China Statutory default interest (法定利率 / 逾期利息)
China Statutory default interest (法定利率 / 逾期利息): 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.
Mainland China fixes no statutory default interest rate for money debts. The widely quoted four-times-LPR figure is a judicial protection CEILING on private lending rates, not a legal rate, and overdue payment on ordinary contracts is compensated at a judicially determined LPR-plus band.
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| Current value | structured — see the API |
|---|---|
| In force from | — |
| Official source | 中华人民共和国民法典 (Civil Code) 第680条: '禁止高利放贷，借款利率不得违反国家有关规定。借款合同对支付利息没有约定的，视为没有利息' (usurious lending is prohibited; the lending rate must not contravene relevant State regulations; where a loan contract does not stipulate interest, it is deemed to bear none); 第676条: '借款人未按照约定的期限返还借款的，应当按照约定或者国家有关规定支付逾期利息' (a borrower who fails to repay by the agreed date shall pay overdue interest as agreed or as provided by relevant State regulations) — neither article states a rate |
| 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 Chinese statute fixes a default interest rate that a creditor can claim on an unpaid money debt. The Civil Code bans usury and points to 'relevant State regulations' without naming a number, and where a loan contract is silent on interest the loan is deemed interest-free (Art. 680; between natural persons, Art. 680 para. 3 likewise deems no interest). THE FOUR-TIMES-LPR FIGURE IS A CEILING, NOT A RATE: the Supreme People's Court's amended interpretation on private lending (民间借贷司法解释, in force 20 August 2020) sets the '司法保护上限' — the judicial protection ceiling — at four times the one-year Loan Prime Rate published by the National Interbank Funding Center on the 20th of each month. With the one-year LPR at 3.00% (published 20 July 2026) that ceiling is 12.00% per annum. It caps what an AGREED rate may recover in a private-lending dispute; it does not entitle anyone to 12% on an unpaid invoice, and it does not apply to loans by licensed financial institutions. FOR ORDINARY COMMERCIAL DEBTS the compensation is judicial discretion, not a rate: under the SPC sales-contract interpretation (法释〔2012〕8号 as amended 23 December 2020, in force 1 January 2021), where the contract fixes no late-payment penalty the court '可以' (may) compute the seller's overdue-payment loss on the basis of the one-year LPR prevailing when the breach occurred, 加计30-50% (uplifted by 30% to 50%) — a band the judge selects within, not a statutory figure. Breaches before 20 August 2019 use the older PBOC benchmark lending rate plus the penalty-rate standard. POST-JUDGMENT IS THE ONE FIXED NUMBER, and it is an additional penalty rather than a general legal rate: Civil Procedure Law Art. 264 (formerly 253) doubles the debt interest during a period of delayed performance, and the SPC interpretation 法释〔2014〕8号 (in force 1 August 2014) fixes the doubled portion by formula — 加倍部分债务利息 = the unpaid money obligation determined by the effective judgment, excluding ordinary debt interest, × 日万分之一点七五 (0.0175% per day) × days of delay — i.e. about 6.39% per annum, running on top of whatever ordinary interest the judgment awarded. Serving any of these as 'the' statutory rate would mislabel a ceiling, a discretionary band or an enforcement penalty.
Get it programmatically
curl https://asiaref.dev/v1/cn/statutory-interest
# $0.005 per call — x402 on Base (USDC). No key, no signup.
# History: curl https://asiaref.dev/v1/cn/statutory-interest/history?from=2020-01-01
# Provenance: curl https://asiaref.dev/provenance/cn/statutory-interestOther China series: PBoC 7-day reverse repo operation rate (主要政策利率) · VAT standard rate (增值税基本税率) · VAT registration threshold · Minimum wage (no national rate — province-set; highest is Shanghai) · Public holidays (国家法定节假日 + State Council annual arrangement) · CPI inflation (year-on-year, 居民消费价格指数) · Enterprise Income Tax standard rate (企业所得税) · Withholding tax rates · Individual Income Tax · Statutory social-insurance contributions
The same figure elsewhere: Hong Kong · India · Indonesia · Iraq · Israel · all 28