Decision · 6 min read
Four entity types, four different sets of conditions, and one question that settles it before any of the others: is there a foreign owner involved.
This question is almost always asked backwards. People start from "which is cheapest" or "which is fastest", choose, and then discover six months later that their entity cannot take an investor, cannot bid for contracts, or — the expensive one — was never open to foreign ownership in the first place.
The right order is the reverse of that.
If there is even one foreign shareholder, individual or corporate, the answer is settled before any other question gets asked: PT PMA. Not a CV, not a PT Perorangan, not a branch office.
This is not a preference. PT Perorangan and CV are legally closed to foreign ownership. A structure that puts an Indonesian person's name on the ownership to work around it is a nominee structure — void by law, and money already paid cannot be reclaimed.
If every owner is an Indonesian citizen, then the other three genuinely compete.
Built for a single Indonesian citizen, at least 17 years old and legally competent, with a micro or small-scale business: business capital up to Rp5 billion excluding the land and buildings the business occupies.
What makes it attractive: limited liability without a notarial deed. Your personal assets sit apart from the business, but registration runs directly and electronically. The legal-entity registration certificate issues within days.
What to know from the start:
A CV suits two or more people going into business together with divided roles: one puts in capital, another runs the operation.
What often goes unexplained at the outset, and is the most important part: the partner who runs the business is liable to the full extent of their personal assets. A CV is not a legal entity, so there is no wall between business assets and the active partner's own. The partner who only contributes capital is limited to that capital — as long as they genuinely stay out of management. The moment they take part in running it, that protection is gone.
CVs remain widely used because certain government procurement categories and family businesses favour them, and setting one up is lighter than a PT.
An ordinary PT is for two or more parties, individuals or Indonesian legal entities, who need full limited liability, want to bid for tenders or corporate contracts, or need a structure that can take on new shareholders.
This is the form third parties most often ask for. If your plan for the next two years contains the words "investor", "tender" or "expansion", starting here is usually cheaper than converting later.
| PT Perorangan | CV | PT | PT PMA | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Foreign owner | No | No | No | Yes |
| Founders | 1 | ≥2 | ≥2 | ≥2 |
| Legal entity | Yes | No | Yes | Yes |
| Personal assets protected | Yes | Active partner: no | Yes | Yes |
| Can take new shareholders | No | Limited | Yes | Yes |
| Notarial deed | Not needed | Needed | Needed | Needed |
| Business-scale ceiling | Micro & small | None | None | Minimum capital applies |
Not choosing the wrong form — that can be changed, at a cost. The expensive one is choosing a form you were never allowed to use, then running a business on it for years. That happens when a foreign owner is registered through someone else's name, and it only surfaces when the company is sold, when there is a falling-out, or when there is an inspection.
Converting an entity is ordinary work. Unwinding a structure that was void from the beginning is not.
The entity type decides liability and ownership. It does not decide whether you may carry on the activity. That is decided by your business classification code and the licences attached to it — and in Bali, that code also decides whether your new PMA registration will be accepted by the system at all.
Two decisions, two different orders of priority, and the second one is routinely left too late.
Related service
Badan hukum dengan satu pemilik, tanpa akta notaris — didaftarkan elektronik, lalu dilanjutkan sampai NPWP dan NIB.
See the serviceWritten 2026-08-03. Rules change — if you are reading this long after that date, confirm before you act on it.