcohol to Indonesia (duty free), even though the duty free limit is ‘per passenger’. This is reasonable given that the duty free is for ‘personal consumption’.

Taxation

Alcohol is subject to different taxes:

excise duty (cukai), based on the Category and import/domestic production
PPN (VAT), at 11%
import duty (bea masuk), based on the HS Code, for imported alcohol
PPh Impor (import tax), for imported alcohol

Excise duty is set at:

15,000rp for both domestic and imported Category A
33,000rp/44,000rp for domestic/imported Category B
80,000rp/139,000rp for domestic/imported Category C

Import taxes are (26/PMK.010/2022):

beer (HS Code 22.03): 14,000rp/litre import duty + 2.5% PPh
wine, cider, perry, etc. vermouth (HS 22.04, 22.05, 22.06): 90% import duty, 7.5% PPh
spirits (rum, brandy, vodka, bitters etc). (HS 22.08) 150% import duty, 7.5%, PPh

Therefore for a bottle of wine costing US$10 including shipping, assuming $1 = 15,000rp:

150,000rp customs value
135,000p import duty (90%)
21,375rp PPh on both of these
33,000rp excise duty (based on a bottle of 750ml at 44,000 rp/litre)
100,000rp gross profit (arbitrary figure)
48,331rp PPN
= 487,706rp

Duty free exemptions apply:

for passengers 1 litre of alcoholic beverages with no taxes to pay. (Ignore any claims that there is a 2.25 litre limit, this is not true, as excise duty applies over 1 litre, and individuals have no provision to pay excise duty.)
by post 350ml of alcoholic beverages, but still subject to a flat rate regime of 7.5% import duty, and 11% VAT.

Above this limit any excess must be destroyed. Any fee charged for a passenger carrying excess alcohol would constitute an act of corruption, and is not legal.

Except for those holding a licence, it is illegal to import alcohol outside these limits.

In order to reduce taxes, some producers of wine import foreign grapes, or grape juice, taxed at just 5/10%, and ferment them in Bali.

Traditional alcohol production

Traditionally produced alcohol, is exempt from duty. This is defined by SE/4/BC 2011.

This is subject to a production limit of 25 litres daily, and for an individual’s livelihood only, not packaged for sale.

This does not distinguish between categories A, B or C, and it would be necessary to separately read the local regulations on the sale and consumption of traditional alcohol, because there is no national regulation permitting its sale — the exemption from duty is a taxation issue, not one relating to the legality of sale. In most cases local regulations fail to explicitly regulate the traditional production of alcohol, leaving producers open to arbitrary enforcement action.