South Korea Statutory interest (법정이율)
South Korea Statutory interest (법정이율) is 5 percent, in force since 1 Jan 1960. Last checked against the official source on 10 Aug 2026.
South Korea's statutory interest: 5% per annum for civil obligations (Civil Act art. 379, served headline), 6% for commercial obligations (Commercial Act art. 54), and 12% from service of a complaint (Expedition Act rate), served as variants.
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| Current value | 5 percent |
|---|---|
| In force from | 1960-01-01 |
| Official source | 민법 제379조 (Civil Act art. 379): statutory interest 5%/yr; 상법 제54조 (Commercial Act art. 54): 6%/yr for commercial obligations; 소송촉진 등에 관한 특례법 제3조제1항 (Expedition Act art. 3(1)) with its Presidential Decree: '법정이율은 연 100분의 12로 한다' (the statutory rate shall be 12/100 per annum) from the day after service of the complaint |
| Last verified | 2026-08-10 |
| Verification | primary — No verification limitation recorded — read from the official source cited. |
| Provenance | source fingerprint |
What this value means
Three fixed rates answering three different questions: 5% civil (Civil Act art. 379), 6% commercial (Commercial Act art. 54), and 12% from the day after service of a complaint (Expedition Act art. 3(1) + Presidential Decree, since 2019-06-01). MONITORING FLAG: on 16 December 2025 the Cabinet approved a Ministry of Justice bill replacing the fixed 5%/6% with a decree-variable rate indexed to market conditions — NOT yet law (needs National Assembly passage); as of August 2026 the fixed rates stand, but if enacted this series flips to a periodically-set regime. Retrieval traps: law.go.kr is JavaScript-rendered and unfetchable server-side, and wikisource carries the STALE 2015 decree text (15%) — the Supreme Court's own notice and the KLRI translation confirm 12% current.
Get it programmatically
curl https://asiaref.dev/v1/kr/statutory-interest
# $0.005 per call — x402 on Base (USDC). No key, no signup.
# History: curl https://asiaref.dev/v1/kr/statutory-interest/history?from=2020-01-01
# Provenance: curl https://asiaref.dev/provenance/kr/statutory-interestOther South Korea series: Bank of Korea Base Rate · Value-Added Tax (부가가치세) standard rate · VAT registration threshold · National minimum wage (최저임금) · Public holidays · Consumer price inflation (소비자물가 상승률) · Corporate income tax (법인세) top rate · Withholding tax rates · Personal income tax (종합소득세) schedule · Statutory social-insurance contributions
The same figure elsewhere: Sri Lanka · Taiwan · Thailand · Türkiye · United Arab Emirates · all 28