Pertalite Purchases to Be Restricted, Purbaya: We Are Targeting the Upper Class

Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia - The government’s plan to restrict purchases of subsidised fuel is intended to ensure that consumption is properly targeted.

Finance Minister Purbaya Yudhi Sadewa said that with this restriction mechanism, affluent members of society or the upper class must buy fuel according to their financial capacity, meaning they will no longer be allowed to use Pertalite.

“What is clear is that we are targeting only the upper class. So that they buy according to their means,” Purbaya said after holding a meeting with Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Bahlil Lahadalia at the Juanda I Building of the Ministry of Finance, Jakarta, Tuesday (11/8/2026).

Purbaya said the scheme currently under consideration is restricting Pertalite consumption for people classified in the top decile groups, namely deciles 9 and 10.

He said the government’s system is actually already capable of accommodating this policy of restricting subsidised fuel consumption, but its implementation must be timed appropriately.

“It has not been implemented yet. We are studying what the system looks like. What is clear is that I have already seen it. The system can be run car by car or decile by decile,” Purbaya said.

With this approach, he believes the government’s need to budget for fuel subsidies in the state budget can be reduced.

As is known, the fuel subsidy budget for 2026 has been set in Presidential Regulation Number 118 of 2025 concerning the Details of the State Revenue and Expenditure Budget for the 2026 Fiscal Year.

The regulation states that the subsidy expenditure budget for certain types of fuel is Rp 25.14 trillion in 2026, a reduction of around 5.7% from the 2025 fuel subsidy budget of Rp 26.66 trillion.

“Consumption may remain the same. It is just that the subsidy will decrease, because it is increasingly limited based on subsidy data,” Purbaya said.