A Ruko (Shophouse) Can Yield More Than a House. It Can Also Sit Empty for a Year. Here's the Math
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6 min read
A ruko costs Rp1,000,000,000. The agent says it rents for 8% a year. That is Rp80,000,000. Nice.
Then the tenant leaves. Two months pass with no rent. The tax office wants 10% of what you did collect. The roof needs fixing. What is left?
This article works out a ruko investment in Indonesia step by step, in rupiah. A ruko (rumah toko) is a shophouse: a shop on the ground floor with space above. All numbers are shown so you can swap in your own.
Everything here is education, not advice to buy anything. Data was checked on 8 October 2026.
Rental yield is the rent you collect in a year, divided by the price you paid. Gross yield means before any cost. Net yield means after costs.
Property consultant Panangian, quoted by Kumparan, said a house yielding 3% to 5% a year is already good, while a ruko sits around 8% to 10%. These are gross figures, not what you keep. We read this through a search summary, not the full article.
We looked for a published vacancy rate or yield survey for ruko specifically. We found none. Consultants such as Colliers and JLL publish data for malls and offices, not shophouses. So the vacancy gap below is our own illustration. It is not a market statistic.
For houses, see our rent vs buy article.
A house can often find a tenant fast. A ruko needs a business that wants that exact street and that exact size. Finding one can take a while.
Colliers made a related point about Jakarta retail in 2026, as summarised by Real Estate Asia: prime malls kept high occupancy, while secondary centres leased more slowly. That is about malls, not ruko. But the idea carries over. Location quality decides how long a space sits empty.
So the question is not "what does the ruko yield when rented?" It is "what does it yield over a whole year, empty months included?"
Rent from a ruko is taxed. The rule is Government Regulation 34 of 2017. The income tax is a final tax of 10% of gross rent, per the tax office's own pages at pajak.go.id.
Three details matter:
The kos (boarding house) exception does not cover a ruko. For that case, see our kos-kosan yield article.
The price and the 8% gross yield are the low end of the range quoted above. Costs are NetWort's illustrations, not market averages. Change them to match a real listing.
Ruko price: Rp1,000,000,000. Gross rent for a full year: Rp80,000,000.
| Per year | Full year rented | 2 months empty | 6 months empty | Empty all year |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rent collected | Rp80,000,000 | Rp66,667,000 | Rp40,000,000 | Rp0 |
| Income tax (10% of rent) | -Rp8,000,000 | -Rp6,667,000 | -Rp4,000,000 | Rp0 |
| Property tax (PBB, assumed) | -Rp3,000,000 | -Rp3,000,000 | -Rp3,000,000 | -Rp3,000,000 |
| Repairs (1% of price, assumed) | -Rp10,000,000 | -Rp10,000,000 | -Rp10,000,000 | -Rp10,000,000 |
| Net, before other costs | Rp59,000,000 | Rp47,000,000 | Rp23,000,000 | -Rp13,000,000 |
| Net yield | 5.9% | 4.7% | 2.3% | -1.3% |
An 8% headline became 5.9% with no empty months at all. Two empty months took it to 4.7%. A full empty year turned it negative, because PBB and repairs keep coming.
PBB is the annual land and building tax. It is set by your local government, so Rp3,000,000 is only a placeholder. The same goes for the repair rate.
Small changes move the result a lot. Here are the ones to test.
The gross yield you pay for. If the real rent is 6% and not 8%, every number above falls. Ask for the signed lease, not the listing.
Lease length. A ruko is often leased for a year or more, sometimes paid upfront. A longer lease lowers the empty-month risk. It also locks in today's rent.
The tenant's business. One tenant means all your rent depends on one business. If it fails, rent goes to zero at once.
Your buying costs. The buyer pays BPHTB, a land and building transfer tax capped at 5% and set by each region, per the tax office's guide at pajak.go.id. It reduces what you earn in the early years. Check your region's rate and its tax-free threshold with a notary. We did not find a single national figure.
Land title. Most ruko sit on HGB, a right to build that expires. See our land certificate guide for how it differs from SHM.
Do not treat 4.7% as a forecast. It is one scenario built on assumed costs.
Use it as a method. Take any ruko listing. Cut the headline yield by the tax first. Then subtract your own PBB and repair numbers. Then ask how many empty months you could afford.
Finally, compare the net number with a safer option. The NetWort macro page shows the current BI rate and bond yields. A ruko must beat those by enough to cover its extra risk.
Once you have a net number, look at it in context. Open Holdings in NetWort and add the ruko as a Real Estate asset. Enter your own value and the rent you really collect. You will see how much of your wealth sits in one building and one tenant.