Indonesia kept its 2020 lifting rules; in 2026 it rebuilt the inspector who enforces them

▌  INDUSTRY BRIEFING  ·  SEPTEMBER 2026  ·  INDONESIA K3

Indonesia kept its 2020 lifting rules; in 2026 it rebuilt the inspector who enforces them

Indonesia’s rules for lifting and hauling equipment have been settled law since the middle of 2020. Peraturan Menteri Ketenagakerjaan Republik Indonesia Nomor 8 Tahun 2020 — the ministerial regulation on occupational safety and health for pesawat angkat (lifting equipment) and pesawat angkut (hauling equipment), shortened everywhere to PAA — was signed by Manpower Minister Ida Fauziyah on 8 June 2020, promulgated and brought into force on 12 June 2020, and recorded as BN.2020/No.609, a 97-page text on the ministry’s legal portal at jdih.kemnaker.go.id. It replaced two older instruments, Per-05/MEN/1985 and PER.09/MEN/VII/2010, and it stands under the two labour statutes that still anchor Indonesian workplace law: UU No. 1 of 1970 and UU No. 13 of 2003.

What changed in 2026 is not the equipment rules themselves but the apparatus that checks them. Permenaker No. 11 Tahun 2026, on the procedures of labour supervision, took effect on 3 July 2026 and was launched publicly in Jakarta on Monday 27 July 2026, during the 78th anniversary of labour supervision, by Manpower Minister Yassierli. It repeals Permenaker 33/2016 and its amendment Permenaker 1/2020, and it also revokes parts of Permenaker 8/2020 — including the definition at Pasal 1 angka 5 — along with K3-expert-inspector provisions in roughly ten sectoral K3 regulations issued between 2015 and 2023. The 125 per cent load test did not move. What moved is who watches, how often, and on what evidence.

▌  01  THE TWO DATES

▌  IN FORCE SINCE 12 JUNE 2020  The official register records three dates for Permenaker 8/2020. It was established and signed on 8 June 2020 in Jakarta; it was promulgated on 12 June 2020; and it entered into force on 12 June 2020. The citation given is BN.2020/No.609, with the ministry’s portal carrying the full 97 pages. The signature is that of the Minister of Manpower, Ida Fauziyah. There is no transition window written into the text: from the date of promulgation the two earlier instruments, Per-05/MEN/1985 and PER.09/MEN/VII/2010, ceased to apply.

▌  IN FORCE SINCE 3 JULY 2026  Permenaker No. 11 Tahun 2026 does not rewrite the equipment rules. It rewrites how those rules are supervised. Its recitals cite UU No. 6 of 2023 on job creation alongside UU No. 1 of 1970, UU No. 13 of 2003 and UU No. 21 of 2003, which ratifies ILO Convention 81 on labour inspection. The instrument sets out risk-based supervision, digital self-assessment and surveillance, and a single supervision picture that combines K3, employment norms, complaints and BPJS Ketenagakerjaan data. It restores a preventive role to the provincial Balai K3 and treats the P2K3 committee and unions as supervision partners.

▌  02  WHAT COUNTS AS A PAA

▌  TWO DEFINITIONS, ONE OBLIGATION  Pasal 2 ayat (1) places the duty on the pengurus and pengusaha — management and employer — to apply the K3 requirements to pesawat angkat, to pesawat angkut, and to the alat bantu angkat dan angkut, the lifting and hauling aids used with them. The regulation defines the machines and the accessories separately, and both ends of the duty are in scope. A tower crane is one item; the slings, shackles and lifting points beneath its hook are another, and the text does not leave them out.

▌  FOUR FAMILIES OF LIFTING EQUIPMENT  The annexes group pesawat angkat into four families. Dongkrak (jacks), a family that reaches lier, post lift and truck or car lift. Keran angkat (cranes), which reaches tower crane, overhead crane, gantry crane and mobile crane. Alat angkat pengatur posisi — rotator, robotic unit and takel. Personal platform — passenger hoist and gondola. Equipment that does not fit these four falls into a further non-class group.

