Mandatory Halal by October 2026: Testing Legal Equality Between Imported Products and MSMEs

Less than a month away from 18 October 2026, the Halal Product Assurance Agency (BPJPH) is entering its most decisive phase since the birth of the mandatory halal regime: the full implementation of certification requirements for all products circulating and traded in Indonesia, whether produced domestically or imported from abroad.

Signals from several foreign exporters expressing readiness to comply with BPJPH Regulation Number 4 of 2026 regarding the Assurance of Conformity for Foreign Halal Products should be reassuring. However, Bappenas data cited by INDEF economist A. Hakam Naja reveals a more fundamental anxiety: only about four per cent of domestic business actors have halal-certified products.

Normatively, Law Number 3ability 33 of 2014 on Halal Product Assurance and Government Regulation Number 42 of 2024 do not differentiate treatment between domestic and foreign products; both are subject to the same deadline of 18 October 2026. This formal equality is not merely a policy choice but a legal necessity, in line with the principle of national treatment in the international trade regime, which prohibits discriminatory treatment of imported goods through technical barriers. Therefore, the real issue lies not in the norms, but in the gap in implementation capacity between the two sides of the market.

Three Radbruch Values: Certainty with Potential Imbalance

Legal certainty, which Radbruch called Rechtssicherheit, is more easily felt through the experience of business actors than through textbook definitions, and at this point, the BPJPH possesses significant assets. Since the first phase was rolled out in 2019, the halal mandatory roadmap has been progressively clarified. We find that BPJPH Regulation Number 2 of 2026 details tiered administrative sanctions, while BPJPH Regulation Number 4 of 2026 regulates the verification of imported products through an integrated electronic system without unnecessary delays.

For cross-border business actors organising supply chains for years to come, such predictability is a valuable opportunity. It is something that is often sacrificed when the law is too preoccupied with pursuing justice (Gerechtigkeit) or utility (Zweckmäßigkeit) alone—two elements within Radbruch’s classical framework that more frequently receive focus.

However, normative certainty does not necessarily correlate with substantive justice. Large exporters have generally long operated within strict international standard certification regimes or mutual recognition schemes, making them relatively prepared. Conversely, domestic MSMEs, despite being provided with a self-declaration pathway through SIHALAL and free certification subsidies via the SEHATI programme—with a quota of 1.35 million certificates per year—still face structural obstacles, including digital literacy, limited assistance, and a high dependency on halal raw materials. This disparity in capacity risks transforming legal equality on paper into a real gap on the ground. It is not because foreign products