Section 7
Statutory text (Thai original)
ถ้าจะต้องเสียดอกเบี้ยแก่กันและมิได้กำหนดอัตราดอกเบี้ยไว้โดยนิติกรรมหรือโดยบทกฎหมายอันชัดแจ้ง ให้ใช้อัตราร้อยละสามต่อปี
อัตราตามวรรคหนึ่งอาจปรับเปลี่ยนให้ลดลงหรือเพิ่มขึ้นเพื่อให้สอดคล้องกับสภาพเศรษฐกิจของประเทศได้โดยตราเป็นพระราชกฤษฎีกา โดยปกติให้กระทรวงการคลังพิจารณาทบทวนทุกสามปีให้ใกล้เคียงกับอัตราเฉลี่ยระหว่างอัตราดอกเบี้ยเงินฝากกับอัตราดอกเบี้ยเงินให้กู้ยืมของธนาคารพาณิชย์
Verbatim from the Royal Gazette / Office of the Council of State
English translation
Whenever interest is to be paid and the rate is not fixed by a juristic act or by an express provision of the law, the rate shall be three per cent per year.
The rate under paragraph one may be adjusted downwards or upwards by Royal Decree so as to accord with the economic conditions of the country. The Ministry of Finance shall ordinarily review it every three years, so as to keep it close to the average of the deposit interest rate and the lending interest rate of commercial banks.
This English translation is provided for reference only and has not yet been firm-verified. Always rely on the Thai original.
Firm annotation
Section 7 is part of Book 1 (General Principles) of the Thai Civil and Commercial Code. This entry is awaiting firm-authored commentary; the statutory text above is verbatim from the Office of the Council of State (OCS Krisdika) Thai source, with the English translation adapted from the FAO/UN FAOLEX repository and corrected in house against the Thai. Always rely on the Thai original for legal proceedings.
Why this matters in practice
For lawyers: always check whether the obligation arose before or after 11 April 2021. For pre-2021 debts, courts may apply 7.5% for the period before that date and 3% thereafter. Draft contracts should specify a rate expressly to avoid this default. For laypeople: if you lend money without agreeing on an interest rate, the borrower owes you only 3% per year; to earn more you must put the rate in writing.
Legislative history
The original CCC rate was 7.5 percent per year. Emergency Decree Amending the Civil and Commercial Code B.E. 2564 (2021) (in force 11 April 2021) reduced the statutory rate to 3 percent per year and added a Royal Decree review mechanism. Practitioners must distinguish the old 7.5% rate (applicable to obligations arising before 11 April 2021) from the current 3% rate.
Cited in 300 Supreme Court decisions (1968 to 2026)
Selected citing decisions
- Decision 521/2569 (2026)
- Decision 6260/2568 (2025)
- Decision 5398/2568 (2025)
- Decision 4759/2568 (2025)
- Decision 3230/2568 (2025) Owner Can Recover Property Pawned by Another Without Authorization
- Decision 7252/2568 (2025)
- Decision 3247-3248/2568 (2025)
- Decision 7904/2568 (2025)
This list is selected automatically, weighted towards judgments that turn on this section rather than ones that merely recite it when passing sentence. It has not yet been reviewed by the firm.
Most often cited alongside
- Section 224 159
- Thai CPC s. 142 119
- Thai CPC s. 252 73
- Thai CPC s. 246 62
- Section 4 58
- Section 3 54
Sections that appear in the same judgments as this one most often. The figure is the number of decisions.
Counted across the firm's corpus of 83,652 Supreme Court decisions, 1921 to 2026. The count is complete; the stated year range trims rare outliers so it describes where the citations actually sit. These figures are computed by us and are not official court statistics. How we count these, and what we measured
Frequently asked questions
What interest rate applies if my loan contract is silent on the rate?
Under section 7, the statutory rate of 3 percent per year applies (following the Emergency Decree of B.E. 2564, in force from 11 April 2021). Before that date the rate was 7.5 percent. Always specify the rate in writing if you wish to charge more.
Can the 3 percent statutory rate be changed in the future?
Yes. The amended section 7 expressly allows the rate to be raised or lowered by Royal Decree to reflect economic conditions. The Ministry of Finance must review the rate ordinarily every three years, benchmarking it against the average of commercial bank deposit and lending rates.
Cite this section
-
Plain citation
Civil and Commercial Code, s. 7 (Thailand) -
Academic citation
Civil and Commercial Code (Thailand), s. 7. ThaiLawOnline, https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-civil-code/section-7/ (accessed 28 August 2026). -
Thai citation
ป.พ.พ. มาตรา 7 -
Permalink
https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-civil-code/section-7/ -
Embed on your site
<blockquote cite="https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-civil-code/section-7/"><p>Whenever interest is to be paid and the rate is not fixed by a juristic act or by an express provision of the law, the rate shall be three per cent per year. The rate under paragraph one may be adjusted downwards or upwards by…</p><footer>Civil and Commercial Code, s. 7 (Thailand): <a href="https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-civil-code/section-7/">ThaiLawOnline</a></footer></blockquote>
The Thai text is authoritative. The English is an unofficial translation by ThaiLawOnline, free to reuse with attribution.