QRIS for Small Businesses: Registration, MDR Fees, Settlement
Getting QRIS from zero: choosing a payment provider, the documents you need, understanding MDR fees, settlement timing, and daily reconciliation habits.
“Do you take QRIS?” If your shop hears that question more and more often and the answer is still “bank transfer, please”, this guide is for you. A growing share of Indonesian buyers — especially younger ones — leave home without a wallet at all. Street-side coffee stalls and vegetable carts now display QR codes; the shops that do not are slowly losing the customers whose money lives in their phones.
Signing up for QRIS is neither hard nor expensive. What stops most owners is not knowing where to start, how much gets deducted, and when the money actually lands. Let’s settle all three.
One standard, many doors in
First thing to understand: QRIS is Indonesia’s national QR standard, set by Bank Indonesia. You display one QR code, and buyers can pay from any app — GoPay, OVO, DANA, ShopeePay, or any mobile banking app. No need to register with each wallet separately.
What you choose is not “which QRIS” but which door: the PJP, or payment service provider. It can be a bank (BCA, BRI, Mandiri, BNI, and others), a non-bank provider like GoPay Merchant or DANA Bisnis, or a payment gateway like Midtrans or Xendit. The QR is QRIS either way; what differs is the merchant dashboard, settlement speed, and how well it integrates with your point of sale.
The short version: for a small shop with simple transactions, registering through the bank that holds your business account is usually the most practical — the money settles into the same account. If you use a POS app or run an online store, a payment gateway is more attractive because payment status can flow into your system automatically; we covered that flow in dynamic QRIS at the register.
Documents to prepare
For a sole proprietor, you typically need: national ID (KTP), a bank account in your own name, photos of your premises and products, and a tax number if you have one. Registered companies add the deed, business registration number (NIB), and company tax ID. The process is almost entirely online now — upload documents, wait a few working days for verification, then receive your NMID (national merchant ID) and a printable QR.
Check two things when the QR arrives: the merchant name buyers see when they scan must be right (people abandon payments to unfamiliar names), and keep the original QR file somewhere safe so you can reprint it when the one on the counter gets shabby.
MDR: the fee you must account for
Every QRIS transaction carries an MDR (merchant discount rate) — a fee shared among the parties processing the payment. Under Bank Indonesia rules current at the time of writing: micro-merchants pay 0 percent on transactions up to Rp100,000 and 0.3 percent above that; regular merchants pay 0.7 percent. These rates have changed before and may change again, so confirm the current figures with your provider when you register.
In practice: a buyer pays Rp150,000, and Rp149,550 lands in your account at the 0.3 percent rate. Small, but not ignorable — record MDR as a business expense in your books, and if your margins are thin, factor it into pricing. One thing that is explicitly prohibited: passing the MDR on to buyers as a surcharge. The rule is clear, and buyers who know it will report you.
Settlement: when the money actually arrives
QRIS money does not land the second the buyer pays. Most providers settle on the next working day — Monday’s sales arrive Tuesday. Friday-evening through Sunday transactions usually land on Monday. Some providers offer faster or even real-time settlement for an extra fee.
This matters for cash flow. If your morning stock purchases have always relied on yesterday’s cash takings, moving to QRIS introduces a one-day gap you need to plan around — especially over busy weekends. Not a big problem, as long as it is not a surprise.
Reconciliation: five minutes every night
The habit that separates tidy shops from ones with chronic discrepancies: at closing time, compare the QRIS total in your sales records against the total in the provider’s dashboard. The two must match. When they do not, look for the usual suspects — a buyer who scanned but never paid, a double scan, or a QRIS sale the cashier accidentally recorded as cash.
A discrepancy found the same night is easy to trace. One discovered at month-end is nearly impossible. A POS that records the payment method on every transaction turns this ritual into comparing two numbers — Tenavora’s daily report splits cash, QRIS, and card totals for exactly this purpose.
Start simple: register this week through your bank or preferred provider, put the QR on the counter, and build the nightly reconciliation habit. A month in, you will wonder why you waited this long.