Health Quarantine Technical Unit Restructuring: PERMENKES 8/2026

Indonesia's Minister of Health has amended the organisational rules governing the field offices that screen travellers and cargo at the country's borders. The instrument is Peraturan Menteri Kesehatan Nomor 8 Tahun 2026 tentang Perubahan atas Peraturan Menteri Kesehatan Nomor 10 Tahun 2023 tentang Organisasi dan Tata Kerja Unit Pelaksana Teknis Bidang Kekarantinaan Kesehatan (Regulation of the Minister of Health Number 8 of 2026 on the Amendment to Regulation of the Minister of Health Number 10 of 2023 concerning the Organisation and Work Procedure of Technical Implementation Units in the Field of Health Quarantine). It rewrites selected articles of the 2023 parent regulation rather than replacing it, and its seventeen articles carry changes to internal structure, to the status of port-level work areas, and to the staffing categories used inside those offices.

Issue

The regulation addresses how the Ministry of Health organises its health quarantine apparatus at points of entry. Pasal 1 retains the definitional architecture of the parent regulation. A Technical Implementation Unit, abbreviated UPT, is defined as an independent work unit carrying out particular technical operational or technical supporting duties on behalf of its parent organisation. A UPT in the field of health quarantine is one that works to prevent and repel the exit or entry of disease and public health risk factors within the working areas of seaports, airports, and cross-border land posts. The same article defines the Work Area, abbreviated Wilker, as a functional work unit of the health quarantine UPT located at those ports, airports, and land border posts, and identifies the Director General as the senior official within the Ministry of Health responsible for disease control matters.

Key Provisions

The amendment reworks the internal composition of the units. Pasal 4 is changed so that the element referred to in paragraph (1) letter d consists of a head and of functional positions and executing positions; the article's former paragraph (2) is deleted outright. Pasal 8 is likewise amended, and the title of Chapter VII is changed to read "Functional Positions and Executing Positions", replacing the earlier chapter heading.

Pasal 15 sets out the standing of the Wilker. It provides that a Work Area is a functional work unit positioned under, and responsible to, the Head of the health quarantine UPT. The Work Area is led by a coordinator, and the article states expressly that this coordinator holds a non-structural position. In discharging those duties the coordinator is assisted by a group of functional position holders. Appointment and dismissal of the coordinator rests with the Head of the health quarantine UPT, but only after obtaining the approval of the Director General — a two-step arrangement that keeps central oversight over field-level leadership appointments.

Pasal 16 governs staffing. Functional positions and executing positions within a health quarantine UPT are to be established according to need and in accordance with statutory provisions. Functional position holders are tasked with providing functional services in support of the unit's duties and functions, matched to their field of expertise and skill. Executing position holders are tasked with carrying out public service activities together with governmental administration and development work. Paragraph (4) requires that, in performing the duties described in paragraphs (2) and (3), groups of functional positions and groups of executing positions be formed on the basis of job families in line with statutory provisions. Pasal 17 is also amended.

Implications

For the port, airport, and land-border offices concerned, the changes bear on reporting lines and on how personnel are classified. The explicit designation of the Work Area coordinator as a non-structural post, together with the Director General's approval requirement in Pasal 15, places field leadership outside the structural hierarchy while retaining ministerial control over who occupies it. The deletion of Pasal 4 paragraph (2) and the renamed Chapter VII move the units further toward a two-track staffing model built on functional and executing positions rather than layered structural offices, with job families under Pasal 16 supplying the grouping mechanism. Operational quarantine duties themselves — the screening and containment work described in the Pasal 1 definitions — are unchanged by the amendment.

Regulatory Context

The regulation sits within a series of health sector instruments issued by the ministry during 2026, alongside measures such as other ministerial regulations from the same year and further health sector rules issued in the same period. Because it takes the form of an amendment, the 2023 parent regulation remains the operative text for all provisions left untouched, and the two must be read together to establish the current organisational rules for health quarantine units.

Read the full regulation in the CRPG Law Database.

Methodology: This memo summarises the official regulation text and is not legal advice; report corrections to contact@crpg.info.

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