Indonesia's mining permit is not only a right to dig. It carries an obligation to operate a documented safety system. Every holder of an IUP or IUPK — companies still at the exploration stage included, and the processing-only permit holders alongside them — must implement a Sistem Manajemen Keselamatan Pertambangan (SMKP), the Mining Safety Management System, and have it audited. The duty is written into operating regulation, it is supervised by the state's mine inspectors, and failing it is one of the breaches that can suspend a production stage or end a permit.
This explainer sets out where the rule sits, who must apply it, the seven elements the system must contain, how it is documented and audited, and how the state enforces it. Every rule and date below is taken from the regulation and the implementing decree themselves.
Where the rule sits
The obligation runs from the mining statute down through two ministerial instruments:
| Instrument | Date | Its role in this chain |
|---|---|---|
| Law No. 4 of 2009 on Mineral and Coal Mining | 2009 | the statutory basis the operating rules derive from |
| Ministerial Regulation (Permen) ESDM No. 26 of 2018 | 3 May 2018 (State Gazette 2018 No. 596) | the operative regulation: it requires SMKP (Article 18) and delegates the implementation guideline to the Minister (Article 19) |
| Ministerial Decree (Kepmen) ESDM No. 1827 K/30/MEM/2018 | 7 May 2018 | the guideline that fulfils that delegation — Annex III is the safety-implementation guideline, Annex IV is the SMKP implementation guideline |
| Government Regulation (PP) No. 96 of 2021 | 9 September 2021 (State Gazette 2021 No. 208) | the government regulation implementing the mining law, under which mine safety is treated as an operating aspect |
The chain matters because the older reference is dead. Permen ESDM No. 38 of 2014 — the regulation that first established SMKP in the mineral and coal sector — was revoked by Permen 26/2018. A project that still files against "38/2014" is citing a repealed instrument. The current duties are Article 18 and Article 19 of Permen 26/2018, read with Annexes III and IV of Kepmen 1827/2018.
A note on status, because these instruments are old. The ESDM legal database records Permen 26/2018 as revoking the earlier safety rules and records no revocation or amendment of Permen 26/2018 itself. It records Kepmen 1827/2018 as partially revoked — but only as to one provision: the rule on reopening areas that have already been reclaimed, in Annex VI. The safety annex (III) and the SMKP annex (IV) are unaffected, and the decree names Permen 26/2018 among its own legal bases.
Who must apply it, and when
Article 18(1) lists the permit holders obliged to apply SMKP:
- the IUP Eksplorasi and IUPK Eksplorasi;
- the IUP Operasi Produksi and IUPK Operasi Produksi;
- the IUP Operasi Produksi khusus for processing and/or refining (*pengolahan dan/atau pemurnian*).
Annex IV of Kepmen 1827/2018 adds mining service companies to the list. Two consequences follow for an investor:
- Exploration is inside the scope. The duty does not wait for first production.
- It reaches past the permit holder. A holder must also apply SMKP and supervise the SMKP of the service companies working inside its area of responsibility, so contractor safety management is part of the holder's own obligation.
The state also fixes an accountable person. Articles 7 and 10 of Permen 26/2018 require the holder to appoint a Kepala Teknik Tambang (KTT) — the field's highest operational position — and to obtain the approval of the Head of Mine Inspection (*Kepala Inspektur Tambang*, KaIT) for that appointment before starting work. Underground operations must additionally appoint a Kepala Tambang Bawah Tanah (KTBT) reporting to the KTT, and processing holders a Penanggungjawab Teknik dan Lingkungan (PTL). Annex I of Kepmen 1827/2018 puts SMKP application, the supervision of contractors' SMKP, and the reporting of good-mining-practice compliance on the KTT's task list — the safety system is not an office function divorced from the mine.
The seven elements
Article 18(2) requires the system to contain seven elements: kebijakan (policy); perencanaan (planning); organisasi dan personel (organisation and personnel); implementasi (implementation); pemantauan, evaluasi, dan tindak lanjut (monitoring, evaluation and follow-up); dokumentasi (documentation); and tinjauan manajemen dan peningkatan kinerja (management review and performance improvement).
