Interest rates

Basic rate of interest pursuant to section 247 of the German Civil Code

• Link Time series SU0115 from the time series database

Press releases concerning the basic rate of interest

Default interest rate pursuant to section 288 of the German Civil Code (Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch, or BGB)

The default interest rate is:

• pursuant to section 288 (1) of the German Civil Code five percentage points above the base rate of interest
• pursuant to section 288 (2) of the German Civil Code eight percentage points above the base rate of interest

* In the period from 1 January to 3 April 2002, the relevant interest rates for other liabilities other than those under the civil code and judicial procedural law amounted to 7.71% and 10.71%, respectively. This was due to the gradual repeal of the Discount Rate Transition Act (Diskontsatz Überleitungsgesetz) (see Deutsche Bundesbank, Monthly Report, July 2002, Statistical Section VI, Interest rates, footnotes 4 to 6).

Historical interest rates

With the entry into force of the Act on the Amendment of Provisions concerning the Evaluation of Insurance Enterprises' Capital Investment and the Repeal of the Discount Rate Transition Act (Gesetz zur Änderung von Vorschriften über die Bewertung der Kapitalanlagen von Versicherungsunternehmen und zur Aufhebung des Diskont-Überleitungsgesetz) on 4 April 2002 (published in the Federal Law Gazette on 3 April 2002), the Discount Transition Act, the Regulation Governing the Use of the Basic Rate of Interest as a Reference Variable, the FIBOR Transition Regulation and Lombard Rate Transition Regulation were repealed.

• Discount rate - Deutsche Bundesbank - Time series database: Time series SU0112
• Lombard rate - Deutsche Bundesbank - Time series database: Time series SU0113
• Basic rate of interest in accordance with the Discount Rate Transition Act (DÜG) - Time series database: Time series SU0114

Related topics

• Eurosystem monetary policy operations
• Information on the discount rate and lombard rate (German only)