NUSANTARA, Indonesia — Indonesia’s government on Saturday ordered about 12,000 civil servants from 14 ministries to relocate to Nusantara, the new capital rising out of the forests of East Kalimantan, by the end of March, the largest single transfer since the project began and a sign of growing impatience with a city that remains largely empty two years after its ceremonial inauguration.
The order, signed by the minister for administrative reform, Hendra Wijaya Kusuma, covers staff from the ministries of finance, public works, transport and health, among others. Officials who refuse will face reassignment or dismissal, according to the decree, though those with school-age children will be allowed to delay until July. Each relocating employee will receive a housing allowance and a one-time payment of 25 million rupiah, about $1,550.
“The capital of the Republic of Indonesia is Nusantara,” Mr. Kusuma said at a news conference held in a newly completed ministry tower whose upper floors were still wrapped in scaffolding. “A capital without its government is an exhibition. That ends this year.”
Nusantara was conceived as a 256,000-hectare planned city that would relieve Jakarta, a sinking, flood-prone megacity of more than 10 million, and shift the country’s center of gravity away from Java. The government has spent about 90 trillion rupiah, roughly $5.6 billion, so far, and expects private investors to fund the bulk of a total cost once estimated at $33 billion. Those investors have been slow to arrive. Officials say about 3,400 people currently live in the core government district, against a target of 500,000 by 2028.
Civil servants have resisted for familiar reasons. Nusantara has one hospital, two schools and no commercial airport; the nearest city, Balikpapan, is two hours away by road. “My wife is a doctor in Jakarta, my children are in school, my parents are old,” said a 41-year-old finance ministry official who asked not to be named because he feared disciplinary action. “They are asking me to choose between my career and my family, and they are giving me a housing allowance to make the choice easier.”
Supporters argue that every planned capital, from Brasília to Canberra, has gone through the same period of doubt. “Nobody wanted to move to Brasília in 1960 either,” said Dr. Siti Nurhaliza Rahman, an urban planner at the University of Indonesia. “The question is whether the state has the stamina to keep going for 20 years. So far, it does.”
On the city’s broad, mostly empty boulevards on Saturday, construction cranes outnumbered cars. A cafe owner, Agus Setiawan, 36, who moved from Surabaya last year, said he was ready for the newcomers. “Twelve thousand people who have to eat lunch,” he said. “I have been waiting for them.”
A version of this article appears in print on Oct. 11, 2026, Section A, Page 12 of the European edition with the headline: Indonesia Orders 12,000 Civil Servants to Move to Its Unfinished New Capital by March.
