As of December 31st 2020, the sovereign ratings of The Economist Intelligence Unit’s Country Risk Service are regulated in accordance with The Credit Rating Agencies (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019, SI 2019/266 (hereinafter called the UK regulations). Previously, the sovereign ratings were regulated in accordance with Regulation (EC) No 1060/2009 of September 16th 2009 on credit rating agencies, as amended by Regulation (EU) No. 513/2011 of the European Parliament and of the Council of May 11th 2011 and Regulation (EU) No. 462/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council of May 21st 2013. The registration of The Economist Intelligence Unit as a credit rating agency took effect from June 3rd 2013.
20 February 2024
The EIU has published its Transparency Report for the 2023 calendar year.
8 February 2024
The EIU has published its Transparency Report for the 2021 and 2022 calendar years.
18 December 2023
The EIU has published its Financial Risk Service rating schedule for 2024 to include regulated reports only. A schedule of all rating reports, regardless of their regulatory status, is available here.
17 April 2023
We have identified and corrected an error in our data tool and data feeds related to the sovereign rating for Iraq. The rating as of March 2023 was previously incorrectly given as B, but has now been amended to CCC, consistent with the rating report published on March 10th, which was correct and is unchanged. We apologise for any confusion or inconvenience this may have caused.
15 March 2023
On 1 January 2023 Croatia adopted the euro and became the 20th member of the euro area. As a consequence, Country Risk ratings for Croatia will be based on the euro area variant of the Country Risk model, starting with the rating review scheduled on April 7th 2023. Please direct any queries or feedback to [email protected].
27 January 2023
The Country Risk Service Handbook has been updated to include latest rating performance statistics.
21 December 2022
The EIU has published its Country Risk Service rating schedule for 2023 to include regulated reports only. A schedule of all rating reports, regardless of their regulatory status, is available here.
20 December 2021
Tables in the CRS report for Yemen published on November 12th 2021 contained incorrect sovereign and currency risk ratings. These errors were identified on December 15th 2021, and a corrected report was published on December 17th 2021. There were no errors in the underlying risk scores, model or analysis. We apologise for any confusion or inconvenience this may have caused.
21 December 2020
The EIU has updated these pages to reflect the change in the regulatory status of the Country Risk Service as of December 31st 2020. Changes have been made to the pages on regulatory affairs, rating publication, methodologies and procedures, as well as to the Country Risk Service Handbook.
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The scores and ratings assigned by the EIU are opinions on the creditworthiness of governments based on models using standardised indicators and methodologies. The indicators used in assessing sovereign risk are both qualitative and quantitative. The EIU takes care to ensure standardised measurement of qualitative criteria, but they inevitably involve an element of subjectivity. Quantitative indicators are drawn from recognised sources. They are based on actual data where high-frequency data series are available. For annual data series, the EIU makes estimates based on the outturn or estimate for the previous year and its forecast for the current year. The scores and ratings are point-in-time, i.e. they take into account the point of the economic cycle.
The EIU back-tested the model against a data base of sovereign defaults and publishes the incidence of default by score ranges. Statistical validation is difficult because of the scarcity of past episodes of sovereign default. This means that probabilities of default based on past experience may not necessarily be a reliable guide to the future.
Effective date
January 2023 (PDF) (Current)
December 2020 (PDF) (Replaced January 2023)
January 2014 (PDF) (Replaced September 2020)
The Country Risk Service rating schedule lists the dates updated sovereign ratings and accompanying reports may be published, and the date when a country was first rated. Additionally all regulated country pages schedule can be found here.
The Country Risk Service published ratings information page lists the lead analyst, analyst and publication date and time for each sovereign rating and accompanying report.
The following disclosures are provided in accordance with the requirements of the UK regulations governing credit rating agencies.
Conflicts of interest
Policies relating to conflicts of interests, and any identified conflicts of interest.
A list of rated entities and related third parties that subscribe to EIU services.
Ancillary services
A description of the ancillary services provided by the EIU.
Publication of credit ratings
The policy relating to the publication of credit ratings and other related communications.
Methodologies and procedures
Information relating to the Economist Intelligence Unit’s methodologies and procedures for assigning ratings.
Material modifications
Material modifications of the Economist Intelligence Unit’s systems, resources or procedures will be announced within the Notifications section of this page. As necessary, these modifications will be reflected through updates of the Disclosure documents referenced within this page.
Compensation policy
The policy relating to compensation.
Transparency report
The transparency report contains information on the legal structure and ownership of The Economist Intelligence Unit Ltd, The Economist Intelligence Unit’s internal control mechanisms, and other information relating to the quality of The Economist Intelligence Unit’s sovereign credit ratings. Previous reports are available for calendar years 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015 and 2014.