Koperasi
Cooperative · Legal entities · 5,062 companies in our corpus
A legal entity owned by its own members, which shares its surplus according to how much each member used it — not according to how much they put in.
At a glance
- Legal status
- Legal entity
- Founders
- At least 9 people for a primary cooperative
- Capital
- Members’ principal and compulsory savings; no general minimum
- Liability
- Limited to the member’s savings unless the articles say otherwise
- Organs
- Members’ meeting, management board, supervisory board
- Registration
- Cooperative notary’s deed, then approval by the Ministry of Cooperatives and SMEs
What it means
- What separates a cooperative from a company is not its legal form but its voting rule: one member, one vote at the members’ meeting, however large their savings.
- The surplus is distributed in proportion to each member’s transactions with the cooperative, so the customers and the owners are the same people.
- The members’ meeting holds the highest authority; a management board runs it and a supervisory board watches it.
- Capital comes from members’ compulsory and principal savings, not from tradable shares.
How to set one up
- Gather the founding members — at least nine for a primary cooperative — and hold a founding meeting that adopts the articles.
- Have the deed of establishment drawn up by a notary licensed for cooperative deeds.
- Apply for legal-entity approval from the Ministry of Cooperatives and SMEs through its own filing system.
- Once approval is issued, obtain the tax number and the NIB in OSS; a savings-and-loan cooperative needs a separate licence.
What it obliges you to do
- An annual members’ meeting must be held for every book year, with the board’s report and the accounts put to the members.
- Periodic reports go to the supervising ministry; cooperatives in financial services are supervised more tightly still.
- Bookkeeping and corporate tax run as they do for any other entity; the surplus paid to members has its own treatment.
- Membership has to be real: a cooperative whose members exist only on paper has no legal basis for the way it distributes its surplus.
When to choose it
Choose a cooperative when the customers are genuinely the intended owners — a farmers’ or drivers’ group, a neighbourhood savings scheme, joint purchasing. If what you need is owners who put in capital and expect a proportionate dividend, that is a PT and not a cooperative.
Need help with the bookkeeping?
Bookkeeping and tax filing are obligations that run every year, not a task you finish when the business is registered.
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The rules this summarises
- Law 25/1992 on Cooperatives
- Government Regulation 7/2021 (minimum founders of a primary cooperative) and Law 4/2023 for financial-sector cooperatives
A summary of the rules in force, not legal advice. Rules and thresholds change — check with the relevant authority before you register.
Other business forms
Micro, small, medium, large: the rupiah thresholds and what changes in each class.