A bond is a loan. A credit rating is an independent grade of how likely that loan is to be repaid on time and in full. This is the national page: how the United States federal government itself is graded — and how the agencies judge every government borrower. From here you can browse all 50 states, each with its own page, starting with Washington, one of the highest-rated states in the country. One letter — AAA, BBB, or CCC — can change what a government pays to borrow billions for schools, highways, and ferries.
The federal government is the country's biggest borrower, and its grade anchors everything else. The US Treasury was AAA across the board for decades — then the downgrades came, one agency at a time. Today no major agency gives the United States its top grade.
S&P cut the US to AA+ in August 2011 after a debt-ceiling standoff, Fitch followed to AA+ in August 2023, and Moody's was last, moving the US to Aa1 in May 2025. All three cited the same ingredients: rising federal debt and interest costs, and governance that lurches from one debt-ceiling fight to the next.
Treasury bonds remain the world's benchmark "risk-free" asset — but on paper, no major agency gives the federal government its top grade anymore.
State ratings aren't capped by Washington DC's. Agencies judge each government on its own revenue, reserves, and willingness to pay — so at Moody's, Washington State's Aaa sits a full notch above the US sovereign's Aa1.
Several states — Utah, Texas, Florida, and Virginia among them — hold the top mark from all three agencies, a tier the federal government has now left entirely. Every state has its own page: start from the States page.
Sovereign ratings as published by the agencies in October 2026. Ratings are opinions that change over time — check the current rating with the agency before relying on it. Colors: every rating on this site is shaded on one spectrum — green for the safest grades, through amber, to dark red for the riskiest — so the same notch carries the same color whichever agency issued it.
These are the broad letter grades. Every grade below it in the full table adds a +/− or a number to fine-tune the position.
The agencies use different symbols for the same idea. This table lines them up notch by notch — read across a row to translate.
| S&P / Fitch | Moody’s | Category | What it means |
|---|---|---|---|
| Investment grade — generally considered safe enough for conservative investors | |||
| Prime | Highest quality, minimal risk. Capacity to pay is exceptionally strong. The gold standard. | ||
| High grade | Very high quality. Differs from AAA only by a small degree; very low credit risk. | ||
| Upper-medium | Strong, but more exposed to change. Adequate protection, though a downturn could weaken it more than AA. | ||
| Lower-medium | Adequate — for now. Medium-grade credit with some speculative flavour. BBB− / Baa3 is the lowest investment-grade notch. | ||
| Speculative grade — “junk” / high-yield · materially higher risk of loss | |||
| Speculative | Faces major ongoing uncertainties. BB+ / Ba1 is the top junk notch — one step below investment grade. | ||
| Highly speculative | Adverse conditions could impair repayment. Currently able to pay, but with little margin for error. | ||
| Substantial risk | Vulnerable to non-payment. Repayment depends on business and economic conditions staying favourable. | ||
| Extremely speculative | Highly vulnerable. Default is probable, though it may not have happened yet. | ||
| Near default | Lowest rated. Default is imminent or a missed payment / bankruptcy filing is effectively underway, with some recovery hope. | ||
| In default | In default. S&P and Fitch use D when a payment is missed on its due date or bankruptcy is filed. Moody’s lowest symbol is C instead. | ||
Short-term ratings are a separate scale (for debt due in under ~13 months): S&P uses A-1, A-2, A-3, B, C, D; Moody’s uses P-1, P-2, P-3 and NP. Long-term ratings above are what most headlines refer to.
Ratings come from private companies recognised by regulators as Nationally Recognized Statistical Rating Organizations (NRSROs) in the US. The Big Three dominate globally — and are often paid by the issuer whose bonds they rate, a model that has drawn criticism since 2008. Each agency below has its own page on this site explaining exactly how its scale, outlooks, and rating process work.
The largest rater. Descends from Henry Varnum Poor’s 1860 history of US railroads and canals — investors have wanted independent credit analysis for as long as there have been bonds to sell.
Founded by John Moody, who published the first widely used bond ratings in 1909 for railroad bonds. Moody’s invented much of the language the market still uses.
Founded by John Knowles Fitch in New York, now co-headquartered in New York and London. The smallest of the Big Three, but often the tie-breaker when S&P and Moody’s disagree.
Canada’s DBRS (founded 1976), now part of Morningstar. The fourth-largest globally, widely used for Canadian and European issuers.
How DBRS's rating system works →Founded in 2010 after the financial crisis by Jules Kroll. Grew fast in structured finance and private credit by pitching itself as a fresher alternative.
How KBRA's rating system works →A smaller, investor-paid rater — subscribers pay instead of issuers. Agencies like A.M. Best (insurance) and Japan Credit Rating Agency fill other niches the Big Three don’t dominate.
