Dominican Republic Statutory legal interest (interés legal)
Dominican Republic Statutory legal interest (interés legal): 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.
The Dominican Republic abolished its legal interest rate in 2002: Ley 183-02 repealed the 1% monthly figure and freed rates entirely, leaving judicially-awarded interest benchmarked to a Banco Central average as the only thing a creditor can claim.
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| Current value | structured — see the API |
|---|---|
| In force from | — |
| Official source | Ley Monetaria y Financiera 183-02 (aprobada 21 de noviembre de 2002, Gaceta Oficial 2 de diciembre de 2002), art. 24 párrafo III: 'Las tasas de interés para transacciones denominadas en moneda nacional y extranjera serán determinadas libremente entre los agentes del mercado'; art. 91 expressly repeals the Orden Ejecutiva 312 de 1 de junio de 1919 that had fixed the interés legal at 1% mensual |
| 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 Dominican legal interest rate to serve; the figure a creditor once relied on was abolished and nothing replaced it. The 1% monthly interés legal came from Orden Ejecutiva 312 of 1 June 1919, which also created the offence of usura. Art. 91 of the Ley Monetaria y Financiera 183-02 repealed that Order outright, and art. 24 freed interest rates to be set between market participants, so since December 2002 no statute fixes a rate for an unpriced money debt. THE GAP IS VISIBLE IN THE CODE ITSELF: Código Civil art. 1153 still provides that for obligations limited to paying a sum of money 'los daños y perjuicios que resulten del retraso en el cumplimiento, no consisten nunca sino en la condenación a los intereses señalados por la ley' — it points at a legal rate that no longer exists. WHAT A CREDITOR CAN ACTUALLY CLAIM. Since the Suprema Corte de Justicia changed its criterion on 19 September 2012, trial judges in civil and commercial matters may award interés judicial as compensatory indemnity, grounded in the full-reparation principle of civil liability rather than in any statute — so interest is an award, not an entitlement, and a judgment that does not expressly grant it gives none. The rate is not at large either: in SCJ-PS-22-3255 (Boletín Judicial 1344) the Court took the Banco Central's tasa de interés ponderada simple as the benchmark and quashed an award of 1.5% monthly because the Central Bank rate at the date of the judgment was 13.19% annual, equivalent to about 1.1% monthly. The practical claim is therefore: interest awarded by the court, referenced to the BCRD weighted-average rate current at the date of judgment, running from the date the court fixes rather than automatically from default. Contractual rates are unaffected and remain freely agreed under art. 24. WATCH THIS SPACE: in sentencia TC/0235/26 of 6 May 2026 the Tribunal Constitucional held the repeal of the usury offence inconventional and therefore unconstitutional, reasoning from art. 21 of the American Convention on Human Rights, and exhorted Congress to legislate the prohibition of usura again — an exhortation without a fixed deadline, so no ceiling or statutory rate is yet in force, but a new usury statute is now foreseeable and would be the first thing to re-check.
Get it programmatically
curl https://latamref.dev/v1/do/statutory-interest
# $0.005 per call — x402 on Base (USDC). No key, no signup.
# History: curl https://latamref.dev/v1/do/statutory-interest/history?from=2020-01-01
# Provenance: curl https://latamref.dev/provenance/do/statutory-interestOther Dominican Republic series: BCRD monetary policy rate (TPM) · ITBIS standard rate · VAT registration threshold · Minimum wage (lowest non-sectorized tier — microempresas) · Public holidays · CPI inflation (year-on-year) · Corporate income tax rate · Withholding tax rates · Personal income tax brackets · Statutory social-insurance contributions
The same figure elsewhere: Ecuador · El Salvador · Guatemala · Guyana · Honduras · all 22