Annex IV of Kepmen 1827/2018 fills each element out. Condensed:
| Element | What the guideline expects |
|---|---|
| Policy | A written policy containing vision, mission and objectives, committing to occupational safety and health (K3) and operational safety; signed by the company's top leader; documented, explained and circulated to workers and to persons the KTT permits on site. |
| Planning | An initial review of business processes; risk management (communication and consultation, context, hazard identification and risk assessment, control, monitoring and review); compliance with law and other requirements; measurable objectives and programmes signed off by the Safety Committee; and a work plan, budget and cost for safety approved by the Director General or the governor. |
| Organisation and personnel | The safety organisation integrated into the company structure; appointment of KTT/KTBT/PTL; a Bagian K3 (occupational safety and health unit) and a Bagian KO (operational safety unit); appointment of operational and technical supervisors and competent technical personnel; formation of a Safety Committee; an emergency-response team; and competence, training and communication programmes. |
| Implementation | Operational, work-environment and occupational-health management; operational-safety management; management of explosives and blasting; engineering design; procurement; monitoring of service companies; emergency management; and first aid. |
| Monitoring, evaluation and follow-up | Performance monitoring and measurement; safety inspections; compliance evaluation; investigation of accidents, dangerous occurrences and occupational disease; administration review; internal audit; and corrective action. |
| Documentation | An SMKP manual; document control; record control; and defined sets of documents and records. |
| Management review and improvement | A management review led by top management, at least once a year, documented. |
This is a management system in the ordinary ISO sense — an auditable set of documents and records — rather than a set of equipment specifications. The regulation's Article 14 separately lists the physical safety duties (providing equipment, protective equipment, facilities, personnel and budget, and forming a safety organisation based on the number of workers and the size of the operation), and it anchors those duties to the feasibility study, the environmental document and the approved RKAB — the annual work plan and budget.
How it is audited
Audit is explicit and two-layered.
- Internal audit — every year. Article 18(3) requires the holder to carry out an internal audit of SMKP application at least once in every year.
- External audit — event-driven. Under Article 18(4) the KaIT may require an external audit following an accident, a dangerous occurrence, an occupational illness or disease, a disaster, or for the purpose of assessing safety performance. Article 18(5) fixes who may do it: an accredited independent audit institution appointed by the Director General — not the holder's own choice of consultant.
- Management review — at least annually, led by top management and documented (Annex IV).
Reporting runs in parallel. Under Annex I the KTT reports the implementation of good mining practice — which includes SMKP — to the KaIT as periodic, final and special reports. So the system is not only audited; it is reported into the inspectorate on a recurring basis.
Supervision and enforcement
The regulator that holds this together is the mine inspectorate. Under Articles 45 to 47, supervision of the implementation of good mining practice is carried out by Inspektur Tambang (mine inspectors) through evaluation of periodic and special reports, periodic or ad-hoc examination, and assessment of programme delivery, using inspection, investigation and testing. The inspector's report carries orders, prohibitions and instructions that the holder must act on, and is filed to the KaIT.
An inspector's authority is not advisory. Article 46 gives the inspector the right to enter the mining site at any time and to suspend part or all of the operation where it is judged to endanger the safety of mine workers or the public, or to cause pollution or environmental damage — with a recommendation to the KaIT to make that suspension permanent.
Breach of the safety and SMKP articles is sanctionable. Under Article 50, a holder that fails to comply with the safety duties in Article 14 or with the SMKP duties in Article 18(1) and 18(3) is liable to administrative sanctions, which Article 50(8) defines as:
- a written warning;
- temporary suspension of part or all of the business activity; and/or
- revocation of the permit.
The ladder has fixed clockwork. Under Article 51 a written warning is issued at most three times, each for a maximum of 30 calendar days. Under Article 52, a holder that has not remedied the breach by the end of a warning is placed under temporary suspension for up to 60 calendar days. Under Article 53, a holder that still does not comply is revoked. The sanctions are issued by the Minister or the governor within their authority.
Why it matters for a foreign investor
- It is a permit condition, not a policy statement. SMKP application sits in the same article that leads to the sanction ladder; the downside reaches the IUP or IUPK.
- It starts at exploration. Because IUP Eksplorasi and IUPK Eksplorasi are named in Article 18(1), a project carries the system from its earliest stage — so it must be built into the budget and the RKAB from the start, not bolted on at production.
- Your contractors are inside the perimeter. The holder must apply SMKP and supervise its application by the service companies working under it. Outsourcing the work does not outsource the obligation.
- It is a cost line with an approver. Annex IV makes the safety work plan, budget and cost subject to approval by the Director General or the governor, so it is modelled and controlled like other operating cost, not treated as discretionary spend.
- The external audit is not routine — it is triggered. The annual obligation is an internal audit. The external audit, by an accredited institution the Director General appoints, follows an accident, a dangerous occurrence, an occupational disease or a disaster. That makes incident handling a compliance event with an auditor attached.
- Documentation is the deliverable. The elements resolve to a manual, controlled documents and controlled records, including an annual management review. An investor doing diligence on an Indonesian asset can ask for the SMKP manual, the last internal-audit report and the latest management review — and read them as evidence about how the operation is actually run.
Catatan Teramine
*This section is Teramine's editorial assessment, not a statement from any government body and not a recommendation.*
The design worth noticing is that SMKP is defined by process, not by a safety target. The regulation does not fix a fatality rate, a lost-time-injury figure or an inspection score. It requires a system with seven named elements, a manual, an annual internal audit and a documented management review — and then reserves the external audit for incidents and for performance assessment. That choice tells an investor where the state expects effort: not in a headline number, but in a maintained, auditable paper trail. The gap a first-time foreign holder is most likely to fall into is not technical but documentary — an operating site that is safe in practice but cannot yet show the system that proves it.
