From October 2026, Indonesia will require halal certification for imported food and cosmetics — turning what was once a marketing option into a hard market-entry requirement for Korean beauty brands selling into the world’s largest Muslim-majority market.
Korea’s Ministry of Trade and Industry and KOTRA held an online briefing on July 21 for around 150 small and mid-sized exporters to Indonesia and Malaysia, walking them through both countries’ halal certification systems and how to comply before the deadline.
The practical takeaway: Korean companies do not need to certify overseas. Under mutual recognition agreements, certificates issued by Korean bodies — including the Korea Muslim Federation (KMF) and Korea Halal Authority (KHA), with six institutions recognized for Indonesia — are accepted as equivalent to local certification. Certification costs can also be subsidized through the government’s export voucher program.
Why it matters
K-beauty is now the world’s No. 2 cosmetics exporter, and Southeast Asia is one of its fastest-growing markets. Brands that treat the October deadline as someone else’s problem risk being locked out of Indonesian distribution overnight; brands that certify early get a de facto passport to halal markets well beyond Indonesia — the Gulf states apply similar standards. The briefing signals that Seoul intends to clear the paperwork path for its exporters rather than leave them to navigate it alone.
Source: Ministry of Trade and Industry press release (Korean), July 21, 2026, via korea.kr (KOGL Type 1). This article was produced with AI assistance and reviewed by a human editor.