Which Countries Still Have AAA Ratings? October 2026 Guide

Nine countries still hold a top-tier sovereign credit rating from Moody’s, S&P Global Ratings and Fitch at the same time: Australia, Denmark, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Singapore, Sweden and Switzerland. A few more, including Canada, Liechtenstein and New Zealand, hold the top grade at one or two of those agencies but not all three. That single distinction is where most published lists go wrong.

If you are checking this because you hold sovereign bonds or want a defensive sleeve for a portfolio, the useful question is not just who is AAA. It is which agency said so, when they last reviewed it, and whether the outlook is stable. Those three details change more often than the headline grade does.

Ratings below are current as of October 2026, based on the latest published rating actions from each agency. I rebuilt this list from the agency tables rather than carrying forward last year’s version, which is exactly how Canada keeps ending up back on triple-AAA lists. Ratings change with no notice beyond a press release, so treat the date as part of the fact, not decoration.

Which Countries Still Have AAA Ratings at a Glance

The table below puts all three major agencies side by side, plus DBRS Morningstar, so you can see at a glance who is rated AAA everywhere and who is only AAA in some places.

Country	Moody’s	S&P	Fitch	DBRS	Note
Australia	Aaa	AAA	AAA	AAA	AAA at all three
Denmark	Aaa	AAA	AAA	AAA	AAA at all three
Germany	Aaa	AAA	AAA	AAA	AAA at all three
Luxembourg	Aaa	AAA	AAA	AAA	AAA at all three
Netherlands	Aaa	AAA	AAA	AAA	AAA at all three
Norway	Aaa	AAA	AAA	AAA	AAA at all three
Singapore	Aaa	AAA	AAA	AAA	AAA at all three
Sweden	Aaa	AAA	AAA	AAA	AAA at all three
Switzerland	Aaa	AAA	AAA	AAA	AAA at all three
Canada	Aaa	AAA	AA+	AA+	Fitch cut it on 18 July 2025
Liechtenstein	Not rated	AAA	Not rated	Not rated	S&P AAA since 1996
New Zealand	Aaa	AA+	AA+	Not rated	S&P cut it in Feb 2021
United States	Aa1	AA+	AA+	AAA	No longer AAA at the Big Three
European Union	Not rated	Not rated	AAA	AAA	Supranational, not a country

Two entries in that table cause most of the confusion. Liechtenstein is a sovereign state with a genuine AAA rating from S&P, but neither Moody’s nor Fitch rates it as a sovereign issuer, so it can never be triple-AAA. The European Union holds a supranational AAA at Fitch and DBRS because it is rated as a bloc institution with its own resources and borrowing capacity, not because it is a country.

Hong Kong also appears in most historical AAA lists and no longer belongs in a current one. It lost the top grade in 2017 and has sat well below it since.

The United States is the entry most readers argue about. It is not AAA at any of the Big Three right now, and the reasons are specific rather than mysterious. S&P cut it to AA+ in August 2011, Fitch followed in August 2023, and Moody’s moved to Aa1 on 16 May 2025. DBRS still rates the US AAA, which is why you will occasionally see the claim repeated.

1. Switzerland

Switzerland has held AAA continuously at all three agencies for longer than any other country on this list, and its S&P and Fitch ratings date back decades. Institutions, political stability and a well-managed public balance sheet are the three pillars agencies keep pointing to.

The thing to watch is not default risk. It is the currency. The rating tells you the Swiss government will pay; it says almost nothing about what happens to the franc when risk appetite collapses. Safe-haven flows have a habit of pushing the currency to the strongest levels exactly when global stress peaks.

2. Norway

Norway’s AAA rests on a fiscal rule most countries envy: a large sovereign wealth fund, the Government Pension Fund Global, invested abroad and counted as an asset offsetting the oil and gas revenue that flows into it. Combined with a conservative fiscal framework and low government debt, it gives agencies very little to worry about.

The pressure point is energy. Norway’s economy and export receipts lean heavily on petroleum, so a sustained fall in energy prices squeezes both nominal growth and the revenue that feeds the fund. So far that has shown up as a wider fiscal rule and a slightly weaker currency rather than anything close to a rating problem.

3. Singapore

Singapore earns AAA with a small open economy, no independent currency policy and heavy dependence on trade. What tips the balance is fiscal reserves accumulated across decades of budget surpluses, a credible monetary framework and a rule-based approach to fiscal policy.

This is the country that most often looks wrong on a debt screen. Singapore’s gross public debt is commonly quoted at well over 160% of GDP, a number that would look alarming elsewhere. That figure is driven by the government’s practice of issuing bonds to build a deep, liquid domestic yield curve and to hedge currency risk through the Monetary Authority of Singapore. It says more about plumbing than about solvency.

