After mining and plantations, the property sector may be next in line for closer government attention. That is not speculation from the sidelines: it came from Fahri Hamzah, Indonesia's Deputy Minister of Housing and Settlement Areas.
Why land acquisition may face closer scrutiny
Speaking at the Urban Climate Forum 2026 in Jakarta on 16 September, Fahri signalled that urban property businesses should expect firm policy corrections aimed at longstanding regulatory gaps.
His argument connects housing to land control. Large volumes of land held by private parties, in his view, push land prices up — and housing affordability down. He urged developers to prepare for policy change around how land for housing development is controlled.
"I want to tell the developers: be careful. You will be the next target. After plantations and mining, urban property will be next. That definitely needs to be corrected."
Fahri Hamzah, Deputy Minister of Housing and Settlement Areas
Those remarks were aimed at urban housing and land concentration, not foreign buyers specifically. But the underlying message travels well beyond Jakarta: acquiring land is only one part of the compliance picture. How a property is acquired, developed and operated must also line up with corporate, zoning, licensing and land-use rules.
Bali has already started tightening enforcement
Bali is a useful preview of how policy concern turns into enforcement on the ground.
Through 2025, Bali authorities stepped up scrutiny of property and tourism businesses. Governor Wayan Koster drew particular attention to illegal villas and operations running on permits that did not reflect what was actually happening on the land.
For buyers — foreign and domestic alike — the takeaway is that compliance is not satisfied by holding a company, an NIB and a land agreement. Regulators can and do look at how a property is being built and used.
- Spatial planning & zoning
- Whether the intended activity is permitted in that location at all.
- Environmental requirements
- Whether the necessary environmental approvals exist.
- Building compliance
- Including PBG (building approval) and SLF (function-worthiness certificate).
- Business licensing
- Whether permits match the activity being carried out.
- Property use
- Whether day-to-day operations match the approved purpose.
Property investment is not a single transaction closed at a notary's desk. Your land, your company structure and your actual operations need to tell the same story — on day one and in year five.
Where PT PMA rules fit in
For foreign-owned businesses, 2026 brought sharper definition.
Earlier this year, the central government and Bali established a joint investment-control desk to strengthen supervision of investment activity. Findings included licensing problems around environmental approvals, PBG/SLF, minimum investment thresholds, and business activities not permitted for foreign-owned companies.
Bali then restricted OSS access for PT PMA across several KBLI categories — which matters enormously for property investors, because it put a company's registered business activity under the spotlight.
The KBLI detail deserves care. Indonesia has moved from KBLI 2020 to KBLI 2025, with changes to several real-estate classifications. An old KBLI number does not automatically carry the same scope today.
Consider a common scenario: an investor holds a legitimate land arrangement and a properly established PT PMA. But the company later develops, manages or commercially rents out the property in a way that sits outside its registered activities or licensing. The original paperwork no longer tells the whole story.
That is the shift worth understanding. The question is no longer only is the business registered? It is is the investment being carried out in line with what was registered and permitted?
What this means for East Bali
Much of the enforcement attention so far has concentrated on Bali's busiest corridors — Canggu, Seminyak, Uluwatu — where density, overbuilding and permit mismatches are most visible.
East Bali is a different proposition. Amed and the surrounding coastline remain comparatively early-stage, with land still available at values that have not been distorted by a decade of speculative building. But "early-stage" has historically meant something less comfortable too: patchy zoning information, informal land arrangements, and building permits nobody checked closely.
That gap is exactly why Istana Jiwa Property exists. As enforcement standards rise nationally, the region's quieter market becomes an advantage rather than a risk — provided the groundwork is done properly from the start.
Getting it right before the regulator does
None of this suggests Indonesia is closing its doors to foreign investment. It suggests the opposite: the market is maturing, and compliance is becoming a core part of owning and operating property rather than an administrative afterthought.
The safest time to find a compliance gap is before a regulator does. At Istana Jiwa Property, we handle East Bali transactions end to end:
Due diligence before you commit
Title checks, seller authority verification and zoning review, completed before money moves — not after.
In-house notarial services
Our notary works in-house, so agreements are drafted and executed in line with Indonesian law rather than assembled from templates.
Building permits and approvals
We manage PBG and related permit applications for residential, commercial and hospitality projects, including groundwater registration where required.
Development and villa management
Architectural and landscape design, construction and project management, and ongoing villa management — so the property that gets built, and the way it gets run, matches what was approved.
