Namibia Prescribed rate of interest (mora interest)
Namibia Prescribed rate of interest (mora interest) is 20 percent, in force since 21 Mar 1990. Last checked against the official source on 10 Aug 2026.
Namibia's statutory default interest: a flat 20% per annum prescribed under section 1(2) of the Prescribed Rate of Interest Act 55 of 1975, applying to any debt whose interest rate is not fixed by agreement, other law or trade custom, and to judgment debts.
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| Current value | 20 percent |
|---|---|
| In force from | 1990-03-21 |
| Official source | Prescribed Rate of Interest Act 55 of 1975 s 1(1): 'If a debt bears interest and the rate at which the interest is to be calculated is not governed by any other law or by an agreement or a trade custom or in any other manner, such interest shall be calculated at the rate prescribed under subsection (2) as at the time when such interest begins to run, unless a court of law, on the ground of special circumstances relating to that debt, orders otherwise'; High Court of Namibia, Green Consulting Engineers CC t/a Emcon Consulting Group v Minister of Works and Transport [2023] NAHCMD 342, order of 19 March 2021: 'the interest is paid at the prescribed rate of interest which is currently 20% per annum' |
| Last verified | 2026-08-10 |
| Verification | primary — No verification limitation recorded — read from the official source cited. |
| Provenance | source fingerprint |
What this value means
One rate for all money debts, civil and commercial: 20% per annum. It applies wherever the parties did not agree a rate and no other law or trade custom fixes one (s 1(1)), and to judgment debts from the day they become payable (s 2(1)). The Namibian High Court has held that mora interest — compensation for late payment of a money debt, owed at common law even without a contractual interest clause — can only be claimed at this prescribed rate (Green Consulting Engineers, paras 19(f) and 21). A court may order a different rate on the ground of special circumstances relating to the debt (s 1(1)), and a judgment or order may provide otherwise (s 2(1)). TRAP — DO NOT USE SOUTH AFRICA'S RATE: the same Act number applies in both countries, but Namibia's text is the pre-independence version and has never been amended, so the repo-linked formula South Africa adopted in 2015 (repo + 3.5%, currently 10.25%) has NO application in Namibia. South African prescribed-rate notices bind only South Africa. SECOND TRAP: the rate is set by ministerial notice in the Gazette (s 1(2), after consultation with the Minister of Finance) and is not indexed to the Bank of Namibia repo rate — it does not move when monetary policy moves. The prescription in force is the one continued in Namibian law at independence under Article 140(1) of the Constitution; the Legal Assistance Centre's annotated statute records no post-independence Namibian notice replacing it, and the 20% has stood unchanged in Namibian court practice for over three decades. Interest is simple, not compound, unless compounding is agreed. Retrieval note: namiblii.org is behind a bot check that blocks automated fetchers; the Legal Assistance Centre mirror (lac.org.na/laws/annoSTAT) serves the annotated Act text directly.
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curl https://afriref.dev/v1/na/statutory-interest
# $0.005 per call — x402 on Base (USDC). No key, no signup.
# History: curl https://afriref.dev/v1/na/statutory-interest/history?from=2020-01-01
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The same figure elsewhere: Niger · Nigeria · Republic of the Congo · Rwanda · Senegal · all 34