Last reviewed: August 2026  |  Covers what an SLF is, validity periods, renewal, cost, and what happens when one lapses.

What Is an SLF Certificate and How Do You Get One?

The SLF, Sertifikat Laik Fungsi, is the certificate saying your building is fit to be used. The PBG approves your design before you build. The SLF confirms what you actually built is safe to occupy.

Two facts up front, because both surprise people:

• The SLF is free. Article 276(3) of PP 16/2021 says the SLF and the SBKBG are issued without any charge. So are renewals.
• It expires. Twenty years for a house. Five years for everything else, including any villa operated commercially.

Where it sits in the sequence

Spatial conformity (KKPR), then PBG, then construction, then inspection, then a commissioning test, then a fitness statement from your supervising consultant, then the SLF and SBKBG.

There is one exception. Where a building is already standing and has no PBG at all, the PBG and SLF are issued at the same time under Article 262(4). That is the route for regularising an existing unpermitted building, and it is the only way to bring one back into compliance.

Article 274(2) is unambiguous: the SLF must be obtained before the building may be used. Not before you sell it, not before you insure it. Before you use it.

How long it lasts

"Everything else" is broader than it sounds. Hotels, restaurants, offices, shops, boarding houses and villas run commercially all sit in the five-year bucket. So do apartments and rumah susun, because although they are residential in function they are not "single detached or row houses" and therefore fall outside the twenty-year category.

What renewal actually costs

The certificate is free. The inspection behind it is not.

Renewal is preceded by a fitness-for-function inspection (Article 297(3)), carried out by a certified pengkaji teknis (Article 298(1)), and the owner pays for it (Article 297(7)). For single and row houses the technical office may provide the inspection as assistance, and that assistance is chargeable (Article 298(8)).

So when a consultant quotes you for "SLF renewal", they are quoting for the assessment. The certificate at the end costs nothing.

If the building fails

Article 299 gives the assessor three possible recommendations: repair without renewing the PBG, renew the PBG without repair, or renew the PBG with repair. You get up to five years to comply.

Where repair plus PBG renewal is required, you can apply for a surat keterangan pemanfaatan sementara, a temporary-use letter valid only for the estimated compliance period. It is not renewable.

What happens when an SLF lapses

Article 302(1): if both the SLF and any temporary-use letter expire, the SBKBG becomes invalid and municipal utility services are cut off until a new SLF is obtained. Water and power. That is the sharpest consequence in the whole building regulation, and it is why letting an SLF quietly expire on a commercial property is a serious operational risk rather than a filing oversight.

In a building with multiple owners, the appointed building manager carries responsibility for renewal (Article 294(2)). If you own a unit in a managed building, confirm someone is actually doing this.

How the certificate is issued

Once the fitness statement is uploaded to SIMBG, the timelines are short:

That last row is useful and underused. If the technical office does not turn up within three working days of being notified, Article 265(5) lets the applicant carry on. You are not obliged to wait indefinitely.

The SLF comes as three things: the certificate document, its annexes, and a physical SLF label for the building.

Villas, boarding houses and function

The elucidation of Article 5 places hotels, guesthouses, hostels, motels, boarding houses and condotels in the business function. Residential function covers only single houses, row houses and apartments.

Building function follows the prioritised activity carried on in it. A villa you live in is residential, so its SLF runs twenty years. A villa let nightly is being used for profit, which points to the business function, and Article 11(2) then obliges the owner to apply for a PBG perubahan. Its SLF validity drops to five years, and the PBG retribution multiplies because the function index rises.

To be straight about it: no article states in terms that a rented villa is a business building. It follows from reading the function provisions together, and technical offices differ in how strictly they apply it. Ask yours rather than assuming either way.

Article 293(4) is worth knowing too. The owner is liable for building failure that results from using the building inconsistently with the function stated in its PBG.

Existing buildings with no permit

Article 346(3) is the route back. A building already standing without a PBG must process an SLF in order to obtain a PBG, and under Article 262(4) both issue together.

In practice that means engaging a certified technical assessor to inspect and document the building as built, then applying through SIMBG. It is more work than permitting a new build, because you are reverse-engineering the documentation, but it is a defined route and it exists precisely for this situation.

Enforcement in Bali

Failure to obtain an SLF before use is one of the breaches listed in Article 327, with sanctions running from written warning through restriction and suspension to demolition approval.

Badung's enforcement record for 2025: 194 building violations, 110 of them in Kuta Utara, with 35 businesses sealed. The categories cited were hotels, villas, boarding houses, restaurants and padel courts. Fifteen were released once permits were issued, which is the useful detail. Regularising works.

Common questions

What is an SLF certificate?

A Sertifikat Laik Fungsi is a certificate issued by the regency or city government stating that a building is fit to be used. It comes after construction, and under Article 274(2) of PP 16/2021 it must be obtained before the building is used.

How long is an SLF valid?

Twenty years for single detached and row houses, five years for all other buildings, under Article 297(2). Apartments and rumah susun fall in the five-year category despite being residential, because they are not single or row houses.

How much does an SLF cost?

The certificate itself is free under Article 276(3), including renewals. What you pay for is the fitness-for-function inspection by a certified technical assessor before renewal, which the owner bears under Article 297(7).

What happens if my SLF expires?

Under Article 302(1), once the SLF and any temporary-use letter have lapsed, the SBKBG becomes invalid and municipal utility services are cut off until a new SLF is obtained.

My building has no PBG at all. Can I still get an SLF?

Yes, and it is the required route. Article 346(3) says a building already standing without a PBG must process an SLF in order to obtain one, and Article 262(4) provides that the PBG and SLF are then issued simultaneously.

Does a private villa need an SLF?

Yes. Article 274(2) applies to all buildings before use, with no exemption for houses. A privately occupied villa gets a twenty-year SLF. One operated commercially falls into the five-year category.

If you are dealing with this now

The two situations we see most are a building in use with an SLF nobody renewed, and a building that was never permitted at all. Both are solvable, and neither improves by waiting, because the utility cut-off provision and the enforcement programme both operate on their own timetable.

See also our pages on what a PBG costs and applying through SIMBG. To have a specific building assessed, get in touch.

General information on Indonesian law as at August 2026, not legal advice. Building regulation is applied locally and practice varies between regencies. Confirm your position before acting.

Sources

• PP No. 16/2021: Articles 4, 5, 11, 253, 262, 265, 272, 274, 276, 277, 293, 294, 297, 298, 299, 301, 302, 327, 346
• UU No. 28/2002 on Buildings, as amended by UU No. 6/2023
• PP No. 28/2025 on risk-based business licensing
• SE Dirjen Cipta Karya No. 33/SE/DC/2024 on technical standards