Calculate Interest on a Court Judgment, State by State

Post-judgment interest is not one national number. Every judgment carries the rate assigned by the law of the court that entered it: a judgment from a state court earns that state's statutory rate, and a judgment from a federal district court earns the federal rate under 28 U.S.C. 1961, even when the two courthouses sit across the street from each other. The spread is dramatic. Some states fix a flat number in the statute and it never moves without legislation. Others peg the rate to a market index, the one-year Treasury yield, the prime rate, or a Federal Reserve discount rate, plus a statutory spread, and reset it weekly, monthly, semiannually, or annually.

That is why this tool is built on a jurisdiction dataset rather than a single rate field. For fixed-rate states we verified the statute and apply the number automatically. For index states we refuse to guess: a hardcoded index rate goes stale the week after it is published, and a stale rate in a payoff demand or a writ application is exactly the kind of error a debtor's attorney pounces on. Instead the tool tells you the formula, points you to the official publication that carries the current figure, and lets you enter it. One more wrinkle worth knowing: the rate that attaches at entry usually stays with the judgment for its life, the way Ohio locks its rate at judgment (ORC 1343.03(B)) and federal, Georgia, and Texas judgments keep their entry rate, but some states re-index existing judgments on a schedule: Florida adjusts every judgment each January 1 (Fla. Stat. 55.03(3)), New Jersey and Louisiana apply each calendar year's published rate, Kansas resets every July 1, and Nevada every January 1 and July 1. The calculator models both designs: for resetting states it lets you enter each dated rate change so the breakdown matches what a clerk would compute.

Prejudgment interest compensates you for the years between the harm and the verdict, and it is the messier half of this subject. Post-judgment interest is nearly automatic everywhere; prejudgment interest depends on the claim. Contract claims for a sum certain (an unpaid invoice, a defaulted note, a liquidated debt) are the strongest case: most states award interest from the breach or from a written demand, often at a statutory legal rate that differs from the judgment rate. Tort claims vary far more: some states allow prejudgment interest from the date of loss, some only from the filing of suit or from a rejected settlement offer, and some leave it to the court's discretion or bar it on unliquidated damages entirely.

The calculator handles this honestly. Turn on the prejudgment option and it shows your state's general rule from our verified dataset, prefills the rate only where a general civil rate actually exists, and otherwise asks you to enter the rate that applies to your claim type. It then computes the accrual from your loss or demand date to the judgment date as simple interest, which is the majority approach, and reports it as a separate line so you can see it apart from the post-judgment accrual. If you are still pre-suit, remember that a written demand letter is often the event that starts prejudgment interest running, one more reason to send a dated, documented demand letter early rather than negotiating by phone.

Most state judgment interest is simple: the annual rate applies to the unpaid principal only, and the accrued interest sits in its own bucket, growing linearly and never earning interest itself. Federal judgments are the big exception: 28 U.S.C. 1961(b) directs that interest be computed daily and compounded annually, so each anniversary the year's accrued interest folds into the balance and starts earning interest too. A handful of states also compound annually: Texas (Fin. Code 304.006), Kentucky (KRS 360.040), Colorado (CRS 5-12-102), South Carolina (S.C. Code 34-31-20(B)), and Michigan (MCL 600.6013(8)) among them. Several more reach a similar result indirectly: when a judgment is renewed, the accrued interest is typically added to the renewed principal, which then earns interest as principal going forward.

The gap compounds with time, literally. Ten percent simple on $100,000 produces $10,000 a year, flat. Compounded annually, year two accrues on $110,000 and year three on $121,000, so the three-year totals are $30,000 simple against roughly $33,100 compounded, and the spread keeps widening. The calculator applies whichever rule your jurisdiction actually uses, and its breakdown table shows each annual compounding event as its own row so you can see exactly when unpaid interest was capitalized. If you are projecting the value of a receivable or pricing a settlement of a judgment, run both dates through the tool: the daily accrual figure it reports is the cost of every additional day of delay.

When a judgment debtor pays in installments, the order of application controls how fast the debt actually shrinks. The common default rule, often called the United States rule, credits each payment first to the interest accrued as of the payment date, and only the remainder to principal. The consequence surprises debtors: a payment smaller than the accrued interest reduces principal by nothing at all, and the balance keeps growing at the same daily rate. A $500 monthly payment against a $60,000 judgment at 10% (about $493 of monthly accrual) barely treads water.

This calculator applies the interest-first rule and shows its work: every payment row in the breakdown table states how much went to interest and how much to principal, and the running balance afterward. Be aware the default can be displaced: some states codify a specific application order for judgment payments, and a judgment, settlement agreement, or payment plan can specify its own. If your paperwork says something different, follow the paperwork. Either way, keep a dated record of every payment received; when you apply for a writ or update the accrued interest with the court, you will certify those credits, and a clean payment ledger is what makes an attorney-drafted enforcement package fast to prepare.

Interest is only money once it is collected, and it is collected the same way as the principal because it is part of the judgment debt. The usual sequence starts cheap and escalates. First, a payoff demand letter: a dated statement of the principal, the accrued interest with the statute behind it, the per-day accrual going forward, and a deadline. Debtors who realize the debt is growing daily, and that you can prove it, frequently pay or negotiate at this step. Second, an abstract of judgment (or its local equivalent) recorded with the county: it turns the judgment into a lien against the debtor's real property, and the lien secures the accruing interest too, so it waits out even a stubborn debtor until a sale or refinance.

Third, a writ of execution: the clerk issues it, and the sheriff or marshal levies bank accounts, wages, or property. The writ states the amounts owed, and most states have you file an updated accrued-interest figure so post-judgment interest and collection costs ride along with the principal. Every one of those documents has to state the interest correctly, which is exactly what the printable summary above is for. We draft payoff demands, enforcement letters, and the supporting paperwork through our legal document drafting services, and our litigation support services handle the research and drafting behind contested enforcement, debtor examinations, and renewal filings. You always review, sign, and file; we never file or serve for you.