Investors also need to separate two different things that both get called country risk: the sovereign rating, which covers repayment by the government, and the wider country-risk assessments sold by consultancies. They measure different things and produce different answers.

4. Luxembourg

Luxembourg’s AAA combines a small economy, sound public finances and unusually stable institutions. Its sovereign rating is widely seen as a legacy issue, since the country’s finances are carried inside a general government balance sheet that includes a large financial sector and a substantial deposit guarantee fund.

Because the country is small and its bond market is correspondingly thin, liquidity deserves more attention than the letter grade suggests. The same concentration that makes Luxembourg a strong AAA credit means single-name positions in its sovereign curve can be harder to exit in size than a German or Dutch position of the same notional.

5. Germany

Germany is the largest AAA economy in the euro area, and its rating rests on a large, diversified industrial base, a rule-based fiscal framework and consistent budget management at both federal and state level. For most of the past two decades, the debt brake was the supporting argument agencies kept returning to.

The debate has shifted toward the structural side. Persistent weak growth, an ageing population, heavy energy import exposure and large defence and infrastructure spending all raise questions about medium-term fiscal headroom. None of that touches the rating today, but it is why the German outlook is monitored more closely than the grade alone would suggest.

6. Australia

Australia is AAA at Moody’s, S&P and Fitch, and the three agencies broadly agree on the shape of the risk picture: a responsible fiscal record, an independent central bank and a resilient political system offset by commodity dependence and housing-market sensitivity.

Commodity exposure is the recurring watch item. Australia’s terms of trade and budget revenue move with iron ore, coal and LNG prices, so a sharp fall in commodity demand shows up in the fiscal balance quickly. That is why domestic bank and superannuation readers should pay attention to Australia’s sovereign rating even when they hold no government bonds: a downgrade would raise funding costs for banks and superannuation funds that invest heavily in domestic assets.

7. Canada

Canada is no longer triple-AAA, and this is the most common factual error in published lists. Moody’s still rates it Aaa and S&P still rates it AAA, but Fitch cut Canada to AA+ on 18 July 2025, citing persistent deficits, heavy mortgage refinancing needs and a low ratio of economic growth to population growth. Canada appears on many still-circulating triple-AAA lists because those lists were written before that date.

Housing is the underlying issue rather than any solvency question. A very high household debt-to-income ratio, mostly variable-rate mortgages reset on short cycles, leaves the economy exposed to rate moves in a way that most advanced economies are not.

8. United Kingdom

The United Kingdom has not carried an AAA sovereign rating from a Big Three agency in a long time. S&P cut it below AAA in 2009 and Fitch followed in 2010; Moody’s placed the UK at Aa2 in 2009, rating it Aa1 from 2013 until cutting it to Aa2 in June 2025. Anyone including the UK in a current AAA list is reading an old source.

For investors, the practical implication sits in gilts and sterling rather than default odds. Gilt yields are the benchmark for a huge share of global liability-driven investment, and sterling carries a long-standing reputation as a funding currency that the rating itself does not create. Inflation-linked gilts are widely used for index-linked exposure, which is a demand story rather than a credit story.

9. Sweden

Sweden has held AAA at all three agencies and is one of the few euro area economies outside the euro that carries the top grade alongside Norway and Denmark. Its fiscal framework includes a surplus target and a debt brake, and its institutional quality scores sit near the top of any global index.

Two exposures put the AAA under periodic scrutiny: the domestic banking system’s large share of corporate and real estate lending, and a growth model that has leaned on mortgage-driven consumption. A property downturn that damages the banks would be the realistic route to a rating review.

10. Denmark

Denmark’s AAA combines a low public debt level, a flexible exchange rate pegged to the euro, a solid fiscal framework and a well-regulated financial sector. Agencies have consistently treated the Danish krone peg as a stabiliser rather than a constraint.

The krone is one of the most traded currencies in global markets and Danish mortgage bonds anchor a huge portion of European housing finance, so a Danish rating change would be felt far beyond Denmark. A rally in Danish long bonds is usually part of a global flow rather than a purely local event.

Countries That Left the AAA Club, and When

The AAA club has shrunk steadily over the past two decades. The following dates are the ones worth remembering, because most stale lists are stale for one of these reasons.

Country	Agency	Change	Date
United Kingdom	S&P	AAA to AA+	2009
United Kingdom	Fitch	AAA to AA+	2010
United States	S&P	AAA to AA+	August 2011
Hong Kong	S&P	AAA to AA+	September 2017
New Zealand	S&P	AAA to AA+	21 February 2021
United States	Fitch	AAA to AA+	August 2023
United Kingdom	Moody’s	Aa1 to Aa2	June 2025
United States	Moody’s	Aa1 downgrade	16 May 2025
Canada	Fitch	AAA to AA+	18 July 2025

Switzerland, Germany, Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Norway, Singapore and Australia have never left. Every other name you remember from a list you read in the last few years was accurate at some point and is not accurate now.

