Indonesia plans taxes of up to 15% on gold exports from 2026

[JAKARTA] Indonesia will charge taxes on exports of gold of between 7.5 per cent and 15 per cent in a plan that will be implemented sometime next year, a senior finance ministry official said on Monday (Nov 17).

The tax policy, currently being finalised, is being designed so that lower rates are applied to processed goods to help encourage domestic processing, Febrio Kacaribu, the ministry’s director general of fiscal strategy, told a parliamentary hearing.

For example, a higher rate for gold dore – bars or ingots with impurities – and a lower rate for minted bars would be charged, he said.

Global gold prices will also be a factor in determining the taxes, he said, noting that higher rates are likely to be applied when prices are at or above US$3,200 per troy ounce to capture miners’ windfall profits.

Spot gold has been trading above US$4,000 per ounce since early November. It is up more than 50 per cent so far this year.

The bull run has helped Indonesia’s gold exports hit US$1.64 billion for the first nine months of 2025, much higher than the US$1.1 billion shipments for all of last year. Singapore, Switzerland and Hong Kong are the top buyers.

Resource-rich Indonesia has the world’s fourth-largest unmined gold reserves, including in the Grasberg mine in the country’s east, operated by a local unit of Freeport-McMoRan.

However, many domestic investors have found it difficult to find gold bars to buy amid the boom in gold investment, Febrio said.

“We want production in Indonesia, as well as liquidity in and ample circulation of gold in Indonesia. And we want as much value added as possible so that gold can be enjoyed by Indonesians,” Febrio said.

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The government’s plan to impose a tax on coal exports is still under discussion, he said. REUTERS