Finance Ministry Confident on Debt Servicing Capacity Amid 30% Tax Revenue Growth
Jakarta — Indonesia’s Finance Ministry, under Finance Minister Purbaya Yudhi Sadewa, remains confident that the government’s debt repayment capacity will be maintained, despite one of its key indicators, the debt-to-service ratio (DSR), remaining elevated at above 42%.
Suminto, Director-General of Financing and Risk Management at the Finance Ministry, stated that the government now possesses a strong foundation of state revenues, thereby maintaining fiscal space to meet debt payment obligations. This is evidenced by tax collection growth of 30% during January-February 2026.
“Of course, this will be supported by increasing revenue through various reforms, and as mentioned earlier, for example, taxes that grew 30%,” Suminto said at the Finance Ministry headquarters on Thursday (12 March 2026).
Suminto assured that government debt management is currently more efficient with increasingly controlled risks, particularly as the debt composition is increasingly dominated by rupiah-denominated borrowing.
The government recorded total debt of Rp 9.637.9 trillion in the fourth quarter of 2025. The debt figure at the end of 2025 increased by approximately Rp 229.26 trillion compared to the third quarter of 2025, which stood at Rp 9.408.64 trillion. The government’s debt at the end of 2025 was equivalent to 40.46% of gross domestic product (GDP), up from 40.30% in the third quarter of 2025.
However, details of the latest debt composition have become difficult to determine since the government ceased publishing debt data routinely in the APBN performance and fact books that were normally released monthly.
The most recent period when government debt details could be easily obtained was at the end of the second quarter of 2025, or June 2025. At that time, from total debt of Rp 9.138.05 trillion, Rp 6.554.95 trillion was in rupiah form, US dollar debt was equivalent to Rp 1.755.30 trillion, Japanese yen Rp 283.19 trillion, euro Rp 519.49 trillion, and other currencies Rp 25.11 trillion.
Regarding DSR, based on CNBC Indonesia’s research team records, the last calculable figure for 2024 was 42.3%, higher than 2023’s 38.2% and 2022’s 34.4%. Looking further back, DSR was at elevated levels in 2020 at 46.8% and in 2021 at 44.9%.
According to the Finance Ministry’s analysis, DSR is an indicator used to measure how much state revenue capacity can meet debt payment obligations, including both principal and interest instalments.
Simply put, a higher DSR means a greater portion of state revenue is absorbed in paying debt, thereby narrowing fiscal space and increasing fiscal vulnerability. Conversely, a lower DSR reflects a lighter debt repayment burden, meaning debt servicing risks and fiscal vulnerability tend to decrease.
“So certainly with increasingly efficient debt that is well managed, with controlled risks and also supported by increasingly better revenue performance, these ratios will certainly experience improvement, and certainly these ratios at the present time are also at levels that are still well managed,” Suminto asserted.