El Salvador Statutory legal interest (interés legal)

What this value means

Two fixed rates, split by the nature of the obligation. CIVIL: 6% per annum, Código Civil art. 1964, unchanged since the Code was promulgated throughout the Republic on 1 May 1860 (decreed 23 August 1859). It fills the gap where interest is stipulated without a figure, and art. 1430 makes it the damages measure for default on a money debt — 'Se siguen debiendo los intereses convencionales, si se ha pactado un interés superior al legal, o empiezan a deberse los intereses legales, en el caso contrario', with art. 1430(2) removing any need to prove loss when only interest is claimed ('basta el hecho del retardo'). COMMERCIAL: 12% per annum. Código de Comercio art. 960 makes a defaulting debtor pay the agreed rate and failing that the legal rate as damages for mora, and leaves the mercantile legal rate to be fixed periodically by the Secretaría de Economía; the fixing in force is Acuerdo Ejecutivo 1299 of 13 December 1983, published in Diario Oficial 16, Tomo 282 of 23 January 1984 and effective eight days after publication, setting it at 12% annual — no later acuerdo has replaced it, so 'periodically' has in practice meant once, more than forty years ago. Where the obligation is for a certain or determinable thing rather than money, art. 960 computes the interest on the value of the thing, taken from its market price at maturity, its exchange quotation, or failing both from expert valuation. A commercial creditor whose actual loss exceeds the interest may claim the real amount under art. 961, but only on proof, and not where the parties fixed damages or a moratory rate by agreement. COMPOUNDING: Código Civil art. 1967 allows interest on interest only if stipulated and only where the capitalised interest belongs to an obligation whose term has already fallen due. Amounts are in US dollars — El Salvador is dollarised. CEILING ON AGREED RATES: art. 1963 of the Código Civil still says interest may be stipulated 'sin limitación alguna', but that is overtaken by the Ley Contra la Usura, whose art. 7 caps the legal maximum rate at 1.6 times the simple average effective rate established by the Banco Central de Reserva for each credit segment and amount, with no maximum exceeding three times the rate for the consumer segment with payroll deduction up to twelve minimum wages; operations outside the listed segments may not exceed the highest maximum the BCR published for the period, and any excess is usurious. Those maxima are re-set SEMI-ANNUALLY: lenders report effective rates and credit volumes for the December-to-May and June-to-November windows in the first five business days of June and December respectively, and the BCR averages the immediately preceding half-year by product. The 6% and 12% figures are residual default rates and have nothing to do with those ceilings.

Get it programmatically

curl https://latamref.dev/v1/sv/statutory-interest
# $0.005 per call — x402 on Base (USDC). No key, no signup.
# History:    curl https://latamref.dev/v1/sv/statutory-interest/history?from=2020-01-01
# Provenance: curl https://latamref.dev/provenance/sv/statutory-interest

Other El Salvador series: Central bank policy rate · VAT (IVA) standard rate · VAT registration threshold · Minimum wage (lowest general statutory floor) · Public holidays · CPI inflation (year-on-year) · Corporate income tax (ISR) standard rate · Withholding tax rates · Personal income tax (ISR) brackets · Statutory social-insurance contributions

The same figure elsewhere: Guatemala · Guyana · Honduras · Jamaica · Mexico · all 22