09/09/2026
The Language Bridge, Part Two: Indonesian Authorities
Nine government bodies keep a file on every company in Indonesia. The second set of flashcards in The Language Bridge series explains each one from the owner's side: what the body keeps and what that record decides for the company, together with the question to ask when its name appears.
Two of the nine are worth checking before anything else, because their records are what other people read.
1. The company register at the Directorate General of General Legal Administration (Direktorat Jenderal Administrasi Hukum Umum, or AHU) is what a bank reads before opening an account or extending credit. Anyone can search a company's name and address there free of charge, and the directors, shareholders, capital and deed history are supplied as a paid profile at IDR 50,000 for the current position.
2. The land register at the National Land Agency (Badan Pertanahan Nasional, or BPN) is what a buyer or lender reads before dealing with a property. A deed signed at the notary that has not been entered in that register is an agreement between the parties and binds no one else.
One of the nine is wider than most owners expect.
The Ministry of Manpower (Kementerian Ketenagakerjaan) is usually met through foreign worker approvals, and its scope covers every employee. A company regulation must be ratified once you employ ten people, each fixed-term contract must be registered within three working days of signing, and a dismissal that cannot be settled in-house goes to a government mediator at the regency manpower office before any court will hear it.
After reading the flashcards, obtain your own company profile from the AHU portal and compare the directors and shareholders shown against the deeds in your file. A director who has left, or a share transfer that was agreed and never registered, will appear there before it appears anywhere else.
TraceWorthy performs the correspondence and filings with each of these bodies for foreign-owned companies across Bali. The team attends manpower mediation, follows land registration through to the certificate, lodges customs declarations and answers tax office correspondence as routine work.
