afriref › Countries › Mozambique › Commercial legal interest rate (taxa de juro comercial)

Mozambique Commercial legal interest rate (taxa de juro comercial)

Mozambique Commercial legal interest rate (taxa de juro comercial) is 15.5 percent, in force since 1 Aug 2026. Last checked against the official source on 10 Aug 2026.

Mozambique's statutory interest on commercial obligations: the Prime Rate do Sistema Financeiro Moçambicano, fixed monthly by the Banco de Moçambique with the Mozambican Banking Association — 15.50% for August 2026, with a further two percentage points added on default.

Compare statutory interest rate across all 34 African countries →

Current value15.5 percent
In force from2026-08-01
Official sourceDecreto-Lei n.º 3/2022, de 25 de Maio (Regime Jurídico dos Contratos Comerciais): the commercial interest rate is the legal interest rate save written stipulation to the contrary, referenced to the Prime Rate do Sistema Financeiro Moçambicano, and on default by the debtor in commercial credit a surcharge of two percentage points is added; Banco de Moçambique / Associação Moçambicana de Bancos, Prime Rate do Sistema Financeiro Moçambicano, Comunicado n.º 06/2026: 'a Prime Rate do Sistema Financeiro Moçambicano é a taxa única de referência para as operações de crédito de taxa de juro variável e resulta da soma do Indexante Único e do Prémio de Custo' — Indexante Único 9,30% + Prémio de Custo 6,20% = 15,50%, held at 15,50% for August 2026
Last verified2026-08-10
Verificationsecondary — Corroborated, but the primary instrument was NOT read (usually the publishing host blocks automated access).
The August 2026 Prime Rate is carried forward from the Banco de Moçambique / AMB communiqué for July 2026 plus press reporting that it was held at 15.50% for August; the August communiqué itself was not read (the Banco de Moçambique news index renders only under JavaScript). The Regime Jurídico dos Contratos Comerciais provisions on the commercial rate and the two-point default surcharge are taken from Mozambican practitioner sources, not read from the Boletim da República text of Decreto-Lei n.º 3/2022.
Provenancesource fingerprint

What this value means

Mozambique fixes its commercial legal interest by reference to a MONTHLY published rate, not by a statute-fixed percentage. The Prime Rate is the sum of the Indexante Único — the volume-weighted average overnight interbank rate computed by the Banco de Moçambique from the 26th of one month to the 25th of the next, including operations at the MIMO policy rate (9.25%) — and the Prémio de Custo, a risk margin recomputed QUARTERLY by the Mozambican Banking Association from the sovereign rating, the non-performing loan ratio, the recovered-credit ratio and the local-currency reserve coefficient. For August 2026 it is 15.50% (9.30% + 6.20%). NEXT FIXING: for September 2026, announced by communiqué at the end of August; the rate is restated every month even when unchanged. DEFAULT SURCHARGE: on a commercial credit in default, two percentage points are added to the rate — 17.50% on the August 2026 base. Parties may agree a different default surcharge but never more than two points. CONSUMER CEILING: article 21 of the Consumer Protection Law (Lei n.º 22/2009, de 28 de Setembro) caps default penalties at 2% of the value of the payment; the Tribunal Supremo held in Acórdão proc. 95/2025-C (1ª Secção Cível) that this ceiling, read with article 38 of the Code of Conduct approved by Aviso n.º 8/GBM/2021 of the Banco de Moçambique, is IMPERATIVE — a contractual default rate of 4% was reduced to 2% and the excess treated as over-execution in enforcement proceedings. CIVIL (NON-COMMERCIAL) OBLIGATIONS are a different question: article 559 of the Código Civil leaves the legal rate to a joint portaria of the Ministers of Justice, Finance and Planning, and an agreed rate above it must be in writing or only legal interest is due. TRAP: the Prime Rate is NOT the MIMO policy rate — quoting MIMO (9.25%) as Mozambique's legal commercial rate understates it by more than six points.

Get it programmatically

curl https://afriref.dev/v1/mz/statutory-interest
# $0.005 per call — x402 on Base (USDC). No key, no signup.
# History:    curl https://afriref.dev/v1/mz/statutory-interest/history?from=2020-01-01
# Provenance: curl https://afriref.dev/provenance/mz/statutory-interest

Other Mozambique series: MIMO rate (Taxa de Juro de Política Monetária) · IVA standard rate · VAT registration threshold · Sectoral minimum wages (salários mínimos por sector) · Public holidays · CPI inflation (year-on-year) · IRPC standard rate · Withholding tax rates · IRPS progressive rate schedule · Statutory social-insurance contributions

The same figure elsewhere: Namibia · Niger · Nigeria · Republic of the Congo · Rwanda · all 34