Get Ready! Purbaya to Implement New Tax on Coal and Nickel

Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia - Finance Minister Purbaya Yudhi Sadewa will soon implement a new tax on the coal and nickel sectors due to the ‘windfall’ profits in the industry. This tax is often referred to as the windfall profit tax.

The imposition of the windfall tax on the mining and nickel processing sectors will be applied alongside the implementation of export duties. Currently, the policy is still being discussed with the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources.

“There will be, but it’s still being discussed with the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources. I’ll accept the money anyway,” Purbaya said, quoted on Wednesday (6/5/2026).

Purbaya stated that the imposition of export duties plus windfall profit tax for nickel commodities is intended to compensate for the energy subsidies that the government has rolled out amid high fluctuations in world crude oil prices, due to conflicts in the Middle East.

“Clearly, it’s enough to cover the increase in our state budget subsidies. Also for nickel, that’s one of the raw materials for batteries,” he explained.

As compensation for the additional costs, Purbaya assured that incentives will be given to nickel derivative products so that demand remains high domestically.

“We will also encourage battery industry growth here with certain incentives so that they sell. Basically, products that use domestic raw materials will get more incentives, something like that. It will still be discussed, just being discussed,” Purbaya said.

For information, the performance of nickel commodity exports and goods therefrom (HS75) has become one of the products supporting Indonesia’s trade balance surplus for the January-March 2026 period. Its value reached US$3.24 billion.

One of the main destination countries for nickel exports and goods therefrom is China, with a value of US$2.8 billion. The export value even managed to rise 69.01% compared to the January-March 2025 period.