Eswatini Statutory late-payment interest
Eswatini Statutory late-payment interest: no single figure applies. The reason is set out below, cited to the governing instrument. Last checked against the official source on 10 Aug 2026.
Eswatini has no prescribed rate of interest statute: interest on an overdue money debt is claimed as mora interest at common law, and the courts work with a conventional 9% per annum where no rate was agreed.
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| Current value | structured — see the API |
|---|---|
| In force from | — |
| Official source | High Court of Eswatini, MHP Geomatics Swaziland (Pty) Ltd t/a Swaziland Surveys v Umbane (Pty) Limited (4236 of 2007) [2009] SZHC 186, paras [1]-[2]: the plaintiff claimed 'mora interest at 2% per month, compounded monthly'; 'At the onset of the hearing, Mr. Jele correctly conceded that an effective interest rate of 24% per year, compounded monthly, is excessive. He asked from the bar that the prayer for mora interest be amended to the effect that it shall be 9% per annum ... the amendment was granted' |
| Last verified | 2026-08-10 |
| Verification | secondary — Corroborated, but the primary instrument was NOT read (usually the publishing host blocks automated access). The 9% is evidenced by the consistent practice of the Eswatini courts as recorded in their judgments, not by any statute, gazette notice or rule of court that fixes it; and the absence of a prescribed-rate statute is an inference from Eswatini's legislation and case law as published, since no consolidated statute index for Eswatini was retrievable (the EswatiniLII legislation index renders only under JavaScript). |
| Provenance | source fingerprint |
What this value means
REFUSAL — Eswatini never enacted the Prescribed Rate of Interest Act that South Africa, Namibia and Botswana use, and no minister gazettes a rate. A creditor's claim rests on the Roman-Dutch common law: where a money debt is due and the debtor is in mora, mora interest a tempore morae may be claimed as damages, and the rate is a matter of pleading and judicial discretion. The figure Eswatini courts and practitioners work with when no rate was agreed is 9% PER ANNUM — it appears in default judgments, summary judgments and Industrial Court awards from the 1990s to the present, and counsel routinely amend an excessive claimed rate down to it. It is a convention of practice, not a prescribed rate: nothing publishes it, nothing updates it, and it is not indexed to the Central Bank of Eswatini discount rate. Practical consequences: (1) a contractual rate governs where the parties agreed one, but a rate the court considers excessive will be cut down — a claim at 2% per month (24% effective, compounded monthly) was conceded to be excessive and reduced to 9% simple; (2) interest must be claimed in the pleadings; (3) there is no civil/commercial split and no separate late-payment regime for commercial transactions. Retrieval note: eswatinilii.org sits behind a bot check that blocks automated fetchers.
Get it programmatically
curl https://afriref.dev/v1/sz/statutory-interest
# $0.005 per call — x402 on Base (USDC). No key, no signup.
# History: curl https://afriref.dev/v1/sz/statutory-interest/history?from=2020-01-01
# Provenance: curl https://afriref.dev/provenance/sz/statutory-interestOther Eswatini series: Central Bank of Eswatini discount rate · VAT standard rate · VAT registration threshold · Sectoral minimum wages (Regulation of Wages Orders) · Public holidays · CPI inflation (year-on-year) · Company income tax rate · Withholding tax rates · Personal income tax bands · Statutory social-insurance contributions
The same figure elsewhere: Ethiopia · Gabon · Ghana · Kenya · Lesotho · all 34