Vanuatu Statutory interest on debts and judgments
Vanuatu Statutory interest on debts and judgments: 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.
Vanuatu prescribes no interest rate anywhere. There is no Interest Act in the consolidated legislation, and the Civil Procedure Rules 2002 leave the rate to the court in every instance — including on default judgment, where interest runs 'at a rate fixed by the court'.
Compare statutory interest rate across all 8 Australasian countries →
| Current value | structured — see the API |
|---|---|
| In force from | — |
| Official source | Civil Procedure Rules 2002 (Vanuatu), r. 9.2(4): on default judgment the court may give judgment for 'the amount claimed by the claimant; and interest from the date of filing the claim at a rate fixed by the court; and costs in accordance with Part 15'; r. 14.8(2): 'Interest on the amount of the order is recoverable as part of the order' — with no rate stated; r. 18.17: 'These Rules come into operation on 31st January 2003' |
| Last verified | 2026-08-10 |
| Verification | primary — No verification limitation recorded — read from the official source cited. Read from the full text of the Civil Procedure Rules 2002 and the consolidated-legislation index as published by PacLII, which are the only reachable full-text sources for Vanuatu; PacLII's Vanuatu consolidation is the 2006 edition, so a later Act creating a prescribed rate would not appear in it. No such Act was found by other means. |
| Provenance | source fingerprint |
What this value means
REFUSAL — no Vanuatu instrument fixes an interest percentage, so there is no rate to serve. THE STRUCTURE: (1) NO STATUTE. The consolidated legislation of Vanuatu contains no Interest Act, no judgment-interest Act and no equivalent of the Commonwealth 'judgment debts to carry interest' section — the alphabetical consolidation runs from the Insurance Act to the Interpretation Act with nothing in between on interest. (2) THE RULES SET NO NUMBER. Under the Civil Procedure Rules 2002 (in force 31 January 2003, replacing the High Court (Civil Procedure) Rules 1964 and the Magistrates' Courts (Civil Procedure) Rules 1976), even the most mechanical case — judgment in default of defence — gives interest only 'at a rate fixed by the court' from the date the claim was filed (r. 9.2(4)). On enforcement, r. 14.8 makes the costs of enforcing a money order and 'interest on the amount of the order' recoverable as part of the order, but again names no rate; the enforcement machinery instead requires a creditor's statement to specify the interest due at the date of the statement and the DAILY AMOUNT OF FUTURE INTEREST, which only works because the rate came from the order itself. (3) WHAT THE COURTS ACTUALLY DO: the Supreme Court of Vanuatu commonly awards 5% per annum, both to judgment and after it, and judgments refer to it as the Supreme Court rate — but that is an exercise of discretion in each case, not a prescribed figure, and the court can and does order otherwise. Do not quote 5% as a Vanuatu statutory rate. (4) NO LATE-PAYMENT REGIME: nothing gives a creditor default interest on an overdue invoice outside contract; a Vanuatu money claim carries the interest the court awards and nothing else. PRACTICAL CONSEQUENCE: an interest figure for Vanuatu can only be taken from the specific order — read the judgment or enforcement order, and note the 6-year enforcement period in r. 14.9 (leave required beyond it).
Get it programmatically
curl https://ausref.dev/v1/vu/statutory-interest
# $0.005 per call — x402 on Base (USDC). No key, no signup.
# History: curl https://ausref.dev/v1/vu/statutory-interest/history?from=2020-01-01
# Provenance: curl https://ausref.dev/provenance/vu/statutory-interestOther Vanuatu series: RBV Rate (Reserve Bank of Vanuatu policy interest rate) · VAT standard rate · VAT registration threshold · National minimum wage rate (hourly) · Public holidays · CPI inflation (year-on-year) · Corporate income tax rate · Withholding tax rates · Personal income tax brackets · Statutory social-insurance contributions
The same figure elsewhere: Australia · Fiji · New Zealand · Papua New Guinea · Samoa · all 8