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Civil Cases of Debt 1985-2025

South Africa, 1985 - 2025
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Reference ID
zaf-statssa-ccd-1985-2025-v1
DOI
https://doi.org/10.25828/QMGV-5930
Producer(s)
Statistics South Africa
Collections
South African Time Series
Metadata
Documentation in PDF DDI/XML JSON
Created on
Dec 28, 2025
Last modified
Dec 28, 2025
Page views
3632
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  • Identification
  • Version
  • Scope
  • Coverage
  • Producers and sponsors
  • Data collection
  • Data processing
  • Data appraisal
  • access_policy
  • Contacts
  • Metadata production
  • Citation

    • Identification

    Survey ID number
    zaf-statssa-ccd-1985-2025-v1
    Title
    Civil Cases of Debt 1985-2025
    Abbreviation or Acronym
    CCD 1985-2025
    Country
    Name Country code
    South Africa zaf
    Study type
    Other
    Abstract
    Statistics South Africa collects administrative information of civil cases recorded, civil summonses and civil judgements recorded for debt issued in South Africa. This is done for the purposes of providing users with information on the extent of unpaid debt in South Africa. This information is obtained from selected magistrates’ offices. Except for cases recorded, all other information relates to debt cases only, therefore claims for damages, ejectment orders and other non-debt cases are excluded.
    Kind of Data
    Administrative records
    Unit of Analysis
    Individuals and establishments

    Version

    Version Description
    v1.1: Edited data for public distribution
    Version Date
    2025-12-28

    Scope

    Notes

    This data covers the number of civil cases recorded; number of civil summonses issued for debt; number of civil judgements recorded for debt; and value of civil judgements recorded for debt.

    Coverage

    Geographic Coverage
    This data is at the national coverage.
    Geographic Unit
    The statistical unit for collection of information is a magistrate’s office. Magistrates’ offices include the small claims courts.
    Universe
    This data covers all civil cases recorded and civil summonses for debt issued in 203 magistrates offices in South Africa. This represents approximately 98% of all cases in South Africa.

    Producers and sponsors

    Primary investigators
    Name Affiliation
    Statistics South Africa Government of South Africa

    Data collection

    Dates of Data Collection
    Start End Cycle
    1985 2025 monthly
    Data Collection Mode
    • Internet and telephone
    Data Collectors
    Name Affiliation Abbreviation
    Statistics South Africa Government of South Africa StatsSA

    Data processing

    Data Editing
    The dataset combines monthly civil debt case statistics from three source files covering the periods 1985–1989, 1990–1999, and 2000–2025. Each source file was reshaped from wide to long format so that monthly values appear in a single column. A proper date variable was created from the original month and year indicators, using the first day of each month. The data were then sorted by date and ID, and all text variables were converted to lowercase for consistency. Additional cleaning was applied to standardise category names, fix spelling inconsistencies, and harmonise units of measurement. Monetary values originally recorded in thousands of rands were converted to rands. Value labels were attached to each coded variable to preserve the original meanings. Descriptive variable labels were also added to improve clarity and usability.The final cleaned and labelled dataset was exported in Stata (.dta) format for public use.

    Data appraisal

    Data Appraisal
    Between 1990 and 1999, some debt categories are less detailed than in other years. In particular, “goods sold” and “services” cannot be split into their more specific subcategories.

    access_policy

    Access authority
    Name Affiliation URL Email
    DataFirst University of Cape Town support@data1st.org
    Access conditions
    Public access data for use under a Creative Commons CC-BY (Attribution-only) License
    Citation requirements
    Statistics South Africa. 2025. Civil Cases of Debt 1985-2025 [dataset]. Version 1. Pretoria: Statistics South Africa [producer], 2025. Cape Town: DataFirst [distributor], 2025. DOI: https://doi.org/10.25828/QMGV-5930

    Contacts

    Contacts
    Name Affiliation Email URL
    DataFirst Support University of Cape Town support@data1st.org

    Metadata production

    Producers
    Name Affiliation Role
    DataFirst University of Cape Town Metadata producer
    Date of Metadata Production
    2025-12-26

    Metadata version

    DDI Document version
    Version 1

    Citation

    Citation
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