This collection of interactive maps shows credit rating for each country.

What is Credit Rating?

A credit rating estimates the credit worthiness of an individual, corporation, or even a country. A credit rating is also known as an evaluation of a potential borrower's ability to repay debt, prepared by a credit rating agency (CRA). Credit ratings are calculated from financial history and current assets and liabilities. Typically, a credit rating tells a lender or investor the probability of the subject being able to pay back a loan.

What is Credit Rating Agency (CRA)

A credit rating agency (CRA) is a company that assigns credit ratings for issuers of certain types of debt obligations as well as the debt instruments themselves. In some cases, the servicers of the underlying debt are also given ratings.

Standard & Poor's, Moody's Investor Service and Fitch Ratings are the big three credit rating agencies. Moody's and S&P each control about 40 percent of the market. Third-ranked Fitch Ratings, which has about a 14 percent market share, sometimes is used as an alternative to one of the other majors.

Updated: Jan 2012