The second point is the sanction ladder's fixed clock. Thirty days per warning, at most three warnings, then up to sixty days of suspension, then revocation. That is a short runway: roughly three to four months from an unresolved warning to the end of a permit if a holder neither fixes the issue nor contests it. Treating a warning as a formality, rather than as the first rung of a deadline, is an avoidable way to lose a licence.
The third is the contractor perimeter. Because the holder must apply SMKP *and* supervise its application by service companies, the quality of a contractor's own safety system becomes the holder's compliance risk. In a sector where work is heavily subcontracted, that is a screening question at the diligence stage, not an operational detail.
The open risk is currency. The operative regulation is from 2018 and its implementing decree is 370 pages long; a 2024 decree of a similar name turned out to govern oil and gas (SMKM), not mineral and coal, which is exactly the kind of near-miss a reader should be alert to. On the evidence of the ESDM legal database the mineral-and-coal SMKP chapter stands, but the body of guidance around it is old enough that any project should confirm the current text before relying on it.
What we could not verify
- Any enforcement statistics. We read the sanction articles; we did not find or read data on how often the suspension or revocation powers have actually been exercised for an SMKP breach. No count is printed.
- The current list of accredited external-audit institutions. Article 18(5) says the Director General appoints them; we did not read the appointment instrument, so no body is named.
- Any company, project, production figure, reserve or transaction. This article describes a rule; it names no operating company and reports no deal.
- Whether the 2018 guidelines have been amended in detail. The database records only a partial revocation of Kepmen 1827/2018 (a reclaimed-area provision in Annex VI). We did not find a later mineral-and-coal SMKP guideline; the only newer instrument with a similar title we located governs oil and gas, not mining.
Sources
Every rule and date below comes from an official text downloaded from the legal information database of the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources (JDIH ESDM) and read in full or in the relevant part.
- Ministerial Regulation (Permen) ESDM No. 26 of 2018 on the Implementation of Good Mining Practice and Supervision of Mineral and Coal Mining, dated 3 May 2018 (State Gazette 2018 No. 596; the database records it as revoking Permen ESDM No. 38 of 2014 on the application of SMKP, together with Permen ESDM No. 2 of 2013 and Permen ESDM No. 7 of 2014, and as itself not revoked). Read for Article 1 (the definitions, including KaIT, Inspektur Tambang, KTT, KTBT, PTL and IUJP), Articles 7 to 11 (appointment and approval of KTT/KTBT/PTL), Article 12 (technical requirements), Articles 14 to 17 (the safety and health and operational-safety duties, the safety organisation, the anchoring to the feasibility study, environmental document and RKAB, and the delegation of the safety guideline), Article 18 (the SMKP obligation, its seven elements, the annual internal audit, the external-audit triggers, and the accredited auditor appointed by the Director General), Article 19 (delegation of the SMKP guideline), Articles 45 to 47 (supervision by mine inspectors, the right of entry, and the power to suspend), and Articles 50 to 53 (administrative sanctions and their time limits).
- Ministerial Decree (Kepmen) ESDM No. 1827 K/30/MEM/2018 on Guidelines for the Implementation of Good Mining Practice, dated 7 May 2018 (370 pages; the database records it as partially revoked by Kepmen ESDM No. 111.K/MB.01/MEM.B/2024 only as to the provision on reopening areas that have already been reclaimed, in Annex VI). Read for the operative dictums (the decree's own legal bases, which cite Permen ESDM No. 26 of 2018; and the list of annexes) and for Annex I (the duties of the KTT/PTL, including applying SMKP, supervising its application by service companies, and reporting good-mining-practice compliance to the KaIT) and Annex IV (the guidelines for implementing SMKP Mineral and Coal: its scope over service companies, the seven elements set out in operational detail, the SMKP manual, document and record control, the Safety Committee, and the annual management review).
- Government Regulation (PP) No. 96 of 2021 on the Implementation of Mineral and Coal Mining Business, dated 9 September 2021 (State Gazette 2021 No. 208). Read for the operating obligations into which mine safety is woven — the safety organisation and budget, and the requirement that mining roads and operational facilities meet mine-safety requirements (Articles 137, 173 and 174).
For the permit, document and compliance work that sits under this framework — the RKAB package, the KTT approval file and the reporting — see our [permit services](/en/layanan-izin) page. For mining assets currently listed, see the [mining marketplace](/en/marketplace).
The safety-management obligation is best read alongside the appointment and competency framework it depends on, [mining labour and certification in Indonesia](/en/news/mining-labour-certification-indonesia); the statute it ultimately derives from, [Indonesia mining law](/en/news/indonesia-mining-law); the document that carries the safety budget, [what the RKAB is](/en/news/what-is-rkab-indonesia); and, for context, [Indonesia mining investment climate](/en/news/indonesia-mining-investment-climate).
