Egypt Statutory default interest (فوائد التأخير)
Egypt Statutory default interest (فوائد التأخير) is 5 percent, in force since 15 Oct 1949. Last checked against the official source on 11 Aug 2026.
Egypt's statutory delay interest under Civil Code arts. 226-227: 5% for commercial obligations (served headline) and 4% for civil obligations, running from the JUDICIAL CLAIM, with a 7% cap on agreed interest.
Compare statutory interest rate across all 34 African countries →
| Current value | 5 percent |
|---|---|
| In force from | 1949-10-15 |
| Official source | القانون المدني المصري الصادر بالقانون رقم 131 لسنة 1948، المادة 226 — Egyptian Civil Code (Law No. 131 of 1948), art. 226: "كان ملزماً بأن يدفع للدائن على سبيل التعويض عن التأخر فوائد قدرها أربعة في المائة في المسائل المدنية وخمسة في المائة في المسائل التجارية" ("he shall be bound to pay the creditor, by way of compensation for the delay, interest at the rate of four percent in civil matters and five percent in commercial matters"), such interest running "من تاريخ المطالبة القضائية بها" (from the date of the judicial claim) unless agreement or commercial custom fixes another date; art. 227(1) requires any agreed rate above seven percent to be reduced to "سبعة في المائة" and the excess repaid. Full statute text as promulgated in الوقائع المصرية (Al-Waqa'i' al-Misriyya) issue No. 108 bis (A) of 29 July 1948, published on the Egyptian Tax Authority (مصلحة الضرائب المصرية) government site. |
| Last verified | 2026-08-11 |
| Verification | secondary — Corroborated, but the primary instrument was NOT read (usually the publishing host blocks automated access). The cited PDF is the complete, verified text of Law No. 131 of 1948 hosted on an Egyptian government domain (eta.gov.eg), but it is a republication rather than the issuing authority's own record, so confidence remains secondary. Egypt's authoritative free-access publication of the Civil Code could not be reached: the Cabinet Information and Decision Support Centre's legal portal (elpai.idsc.gov.eg, البوابة القانونية للتشريعات المصرية) and the Court of Cassation's legislation database (cc.gov.eg/legislations) both redirect to a paid subscription notice; the Egyptian Government Portal's laws page (egypt.gov.eg/arabic/laws) resets the connection; the Ministry of Justice portal (moj.gov.eg) exposes no legislation texts; and the 1948 Official Gazette issue itself (الوقائع المصرية عدد 108 مكرر (أ)، 29 يوليو 1948) is not published online. The previous citation pointed at WIPO's copy of Law No. 17 of 1999 (the Commercial Code), which is both a foreign mirror and the wrong instrument — it contains no 5% figure. |
| Provenance | source fingerprint |
What this value means
Fixed statutory percentages unchanged since the Civil Code took effect on 15 October 1949, and upheld by the Supreme Constitutional Court against a 1985 riba challenge. THE DEFINING TRAP: interest runs from the JUDICIAL CLAIM (filing), not from the due date — materially different from EU-style late-payment regimes, and the single biggest computational error an engine can make here. Art. 227 caps AGREED interest at 7%. For commercial LOANS specifically, Trade Law (Law 17/1999) art. 50 substitutes the Central Bank of Egypt rate unless otherwise agreed — that provision covers loans, and courts otherwise apply the 5% Civil Code rate to commercial debts; do not serve the CBE rate as the general commercial mora rate. Banks and CBE-regulated credit sit outside the caps under the Banking Law. The 5% served here is the commercial-matters rate under article 226 of the Civil Code; the rate in civil matters is 4%, the distinction turning on whether the debtor is a merchant. Article 227 voids any agreed rate above 7%, requiring reduction to 7% and repayment of the excess. Separately, for loans and advances made by traders in the course of their commercial business under the Commercial Code (Law No. 17 of 1999), article 50 applies the rate declared by the Central Bank of Egypt rather than the Civil Code figure, and article 64 caps the total interest a creditor may recover at the amount of the principal.
Get it programmatically
curl https://afriref.dev/v1/eg/statutory-interest
# $0.005 per call — x402 on Base (USDC). No key, no signup.
# History: curl https://afriref.dev/v1/eg/statutory-interest/history?from=2020-01-01
# Provenance: curl https://afriref.dev/provenance/eg/statutory-interestOther Egypt series: Central Bank of Egypt overnight deposit rate · VAT standard rate · VAT registration threshold · Private-sector minimum wage · Public holidays · CPI inflation (year-on-year) · Corporate income tax rate · Withholding tax rates · Personal income tax brackets · Statutory social-insurance contributions · CBE official exchange rates (buy/sell)
The same figure elsewhere: Equatorial Guinea · Eswatini · Ethiopia · Gabon · Ghana · all 34