Indonesian coal miners said they are awaiting technical regulations from the government regarding a planned export duty on the commodity set to begin on January 1, 2026, local media reported. 

Finance Minister Purbaya Yudhi Sadewa confirmed the start date this month, estimating the duty rate would be between 1-5%. However, executives at major coal firms said they have not received detailed guidelines as of December 21.

"We are still waiting for the technical regulations that govern when it will be implemented," said Hans Manoe, a director at PT ABM Investama Tbk. He also had no information on the calculation formula.

Separately, a director at Indo Tambangraya Megah Tbk, Yulius Kurniawan Gozali, said there had been "no outreach" regarding the planned implementation.

The Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources (ESDM) has stated that the duty would be applied flexibly, triggered only when coal prices reach a certain level to protect industry sustainability.

Director General of Minerals and Coal of the ESDM Tri Winarno said a formulation for the duty and its rates had been prepared but was not yet public.

"We must calculate how to maintain industry sustainability while also optimizing state revenue," Winarno said last month.

The imposition of coal export duty, following two decades of pause, is partly intended to prevent indirect subsidies from being provided to the coal industry. Coal has been seemingly "subsidized" by the government because the majority of its products are exported with zero-rated value-added tax (VAT), resulting in excess input VAT and leading to large VAT refunds from the government, Sadewa said earlier this month.

Public policy analyst Head of Researcher NEXT Indonesia Center Ade Holis assessed that the coal export tax policy has the potential to increase state revenues by around Rp19 trillion in one budget year. The figure was calculated assuming an exit tax rate of 2.5%, as the midpoint or moderate between 1-5% and excluding lignite.

He added that the policy is also an important approach to encourage downstream processing by ensuring that coal is not only mined and sold raw abroad, but processed into industrial raw materials in the country, so that the economic benefits could be much greater.