▌  ARTICLES 21 TO 66 ARE ALL ABOUT CRANES  The K3 conditions for pesawat angkat are not scattered across the text. They occupy Pasal 21 to Pasal 66 — forty-six articles — and they cover construction and installation, safety devices, operation and maintenance. Safety device is defined as alat pengaman: a device fitted permanently to the machine. Anyone opening the regulation for the first time should start in that block rather than in the general provisions.

▌  03  INSPECTION AND TESTING

▌  ARTICLE 138 SETS THE WHOLE CYCLE  Pasal 138 requires every PAA to be examined and tested before it is used, and it fixes the parameters. The load test is set at 125 per cent of the maximum load tested. Insulation resistance must meet the PUIL electrical installation standard. After that first inspection, the next must follow no later than two years, and each inspection after that once a year. The work is carried out by a Pegawai Pengawas, a government labour supervisor, and/or an Ahli K3. This is the article that decides a service calendar, and it is the one worth quoting in a contract.

▌  THE LOAD FIGURES ARE NOT UNIFORM  The tests behind that cycle differ by machine. Dynamic testing runs to 100 per cent of the safe working load. Static testing is at least 110 per cent for a general PAA; at least 125 per cent for a keran angkat that uses a girder or has no load chart; at least 150 per cent for dongkrak; and 150 to 200 per cent for alat bantu angkat dan angkut and their components. A single blanket instruction to a test house — “test at 125 per cent” — will not match the regulation for every machine on site.

▌  FOUR KINDS OF INSPECTION, TWO DOCUMENTS  The regulation names four inspections: Pemeriksaan Pertama, the first inspection of a newly built, installed, repaired, modified, imported or previously untested rented machine; Berkala, the periodic inspection described above; Khusus, a special inspection after an accident, fire or explosion; and Ulang, a repeat where an earlier result is in doubt. Two documents come out of a satisfactory inspection: the Surat Keterangan Memenuhi Syarat K3, and the K3 sticker, listed in the annexes as Lampiran 5 and Lampiran 6.

▌  WHO MAY CARRY IT OUT  Pasal 138 puts the inspection in the hands of the Pegawai Pengawas and/or an Ahli K3. In practice much periodic work is delivered by a PJK3, an independent K3 inspection company that must hold a ministerial decree of appointment — a Surat Keputusan Penunjukan as PJK3 — and must field certified Ahli K3 and Penguji K3. For a buyer, the name of the PJK3 on the report is a checkable fact, not a formality.

▌  04  WHO MAY OPERATE, RIG AND INSPECT

▌  FOUR ROLES, AND A LICENCE FOR EACH  Pasal 171 recognises four roles around a PAA: Teknisi, Operator, Juru Ikat (rigger) and Ahli K3 for PAA. Pasal 171 ayat (1) prohibits employing a technician, operator or rigger who does not hold a Lisensi K3, and prohibits employing an Ahli K3 without a letter of appointment and a kartu tanda kewenangan. The licence belongs to the person, not to the employer.

▌  THE BUKU KERJA IS CHECKED EVERY THREE MONTHS  Pasal 171 ayat (2) requires the employer to provide these personnel with a buku kerja, a work record. Pasal 171 ayat (3) requires that record to be examined at least every three months. That is a quarterly calendar obligation attached to individuals, and it sits alongside — not inside — the annual machine inspection.

▌  THE CLASS TABLE IS HEIGHT- AND TONNAGE-BASED  The annex sets operator qualifications by capacity. For tower cranes, working height determines the class: up to 40 metres is Kelas III, above 40 up to 60 metres is Kelas II, and a tower crane with no height limitation is Kelas I. For cranes generally, up to 25 tonnes is Kelas III, above 25 up to 100 tonnes is Kelas II, and above 100 tonnes is Kelas I. For forklifts, up to 15 tonnes is Kelas II and above 15 tonnes is Kelas I. The class 1.4 family — lier, dongkrak, post lift, rotator, robotic, takel, passenger hoist, gondola, hydraulic drilling rig and pilling crane — is non kelas.

