Gadai Emas Lets You Borrow Against Your Gold Instead of Selling It. Here's the Real Cost
6 min read
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6 min read
You need cash this month, but you do not want to give up the gold you have been holding for years. That is exactly the gap gadai emas, gold pawning, is built for. You hand your gold to Pegadaian, Indonesia's state-owned pawn company, and it hands you a loan against it. Pay the loan back, and you get the same gold back. Do not, and Pegadaian sells it to recover what it lent you.
That sounds simple, and it is, but the actual cost is not the "0% interest" line you sometimes see in ads. It comes from two separate numbers: how much of your gold's value you can actually borrow, and a recurring fee called sewa modal that runs the whole time your gold sits in the vault. Here is what both numbers actually are, with a worked example, so you can compare gadai emas against simply selling before you need the answer under pressure.
Gadai emas is a secured loan. Your gold is the collateral, not something you are selling. Pegadaian first appraises it (this appraisal is called the taksiran), then lends you a percentage of that appraised value, not the full amount. You keep a pawn ticket, called a Surat Bukti Gadai (SBG), as your proof of ownership and your key to getting the gold back.
This is different from a bank loan in one important way: Pegadaian is not a bank, so the fee it charges is not legally called "bunga" (interest). It is called sewa modal, literally "rent on capital." The distinction matters for how the fee is calculated, which is not the same as a monthly interest rate.
Pegadaian does not lend you 100% of your gold's appraised value. It groups loans into four size tiers, called golongan, and each tier gets a different share:
| Golongan | Loan size | Share of appraised value |
|---|---|---|
| A | Rp50,000 to Rp500,000 | Around 95% |
| B | Rp500,000 to Rp5,000,000 | Roughly 92% |
| C | Rp5,000,000 to Rp20,000,000 | Roughly 92% |
| D | Above Rp20,000,000 | Roughly 91% to 93% |
Sources checked for this table (Pegadaian's own published articles, cross-referenced through Kompas and Viva) agree closely on Golongan A's 95% but do not fully agree on Golongan D's exact number, so treat "low 90s" as the honest answer for larger loans rather than a single decimal. The smaller your loan relative to your gold, in other words, the bigger the share of its value you actually walk away with in cash.
For Pegadaian's standard gadai emas product (called KCA), sewa modal runs from 1% to 1.2% of the loan amount, charged every 15 days, for a maximum tenor of 120 days (four months) per period. On top of that, a one-time administration fee applies at disbursement, ranging from roughly Rp2,000 to Rp125,000 depending on how big the loan is.
Do the annualizing yourself and that 1% to 1.2% per 15 days works out to roughly 24% to 29% a year, simple, not compounded. For comparison, Bank Indonesia's benchmark rate sat at 5.75% as of the August 2026 policy meeting. You can check the current BI rate and broader rupiah conditions any time. Gadai emas is priced nowhere near that rate, because it is not competing with a mortgage. It is competing with the alternative of not having cash at all this week, or selling an asset you would rather keep.
If you cannot repay within 120 days, you are not stuck. You can extend (perpanjang) by paying the sewa modal owed for the period plus the admin fee again, and the clock resets for another 120 days. Only if you neither repay nor extend does Pegadaian move to auction (lelang) your gold to recover the loan, and by law it returns any amount the sale raises above what you owed.
Antam's retail gold price closed at Rp2,723,000 per gram on 27 August 2026, with a buyback price of Rp2,583,000 per gram the same day. Pegadaian sets its own daily gold reference for appraisal, which tracks the market closely but is not always identical to Antam's retail quote, so this example uses Antam's price as a reasonable stand-in.
Ten grams of gold, then, is worth about Rp27,230,000 at retail. That loan size falls into Golongan D, so at roughly 92% of appraised value, you can borrow about Rp25,000,000.
| Item | Amount |
|---|---|
| Loan received | ~Rp25,000,000 |
| Sewa modal per 15 days (1% to 1.2%) | Rp250,000 to Rp300,000 |
| Sewa modal over full 120-day tenor | Rp2,000,000 to Rp2,400,000 |
| Admin fee (one time) | Up to Rp125,000 |
| Total cost to reclaim your gold after 120 days | Roughly Rp2.0 million to Rp2.5 million |
That is about 8% to 10% of the loan amount to get your gold back after four months, on top of repaying the Rp25,000,000 itself.
Selling the same 10 grams at Antam's buyback price gets you Rp25,830,000, once, permanently. That is more cash upfront than the pawn loan, and with no fee ticking in the background. But the gold is gone.
Either way, the choice depends on a number you have to check yourself: what your gold is actually worth today, and what it costs to walk away from for a few months.
If gold sits in your portfolio alongside stocks or crypto, decisions like this one are easier when you can see its current value next to everything else you own, rather than guessing from memory. NetWort tracks gold as its own holding type, updated against live prices, so you can check what a piece is actually worth right now before deciding whether to pawn it, sell it, or leave it alone. Open your Holdings page to see where your gold stands today.