Inactive PT PMA: Reporting and Costs Without Revenue

What “inactive” means for an Indonesian PT PMA

A founder shelved the launch six months ago. The Indonesian company has issued no customer invoices since then, yet the NIB remains on its OSS profile and its bank account is still open. The company exists even though the commercial project is on hold.

Owners often call this a dormant PT PMA. That describes how the business feels, not a blanket exemption created by Indonesian law. Its sales history, tax registration, investment-project reporting and corporate existence are separate matters. A decision made in Coretax does not automatically rewrite the OSS record or close the legal entity.

The sensible starting point is to establish what has actually stopped. There may be no income, no transactions of any kind, or an intention never to resume trading. Those situations leave very different evidence and obligations behind. Bali-based companies follow Indonesia’s national rules on these matters, rather than a special island-wide dormant-company regime.

No sales, no transactions and no staff are different cases

Consider three companies with the same sales figure: zero. One still pays an accountant and rent on its registered address. Another has not moved any money through its bank account for months. The third has no staff but retains an unfinished project and a director. Their filing positions cannot be inferred from the revenue line alone.

A year without invoices may still contain expenses, foreign shareholder funding, bank fees or an asset purchase. Those amounts are visible in bank statements and the accounts. A loan from a shareholder, for example, is not the same as income from customers; it can nevertheless create a liability that must remain in the financial records. A security deposit or equipment bought before the project stalled does not simply disappear when trading stops.

No bank transactions is a narrower statement. The company might still owe a landlord, own an asset or have bills paid on its behalf. An unchanged bank balance says little about whether its contracts remain enforceable. Financial statements, supporting invoices and an up-to-date list of creditors and assets are much stronger evidence of the position.

Having no employees may remove particular payroll activities for the period. It does not remove directors or shareholder meetings, and it cannot retrospectively cancel duties arising when people were employed. Remuneration to directors or outside service providers needs its own tax assessment. Meanwhile, the company’s KBLI activities and project stage in OSS may remain live regardless of headcount. A useful inactivity assessment therefore describes transactions, contracts, staffing and registrations separately.

PT PMA tax returns when revenue is zero

An Indonesian PT PMA with an active corporate tax registration generally continues to have an annual income-tax return obligation even when customers have paid nothing. The return is the SPT Tahunan PPh Badan. DJP states a standard filing deadline of four months after the tax year ends. For a company using a calendar tax year, this ordinarily points to the end of April, although its actual financial year and any applicable procedural relief must be considered.

A nil sales figure should not be used as a shortcut for a blank set of accounts. A business can incur address fees, borrow from a shareholder, pay its bank or hold assets acquired before the launch was suspended. None of those transactions becomes sales revenue merely because it appears in the books. They still affect the financial statements underlying the return. A tax calculation that results in nothing payable is different from evidence that the entity had no balances or financial activity.

VAT adds another question. If the entity remains registered as a taxable entrepreneur, or PKP, periodic SPT Masa PPN reporting can continue for months without taxable supplies. DJP has expressly cautioned PKP businesses about this point. Other periodic tax responsibilities turn on specific payments and the company’s role as a withholding agent. Rent, wages and professional fees may have different consequences, while a company that made none of those payments should not be assigned every conceivable filing without checking the legal trigger.

Coretax offers a formal nonaktif taxpayer classification. DJP describes this as a status for taxpayers who meet specified statutory or administrative criteria while their NPWP has not yet been deleted. For a corporate taxpayer, the fact that trading stopped is not itself proof of eligibility. The tax authority must determine the status; merely submitting a request is not the same as receiving approval. According to DJP's Coretaxpedia, an approved inactive taxpayer is no longer required to file SPT from the tax year in which that status is established.

That qualification matters when looking backward. Earlier returns, VAT registration, unresolved assessments and payments made during the supposed idle period require separate treatment. The evidence to seek is the status recorded in the taxpayer profile, the effective year, receipts for filed returns and the company’s underlying accounts. Zero tax due is a possible result of the calculation; it is not an automatic exemption from making the calculation.

LKPM obligations when no new investment is made

LKPM is concerned with investment activity, not just turnover. Under BKPM Regulation No. 5/2025, investment-activity reporting is tied to the business activities and locations registered after an NIB is issued. A PT PMA may have more than one KBLI activity or project site, so a single statement that the company has "done nothing" may conceal several distinct records within OSS.

Reporting intervals depend on the business scale recorded under the rules. The regulation provides half-yearly LKPM reporting for small businesses and quarterly reporting for medium and large businesses, with specified exemptions including micro-scale activity and certain publicly funded activities. Foreign ownership is not a reason to assume that a paused project has stopped reporting. The relevant scale, activity and available exemptions need to be established from the registered particulars rather than from the founder's description of the business.

Project stage matters too. Preparatory-stage reports are designed for activities not yet operating commercially; operational or commercial-stage reporting addresses projects that are ready or already operating. A villa-related business might have stopped invoicing guests while still spending money on equipment or fitting out a property. Equally, it might have spent nothing new while retaining reporting duties. Cash received from customers and additional realised investment measure different things.

The 2025 regulation sets the ordinary quarterly deadlines on 15 April, 15 July, 15 October and 15 January of the following year, subject to official adjustments where relevant. BKPM's notice for the third quarter of 2026 confirmed the 1–15 October filing window. That is useful evidence of how the cycle operated, not a substitute for checking the next applicable period and the messages appearing in the company’s account.

