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Trinidad and Tobago Statutory interest on judgment debts

Trinidad and Tobago Statutory interest on judgment debts is 5 percent, in force since 10 Nov 2016. Last checked against the official source on 10 Aug 2026.

Trinidad and Tobago's statutory rate on judgment debts: 5% per annum under section 25A(1) of the Supreme Court of Judicature Act, Chap. 4:01, cut from 12% by the Minister of Finance's Order of 2016. Pre-judgment interest is separate and discretionary under section 25.

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Current value5 percent
In force from2016-11-10
Official sourceSupreme Court of Judicature Act, Chap. 4:01, s. 25A(1) as amended by L.N. 168/2016: 'Every judgment debt entered up carries interest at the rate of five per cent per annum 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'; the amending instrument, the Supreme Court of Judicature (Variation of Rate of Interest on Judgment Debt) Order, 2016 (Legal Notice No. 168, Legal Supplement Part B Vol. 55 No. 130, 10 November 2016), made by the Minister of Finance under s. 25A(2), 'is amended by deleting the words "twelve per centum" and substituting the words "five per cent"'
Last verified2026-08-10
Verificationprimary — No verification limitation recorded — read from the official source cited.
The operative rate is read from the gazetted amending instrument (L.N. 168/2016) and confirmed against the Ministry of the Attorney General's consolidated print of Chap. 4:01, which is marked 'UNOFFICIAL VERSION' and updated only to 31 December 2016; a later variation Order under s. 25A(2) would not appear in that consolidation, and none was found.
Provenancesource fingerprint

What this value means

SCOPE — this is a POST-JUDGMENT rate. It runs automatically on every judgment debt entered up in the Supreme Court from the moment judgment is entered until it is satisfied, and it is enforceable under a writ of execution (s. 25A(1)). It is not a late-payment rate on unpaid invoices: nothing in Trinidad and Tobago law gives a creditor a default interest entitlement on an overdue commercial debt outside contract. SETTER: the rate is fixed in the Act itself, but the MINISTER OF FINANCE may vary it by Order subject to negative resolution of Parliament (s. 25A(2)) — so it can change without an Act of Parliament, by a Legal Notice in the Gazette. That is exactly how the present figure arose: the rate was TWELVE per centum from the insertion of s. 25A by Act 46 of 2000 until the Minister of Finance's Order of 11 October 2016 (L.N. 168/2016), gazetted 10 November 2016, substituted five per cent. Judgments entered before that date carry the old 12%; do not apply 5% retrospectively. PRE-JUDGMENT INTEREST IS A DIFFERENT AND DISCRETIONARY THING: under s. 25 of the same Act, in any proceedings in a court of record for recovery of a debt or damages the court 'may, if it thinks fit' include interest 'at such rate as it thinks fit' on all or part of the sum for all or part of the period between the accrual of the cause of action and judgment — with three carve-outs: no interest upon interest, no application where interest is already payable as of right by agreement or otherwise, and no effect on damages for dishonour of a bill of exchange. There is no fixed pre-judgment percentage. NO CIVIL/COMMERCIAL SPLIT and no consumer variant; one rate applies to all judgment debts. Simple interest — s. 25A contains no compounding provision.

Get it programmatically

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

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