▌  THE TRAINING IS MEASURABLE  Qualification is not a matter of a CV. Technician training runs 90 JP — jam pelajaran, teaching hours. Operator training runs 50, 40 or 30 JP for Kelas I, II and III respectively. A supplier or a site that presents an operator without the matching licence class is presenting someone the regulation does not permit on that machine.

▌  SANCTIONS SIT IN ANOTHER STATUTE  Pasal 186 does not invent a penalty of its own. It refers to the sanctions available under UU No. 1 of 1970 and UU No. 13 of 2003; the 1970 statute’s Article 15 provides for kurungan (imprisonment) and denda (a fine). Read that together with the 2026 supervisory regulation and the practical point is that the exposure sits with the employer who runs the machine, not with the supplier who shipped it.

▌  05  WHAT IT MEANS WHEN YOU SPECIFY OR BUY

●  Which class of tower crane operator does the machine need — Kelas III under 40 metres, Kelas II under 60, or Kelas I with no height limit — and does the crew the contractor proposes actually hold it?

●  When was the last Pemeriksaan Berkala, and does the file hold the Surat Keterangan Memenuhi Syarat K3 and the K3 sticker, or only a test report?

●  Does the PJK3 named on the report hold a Surat Keputusan Penunjukan, and is the certificate of load test written for the machine’s actual static figure — 110, 125 or 150 per cent?

●  Who maintains the buku kerja for the technicians, operators and riggers, and can the three-month check be evidenced on paper or in the digital record?

●  On a rented or imported machine, has the Pemeriksaan Pertama been completed before first use, and is that date documented?

●  If a safety function such as a load limiter or zone control is replaced during service, does that trigger a Khusus or Ulang inspection, and who signs it off?

▌  06  WHAT TO WATCH

●  How provincial Balai K3 and PJK3 capacity absorbs the risk-based supervision model introduced on 3 July 2026, and whether inspection queues lengthen as a result.

●  What replaces the provisions of Permenaker 8/2020 that Permenaker 11/2026 revoked — a definition removed today is usually a definition re-issued in amended form later.

●  Whether the digital self-assessment and surveillance tools become mandatory filings or remain voluntary aids for employers.

●  Whether the licence and class tables in the Permenaker 8/2020 annexes are revised in step with any new operator-training standards, since class I tower crane work is the binding constraint on large projects.

●  How quickly inspection findings are collected centrally now that K3, employment data and BPJS Ketenagakerjaan records are being joined up — data integration is where a supervisory regulation becomes a practical filter on procurement.

This briefing summarises Indonesian national rules. It is not legal advice, and local rules still govern your site.

ABOUT

Shandong Zhinuo (ZNAQ) designs and manufactures tower crane safety monitoring systems and lifting-safety hardware for export markets, including load-moment limiting, zone-control and anti-collision functions that are increasingly software-defined. We track national lifting-safety regimes such as Indonesia’s Permenaker 8/2020 as they are revised, and build technical documentation to the stricter of the routes a product may fall under.

▌  CONTACT  shandongzhinuo@outlook.com  +86 176 6371 0314 · en.znaqkj.com

SOURCES

Badan Pemeriksa Keuangan (BPK) law database, Peraturan Menteri Ketenagakerjaan No. 8 Tahun 2020 — peraturan.bpk.go.id

Kementerian Ketenagakerjaan legal portal, Permenaker 8/2020 full text, BN.2020/No.609, 97 pp. — jdih.kemnaker.go.id

Kementerian Ketenagakerjaan training material, operator classes and Lisensi K3 under Permenaker 8/2020 — kclc.kemnaker.go.id

DDTC, Permenaker No. 11 Tahun 2026 on labour supervision procedures, in force 3 July 2026 — perpajakan.ddtc.co.id

Media Center Riau, launch of Permenaker 11/2026 on labour supervision — mediacenter.riau.go.id

Jatim Mandiri, 78th anniversary of labour supervision, 28 July 2026 — jatimmandiri.id

Dhiya Duta Inspeksi, load-test parameters under Permenaker 8/2020 — dhiyadutainspeksi.com

Banten Diksiber, launch coverage of Permenaker 11/2026, 27 July 2026 — banten.diksiber.id