There is a less obvious risk in simply repeating zero figures. Article 373 addresses two consecutive missed LKPM periods and defined cases involving four consecutive periods with no added realised investment, including preparatory-stage reporting. The consequences are administered through the regulatory process; the rules should not be described as an automatic dissolution trigger. Article 374 sets out warning stages for continued non-compliance. OSS receipts, the current report status and the authority's notices will reveal far more than a screenshot showing that someone clicked "submit".

Annual RUPS and company records still matter

Corporate duties have their own calendar. Indonesia's Company Law, Law No. 40 of 2007, requires an annual report to be prepared and brought before the shareholders. Article 78 provides for an annual general meeting, known as the RUPS, within six months after the financial year closes. That deadline does not turn on the date of the company's last invoice.

An entity that abandoned its launch in January may still finish the year with a lease deposit, bank charges and shareholder funding on the balance sheet. Its directors need accounts and an annual report that tell that story accurately. The RUPS is where the company's annual position can be considered and decisions properly documented, even if the shareholders decide to preserve the entity for another year without commercial activity.

Article 100 deals with keeping shareholder registers, meeting minutes, financial documents and other corporate records. In a quiet company, these records can be neglected because nobody needs them for day-to-day trading. The problem often surfaces later, when a bank, prospective buyer or adviser asks who is authorised to sign or whether an earlier shareholders' decision was properly recorded. The articles of association and current officeholder information matter just as much as the sales ledger.

A mandatory external audit should not be assumed in every case. Indonesian law and sector-specific requirements set conditions for when one is necessary. The appropriate response to an annual maintenance quote that treats an audit as universal is to ask which condition applies to that particular entity, while keeping the annual corporate-reporting obligation distinct.

The remaining cost of keeping an inactive PT PMA

There is no uniform government price for maintaining a dormant PT PMA. A company that retained only an address arrangement and basic reporting support will have a different cost profile from one still paying for a lease, sector permits, business banking and the storage of assets. Even firms with identical zero-revenue figures can face very different bills.

The distinction lies in why a charge exists. Preparing the accounts and meeting applicable filing duties is one category. Contracts for premises, bank services or asset maintenance create another. A service provider may also charge for preparing OSS submissions, corporate minutes or correspondence with authorities. Those professional fees should be labelled as services and not presented as an official monthly inactivity levy.

Payroll and BPJS responsibilities arise from the company's actual employment arrangements. Sector licences, audit services and other renewals call for their own legal or contractual basis. Ending an unused subscription may be simple; exiting a property lease early could trigger a substantial contractual liability. It is possible for the cheapest-looking annual maintenance package to omit work that the company still needs.

A twelve-month itemised estimate gives the owner a workable comparison. Each charge should identify its legal or contractual reason, billing period, recipient, services included and any cancellation cost. An inactive company may need less administrative work, but the saving must come from its facts and contracts, not from an advertised fixed figure.

A year without sales: which filings and notices to check

A year without trading can become a year without anybody opening Coretax or OSS. Sometimes the former accountant still has the credentials. Sometimes the director believes the service provider handled every filing, while the provider regards the contract as having ended months earlier. The gap is usually a missing paper trail, not a single obvious tax bill.

A six-to-twelve-month review should reconstruct the periods in order. The tax side includes the corporate NPWP status, any PKP registration, annual and periodic returns, notices, assessments and proof that relevant filings were received. Copies of forms prepared on a laptop are not the same as an official acknowledgment. Historic liabilities and earlier-year questions can remain even if current turnover is nil.

OSS provides a separate record: the NIB, KBLI lines, registered project locations, each project's stage, LKPM periods and messages from the investment authorities. A report saved as a draft, a report submitted with a system receipt and a report whose information has been reviewed are not interchangeable statuses. If the person responsible cannot produce the filing period and its evidence, the honest classification is "unverified" until the account can be checked. It should not be silently marked compliant or overdue.

The 2025 BKPM rules make missing two reporting periods in succession particularly relevant. Defined sequences of filings that show no additional realised investment also need scrutiny. Regulatory warnings follow a process, so an administrator's email or the absence of one matters. Remediation should be organised by affected period and obligation: a missing return, a query from an authority and an inaccurate project stage may require different responses.

A founder whose stay depends on the company needs a separate review of Indonesia’s long-stay visa routes. The consequences cannot be inferred from an NIB alone. Reconstructing the record with actual documents is preferable to making up historical activity or backdating evidence to make the company appear compliant.

Keep the PT PMA inactive or prepare for closure?

Keeping the company alive can be a rational choice. A delayed launch may still have a realistic restart date, valuable assets or contracts that are easier to preserve than recreate. In that case, maintaining a properly governed and compliant PT PMA is a conscious operating decision, not an assumption that inactivity costs nothing.

A different picture emerges when the project has been abandoned and the only argument for keeping the entity is what it cost to incorporate. That money has already been spent. The relevant comparison is forward-looking: the next twelve months of legitimate holding costs versus a properly scoped closure budget. Outstanding leases, shareholder loans, creditors and any unsettled employment or tax matters can make winding down more expensive than expected. Closure is not automatically the cheaper option.

There are also three procedures that should not be confused. An approved nonaktif classification changes the taxpayer's administrative position under specified conditions. Cancelling or amending an NIB addresses business licensing. Dissolving the company is a corporate process with its own treatment of assets and liabilities, formal decisions and registrations. The full mechanics belong in the separate PT PMA liquidation article, not in a discussion of annual inactivity costs.

For an individual entity, the answer needs current accounts, its articles, the Coretax and OSS profiles and the terms of open contracts. This is general information, not a substitute for Indonesian legal or tax advice on those documents. A decision about whether to retain the PT PMA is only meaningful after any unresolved filings and obligations have been identified.