Zambia policy interest rate
The Bank of Zambia Policy Rate — the key signal of the monetary policy stance, introduced 2 April 2012, set by the nine-member Monetary Policy Committee constituted under section 28(1) of the Bank of Zambia Act, 2022. The MPC meets in the second month of each quarter (February, May, August, November) and the decision is announced in an MPC Statement the day after the meeting. The Bank steers the overnight interbank rate within a corridor of +/- 1 percentage point around the Policy Rate.
| Current value | 13.25 percent |
|---|---|
| In force from | 2026-05-13 |
| Official source | Bank of Zambia — Monetary Policy Report, May 2026 (approved by the MPC on 12 May 2026, published pursuant to s.29(2) Bank of Zambia Act 2022), §1.5 Monetary Policy Decision: 'At its Meeting held on May 11-12, 2026, the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) decided to reduce the Monetary Policy Rate by 25 basis points to 13.25 percent'; Appendix 'Monetary and Foreign Exchange Measures since April 2012' gives Date Implemented = May 13, 2026 |
| Last verified | 2026-07-24 |
| Verification | primary — No verification limitation recorded — read from the official source cited. |
| Provenance | source fingerprint |
What this value means
CORRECTION TO THE COMMISSIONING BRIEF: Zambia is now CUTTING, not raising. The drought/kwacha tightening cycle peaked at 14.50% on 12 Feb 2025 and has been unwound in three steps — 14.25% (12 Nov 2025), 13.50% (11 Feb 2026, a 75bp cut), 13.25% (13 May 2026, a 25bp cut). The May 2026 cut was justified by the collapse in inflation (7.1% in Mar 2026 from 11.2% in Dec 2025, then 6.8% in Apr) back inside the 6-8 percent target band a quarter earlier than forecast, an expected bumper 2025/26 maize harvest (~4.9m tonnes) and a 14.9% appreciation of the kwacha against the US dollar; the Committee described the adjustment as 'cautious' because upside risks from the Middle East conflict (oil, fertiliser via the Strait of Hormuz) tilt the balance of risks upward. Do NOT confuse the Policy Rate with the Overnight Lending Facility (OLF) rate, the statutory reserve ratio or the 91-day T-bill rate — the MPC's instrument is the Policy Rate alone. NEXT DECISION: the August 2026 MPC (quarterly cycle: Feb/May/Aug/Nov), so this value is due to be re-checked in mid-August 2026. ACCESS NOTE for the source-watcher: boz.zm HTML pages (including /monetary-policy/monetary-policy-rate and /monetary-policy-committee-statements.htm) are a JavaScript shell that returns a ~10KB 'Loading Website...' page to every non-browser client, and the short-form PDF paths (e.g. /Governors_Media_Presentation_May_2026.pdf) return that same HTML shell with HTTP 200. Only PDFs served from https://www.boz.zm/sites/default/files/<YYYY-MM>/ are directly fetchable as real PDFs — watch that path.
Earlier values
| From | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 2024-05-15 | 13.5 | Bank of Zambia — Monetary Policy Report May 2026, Appendix: |
| 2024-11-13 | 14 | Bank of Zambia — Monetary Policy Report May 2026, Appendix: |
| 2025-02-12 | 14.5 | Bank of Zambia — Monetary Policy Report May 2026, Appendix: |
| 2025-11-12 | 14.25 | Bank of Zambia — Monetary Policy Report May 2026, Appendix: |
| 2026-02-11 | 13.5 | Bank of Zambia — Monetary Policy Report May 2026, Appendix: |
Get it programmatically
curl https://afriref.dev/v1/zm/policy-rate
# $0.001 per call — x402 on Base (USDC). No key, no signup.
# History: curl https://afriref.dev/v1/zm/policy-rate/history?from=2020-01-01
# Provenance: curl https://afriref.dev/provenance/zm/policy-rateOther Zambia series: VAT rate · minimum wage · public holidays · inflation rate (CPI) · corporate tax rate · income tax rates