How Egan-Jones's rating system works →No boundary on the scale matters more than the one between BBB− and BB+. It isn’t just a label — it changes who can own the bond.
Borrowers judged to have a strong-to-adequate capacity to repay. This is the only universe many buyers are allowed into:
Called “junk” in headlines and “high-yield” on trading desks — same thing. Higher promised return, materially higher chance of not getting it:
A company that was investment grade and gets downgraded to junk. The downgrade can trigger forced selling by funds that aren’t allowed to hold junk — which is why a one-notch cut at BBB− can move a price far more than the same cut elsewhere. Ford and Kraft Heinz are famous recent examples.
The reverse: a junk-rated borrower that earns its way up to investment grade. Prices often rise before the upgrade, as buyers anticipate index inclusion and a bigger pool of allowed buyers.
A rating is an opinion, built by a committee of analysts, reviewed continuously — not a one-time exam. The same ingredients come up again and again:
Cash flow versus interest and principal due. Can the borrower cover payments comfortably, even in a bad year?
How much debt sits on top of earnings or tax revenue, and whether that pile is growing or shrinking.
Predictable, diversified income scores well. Dependence on one product, commodity, or taxpayer base scores poorly.
For governments: institutions, rule of law, and debt trajectory. For companies: management, industry position, and country risk.
Investors demand extra yield — the spread over safe government bonds — to compensate for default risk. The curve is gentle inside investment grade, then steepens sharply in junk. That’s why a downgrade is expensive even before any forced selling starts. (Shape is illustrative, not a live market quote.)
Next to almost every rating you’ll see a second signal that hints where it may move over the next 6 months to 2 years.
The rating could be raised if current trends continue. Not a promise — a lean.
The default outlook. No move is expected in the near term under current conditions.
The rating could be cut. Many downgrades are preceded by a spell on negative outlook.
Could move either way — usually because an event (a merger, a court ruling, a bailout) hasn’t resolved yet.
Stronger and faster than an outlook. The agency is actively reviewing for a likely change, usually within about 90 days, often after a specific event. S&P calls it CreditWatch; Moody’s says “under review”; Fitch uses Rating Watch.
An actual move of one or more notches. A multi-notch move at once is uncommon and usually follows a shock — a default scare, a leveraged buyout, or a sovereign crisis.
“Not rated.” The agency has stopped rating the debt — because it matured, was repaid, the issuer stopped cooperating, or the agency withdrew for business reasons. NR doesn’t mean risky by itself.
Companies are rarely rated far above their home government, because a state in crisis can impose controls that trap even a healthy company. That link is why a sovereign downgrade often drags its banks and utilities down with it.
Ratings assess relative credit risk at a point in time. AAA borrowers have, very rarely, failed; and agencies were famously slow before 2008, when highly rated mortgage securities collapsed — a failure that led to tighter regulation and lasting scepticism about the issuer-pays model.
Ratings also lag: markets often move first, and the downgrade confirms what bond prices already said.
A rating says nothing about:
That’s why professionals treat a rating as a starting point for their own analysis, never the whole answer.
Every state sells bonds to build schools, highways, ferries, and water systems — and every state carries its own grades from the agencies, separate from the federal government's and sometimes better. Every card below shows the state's general obligation (GO) grades from Moody's, S&P and Fitch; where an agency does not rate a state, the card says Not rated rather than leave a gap. Pick a state to open its page: its grades, what drives them, and what the agencies watch.
Washington is where this site starts: Moody's Aaa, S&P AA+, Fitch AA+ — near the very top of the state scale, and a full notch above the US sovereign at Moody's. Open the Washington page →
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Ratings shown are each agency's long-term general obligation rating for the state — or, where the state issues little or no GO debt of its own, the agency's issuer rating — as published by the agencies and compiled in this site's 50-state table (October 2026 snapshot). A grade is never carried from one agency to another: where an agency does not rate a state's GO debt, the card shows Not rated. Ratings change over time — check with the agency before relying on one.
Every state, shaded by its current general obligation (GO) rating — the grade on the bonds backed by the state's full faith and credit. There is one map per agency, because the agencies do not always agree, and two of them barely rate state GO debt at all. Pick an agency, hover or tap a state to see its grade, and open any state in the index below the map for its full page.
The map's figures, as a list. Select a state to open its page: its GO grades at all three big agencies, its rating history, and its separately-rated bond programs.
Grades are each agency's long-term general obligation rating for the state — or, where the state issues little or no GO debt of its own, the agency's issuer rating, the anchor for its creditworthiness — as compiled in this site's ratings tables from published 2025–2026 agency summaries and rating actions. A grade is never carried from one agency to another: where an agency has no sourced GO grade for a state, the state shows as Not rated. Ratings change over time — check the current grade with the agency before relying on it.