Economist Suggests Examining "Fixed Cost" Scheme Following Perpres 27/2026

Jakarta (ANTARA) - Nailul Huda, Director of the Digital Economy at the Center of Economic and Law Studies (Celios), believes that the fixed cost or fixed payment scheme can be considered by app operators, online motorcycle taxi drivers, and the government as regulator.

This follows Presidential Regulation (Perpres) No. 27 of 2026, which has been signed and announced by President Prabowo Subianto during the International Labour Day/May Day 2026 commemoration at the National Monument in Jakarta on Friday.

“With the fixed cost scheme, changes in deductions only reduce the app operator’s income without any increase in the driver’s income,” Huda said when contacted in Jakarta on Friday.

The Perpres No. 27 of 2026 includes a reduction in the income deduction taken by the app operator company from online motorcycle taxi drivers to eight percent.

Huda assesses that with this fixed cost scheme, the increase in drivers’ income is locked in. When wanting to increase income, what needs to be done is to raise the trip fare, so the reduction in deductions to the platform does not add to the drivers’ income, as long as the trip cost system is fixed cost.

“With the fixed cost scheme for drivers, it actually benefits drivers more because the deduction is fixed. So this makes drivers also consumers of the platform. Prices to consumers are also ‘certain’ without sometimes going up, sometimes down. It’s beneficial for consumers and drivers. Meanwhile, the platform can predict income with certainty,” Huda said.

On the other hand, he also supports the government’s firmness regarding the protection of platform-based workers or partner drivers, including work accidents and BPJS Health.

This regulation, he continued, is seen as providing certainty for online transportation drivers regarding social security in line with the National Social Security System Law.

This social protection regulation, said Huda, also serves as the basis for business actors to register all parties in the national social security system, both employment and health.

However, he also highlighted the importance of clarity in the scheme that must be regulated by the regulator, given that not a few partner drivers are involved and carry out their work on several different platforms or applications.

“The government’s task is to create an appropriate scheme for online transportation drivers so that everyone is covered by the social security programme but without causing duplicate payments,” he said.