Zambia Statutory late-payment interest
Zambia 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.
Zambia fixes no statutory interest rate on overdue money obligations: since 1997 even judgment-debt interest is set by the court case by case, capped only by the current Bank of Zambia lending rate.
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| Current value | structured — see the API |
|---|---|
| In force from | — |
| Official source | Judgments Act (Cap 81) s 2, as substituted by s 2 of the Judgments (Amendment) Act 16 of 1997: every judgment, order or decree 'shall carry interest as may be determined by the court which rate shall not exceed the current lending rate as determined by the Bank of Zambia from the time of entering up such judgment, order, or decree until the same shall be satisfied'; Law Reform (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act (Cap 74) s 4: in proceedings 'for the recovery of any debt or damages, the court may, if it thinks fit, order that there shall be included in the sum for which judgment is given interest at such rate as it thinks fit ... for the whole or any part of the period between the date when the cause of action arose and the date of the judgment' |
| Last verified | 2026-08-10 |
| Verification | primary — No verification limitation recorded — read from the official source cited. |
| Provenance | source fingerprint |
What this value means
REFUSAL — there is no number to serve. Zambian law gives a creditor no statutory rate on an unpaid debt, and since the 1997 amendment it no longer even fixes a rate for judgment debts: (1) PRE-JUDGMENT — interest from the date the cause of action arose to judgment is discretionary under s 4 of the Law Reform (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act, 'at such rate as it thinks fit'. That section does NOT apply where interest is already payable as of right under an agreement, and it never permits interest upon interest. (2) POST-JUDGMENT — the rate is 'as may be determined by the court', subject to one statutory ceiling: it may not exceed the current lending rate as determined by the Bank of Zambia. Zambian practice is to order interest at the average short-term deposit rate from writ to judgment and at the Bank of Zambia lending rate thereafter, but those are figures the court adopts, not a rate the statute fixes. (3) CONTRACT — an agreed rate governs and displaces s 4 entirely. TRAP — 6% IS REPEALED: the widely circulated free consolidations of the Judgments Act (including the Act PDF on the National Assembly's own site, parliament.gov.zm) still print the original 1961 text, 'interest at the rate of six per centum per annum'. That text was substituted in 1997; s 3, added by the same amendment, retrospectively validated interest already allowed at more than 6%. Anyone quoting 6% for Zambia today is reading a superseded consolidation. SECOND TRAP: the statutory cap is the Bank of Zambia LENDING rate, not the BoZ Policy Rate — the two differ by several percentage points. No civil/commercial split exists.
Get it programmatically
curl https://afriref.dev/v1/zm/statutory-interest
# $0.005 per call — x402 on Base (USDC). No key, no signup.
# History: curl https://afriref.dev/v1/zm/statutory-interest/history?from=2020-01-01
# Provenance: curl https://afriref.dev/provenance/zm/statutory-interestOther Zambia series: Bank of Zambia Policy Rate · VAT standard rate · VAT registration threshold · Statutory minimum wages by category (no single national rate) · Public holidays · CPI inflation (year-on-year) · Company income tax standard rate · Withholding tax rates · Personal income tax (PAYE) bands · Statutory social-insurance contributions
The same figure elsewhere: Algeria · Angola · Benin · Botswana · Burkina Faso · all 34