What the US downgrades actually changed is worth stating plainly, because the gap between the headline and the market reaction was wide. In practice the effect was limited: Treasury pricing barely shifted in the sessions after each action, and mortgage costs in the US are set by the Federal Reserve rather than by any agency’s letter grade. What did change is how foreign reserve managers and holders of foreign-currency debt talk about the US. The same pattern showed up after the 2023 Fitch action and again after the 2025 Moody’s downgrade.

How AAA Ratings Are Assigned and Why Agencies Can Disagree

A sovereign credit rating is a judgement about a government’s capacity and willingness to repay debt on time. It is not a score, it is an opinion with a documented method behind it, and the opinion is only as current as the last review.

What the four main agencies actually do

Moody’s, S&P Global Ratings and Fitch are the Big Three that most market participants mean when they say rating agency. DBRS Morningstar is a fourth agency with real weight in Canada, and Scope Ratings and JCR operate in parts of Europe. Each uses its own criteria for economic strength, fiscal position, external balance and institutional quality, then assigns a letter grade with an outlook of stable, positive or negative.

Three differences explain most of the disagreement you will see. The first is scale notation: Moody’s top grade is Aaa, while S&P, Fitch and DBRS use AAA. Aaa and AAA are the same judgement written two ways.

The second is the time horizon each factor is given. Weighting of government debt, fiscal flexibility and external buffers varies, so two agencies can look at the same country with the same data and weight it differently.

The third is the direction of the question. All three score the same fundamentals, but the combination rule and the thresholds for a downgrade are proprietary, so a country sitting just above a boundary can be AAA at one shop and AA+ at another without anyone claiming the other’s numbers are wrong.

What AAA means and how far down the scale goes

AAA is the top of the long-term sovereign scale: negligible credit risk, the lowest borrowing costs an agency will assign. One notch down is AA, then A, then BBB, which is the lowest investment-grade band. Below that sit speculative grades, where the risk of default becomes a genuine part of the calculation rather than a remote consideration.

Two other pieces of vocabulary cause problems. An outlook is the agency’s forward view; a negative outlook is not a downgrade, but it is a warning. And ratings can be withdrawn entirely, which happens for structural reasons such as a country ceasing to exist, and does not by itself mean default.

How to verify a rating instead of trusting a list

Go to the agency’s own sovereign rating page rather than a blog, look at the rating action date next to the grade, and read the outlook line. When the three disagree, decide in advance which agency’s view your portfolio actually depends on: liability-driven investors usually care about the agency that set the capital treatment, and currency investors often care about none of them.

What AAA Ratings Mean for Bonds, Currencies and Investors

AAA is best read as a description of credit risk, not a verdict on the asset. A AAA-rated bond can lose money through a rate move or a currency move while never coming close to default. Keeping those two things apart is most of what you need.

Default risk and borrowing costs

The top grade is associated with near-zero default risk and the lowest yields available anywhere in the sovereign market. That is the same statement viewed from two sides: governments borrow cheaply, and bondholders accept lower yield in exchange for near-certainty of repayment. Every notch below AAA widens the spread modestly, and spreads widen most sharply when the outlook changes.

Currency is a separate risk

Bondholders in a non-local currency take on an FX position that AAA status does not address. Currency moves have historically produced far larger swings in total return than credit events among AAA issuers. If your liabilities and income are in your own currency, hedging that exposure usually matters more than the letter grade.

Liquidity and portfolio fit

Small economies with AAA ratings can have thin sovereign bond markets, as Luxembourg shows. Position size and exit cost matter there. In a larger economy such as Germany or the Netherlands, deep markets make it easier to hold size, and the remaining decision is usually about diversification rather than credit.

What AAA is not

AAA says nothing about growth, valuation, currency strength or political risk. It is not a recommendation to buy, and it is not a guarantee against a loss. Ratings are also slow: they are set with a horizon measured in years, so a change in conditions shows up in markets long before it shows up in a rating action.

This is general background information, not personal financial advice. Rules, tax treatment and suitable instruments vary by country, so check the current position with a regulated adviser before acting on any of it.

Frequently Asked Questions

Conclusion: Check the Rating Agency and Date

Nine countries still have AAA ratings from all three major agencies, and that number is the answer most people are looking for. But the second half of the answer matters just as much: Canada, Liechtenstein and New Zealand are only AAA at some of them, and the AAA club has kept shrinking for two decades.

Before you use any AAA figure in a decision, do one thing: open the agency’s own sovereign ratings page, check the date on the last rating action, and read the outlook. Everything else in this guide is a snapshot from October 2026, and snapshots go stale.