Standard & Poor's Credit Rating for each country

This map shows Standard & Poor's Credit Rating for each country.

• Estonia's credit rating was raised by Standard & Poor's Ratings to the second-highest level in eastern Europe on the Baltic country's strong economic growth and solid public finances. The long-term foreign and local currency bond rating was increased by two notches from A to AA- with a stable outlook (August 9, 2011).
• For the first time ever, the United States of America lost its perfect credit rating as Standard & Poor's reduced its U.S. long-term debt assessment from AAA to AA+ with a negative outlook (August 5, 2011).

Standard & Poor's (S&P) is a United States-based financial services company. It is a division of The McGraw-Hill Companies that publishes financial research and analysis on stocks and bonds. It is well known for the stock market indexes, the US-based S&P 500, the Australian S&P/ASX 200, the Canadian S&P/TSX, the Italian S&P/MIB and India's S&P CNX Nifty. It is one of the Big Three credit rating agencies (Standard & Poor's, Moody's Investor Service and Fitch Ratings).

Standard & Poor's Ratings:

• AAA: The best quality borrowers, reliable and stable
• AA: Quality borrowers, a bit higher risk than AAA
• A: Economic situation can affect finance
• BBB: Medium class borrowers, which are satisfactory at the moment
• BB: More prone to changes in the economy
• B: Financial situation varies noticeably