Jamaica Statutory interest on judgment debts
Jamaica Statutory interest on judgment debts: 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.
Jamaica has no general statutory late-payment rate. Judgment debts carry interest under section 51 of the Judicature (Supreme Court) Act at six per centum per annum 'or such other rate per annum as the Minister may by order from time to time prescribe' — and the Minister has exercised that power, so the operative figure is set by a subsidiary order that is not published in the official revised-laws database.
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| Current value | structured — see the API |
|---|---|
| In force from | — |
| Official source | Judicature (Supreme Court) Act (Jamaica), s. 51(1): 'Every judgment debt shall in the Supreme Court carry interest at the rate of six per centum per annum or such other rate per annum as the Minister may by order from time to time prescribe in lieu thereof, from the time of entering up the judgment, until the same shall be satisfied, and such interest may be levied under a writ of execution on such judgment'; s. 51(3): 'Every order under subsection (1) shall be subject to negative resolution of the House of Representatives' |
| 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 — no single reliable Jamaican figure can be served. THE STRUCTURE: (1) POST-JUDGMENT. Section 51(1) of the Judicature (Supreme Court) Act carries interest on every Supreme Court judgment debt from entry of judgment until satisfaction, at six per centum per annum OR any other rate the Minister prescribes by order under the same subsection (subject to negative resolution, s. 51(3)). The 6% in the Act is therefore a default that a subsidiary instrument displaces, not a fixed statutory rate. The Minister has used the power: a September 1998 decision set the rate at 12% for judgments, and in May 2006 Cabinet approved a REDUCTION on the Bank of Jamaica's recommendation, with separate treatment for foreign-currency judgments (the weighted foreign-currency figure discussed at the time was around 4.96%, materially below the local-currency figure). The operative Order is not carried in the Laws of Jamaica revised-statute or revised-subsidiary-legislation databases, and the official consolidated print of s. 51 is dated — the page carrying it is authorised by L.N. 480/1973 and shows no later amendment — so the printed 6% cannot be relied on as the rate currently in force, and a JMD judgment and a foreign-currency judgment may not carry the same rate. (2) PRE-JUDGMENT interest is DISCRETIONARY, not statutory: under the Law Reform (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act the court 'may order that there shall be included in the sum for which judgment is given interest at such rate as it thinks fit' on the whole or part of the debt or damages for the whole or part of the period between accrual of the cause of action and judgment; the same section bars interest upon interest and does not apply where interest is already payable as of right by agreement. In commercial matters the Jamaican courts fix that rate on evidence of a commercial BORROWING rate — Bank of Jamaica weighted commercial-bank loan rates in the statistical digest are the accepted material, and the Supreme Court has rejected the Treasury-bill rate as the wrong measure because the test is what the claimant would have had to pay to borrow, not what it could have earned. Awards in practice have ranged very widely by period and subject matter. (3) THERE IS NO LATE-PAYMENT REGIME: nothing in Jamaican law gives an unpaid supplier a default interest rate on an overdue invoice outside contract or litigation. Interest on judgment debts is a creature of court process, and the pre-judgment figure is whatever the judge fixes. Anyone needing a Jamaican number must obtain the current Ministerial order under s. 51(1) from the Jamaica Gazette, and must state the judgment currency.
Get it programmatically
curl https://latamref.dev/v1/jm/statutory-interest
# $0.005 per call — x402 on Base (USDC). No key, no signup.
# History: curl https://latamref.dev/v1/jm/statutory-interest/history?from=2020-01-01
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The same figure elsewhere: Mexico · Nicaragua · Panama · Paraguay · Peru · all 22