Four Upgrades In 16 Months.
Only The Big Three Are Still At The Floor.
A sovereign rating grades whether a government pays its debts, and sets what
it pays to borrow. Seven agencies grade India in seven alphabets, converted here to one
ladder — and on 2 September 2026 Japan Credit Rating Agency put India at
A−, 3 notches above where Moody’s and Fitch still have it.
Every rating, every year
BB+ · junkBBB− · lowest investment gradeBBBBBB+A−not yet rating India
Japan above America
3 notches
JCR has India at A−.
Moody’s and Fitch have it at the lowest investment grade there is
Fitch has not moved
20 years
BBB− since August
2006, affirmed at every review since
The longest silence
8.8 yrs
January 2007 to November 2015
with no upgrade from any of the seven — then another
7.5 years after 2017
Upgrades: Modi vs the UPA decade
6 vs 3
Five since May 2014. The
UPA’s second term drew none at all, and three moves to negative
Vajpayee
to May 2004
2 up · 0 down
0 to negative
UPA 1
2004–2009
3 up · 0 down
1 to negative
UPA 2
2009–2014
0 up · 0 down
4 to negative
Modi 1
2014–2019
2 up · 0 down
0 to negative
Modi 2
2019–2024
0 up · 2 down
2 to negative
Modi 3
2024–now
4 up · 0 down
0 to negative
Which government the agencies have rewarded
On this measure, the Modi years — and it is not close.6 upgrades since May 2014 against 3 in the ten UPA years.
The UPA’s second term produced no upgrade from any agency,
four moves to a negative outlook, and S&P publicly putting the odds of a fall to junk at
one in three in April 2012. And in twenty-three years a Big Three agency has held
India above the bottom rung exactly twice — Moody’s from 2017,
S&P from 2025 — and both spells are Modi’s.
The honest debit: both downgrades in this period also fall in a Modi term
— Moody’s and DBRS in 2020–21 — and both were pandemic cuts that
have since been reversed or outlived. And at the other end, the crossing into investment
grade itself belongs to Vajpayee in January 2004 and to UPA 1 in 2006 and
2007: the two upgrades of January 2004 are routinely written up as UPA-era wins, and they
landed four months before the UPA took office.
But does the upgrade actually move money?
Not mechanically. Bloomberg’s fixed-income index methodology
names three agencies — Moody’s, S&P and Fitch — and
applies the middle of the three. That middle is BBB−, and it was
BBB− before JCR moved. Of the four challengers only JCR and Morningstar DBRS are
SEC-recognised; R&I withdrew its US registration in 2011 and CareEdge Global holds
only a GIFT City authorisation. So index eligibility and most institutional mandates are
untouched. The signal is still worth something: the gap between what the
non-Western agencies say and what the Big Three say is precisely the case India has been
making since the Economic Survey of 2020–21, and it is now
3 notches wide. (Bloomberg does name a
fourth agency, Morningstar DBRS — but only for its Canadian Aggregate indices,
which India does not sit in. JP Morgan’s GBI-EM, which India joined in 2024, also
uses the middle of the same three.)
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Who these seven are, and which of them the market has to listen to
JCR
A-
Japan · rating India since 2008
Tokyo. Rated India BBB+ from at least August 2008 until 2 September 2026, when it became the first agency to put India in the A band. Recognised by the US SEC and certified in the EU since 2011 — the strongest regulatory standing of any agency outside the Big Three.
Not In The Index FormulaSEC-Recognised
R&I
BBB+
Japan · rating India since 2025
Tokyo. Upgraded India to BBB+ on 19 September 2025, citing fiscal management and reduced energy-import dependence. Was one of the first two agencies outside North America admitted to the SEC’s NRSRO register — on the same day as JCR, 24 September 2007 — and withdrew that registration in November 2011, so its opinion now carries no US regulatory weight.
Not In The Index FormulaNo US Registration
CareEdge Global
BBB+
India · rating India since 2024
Mumbai and GIFT City. India’s own entrant, which opened a global sovereign scale in October 2024 covering thirty-nine countries and put India at BBB+. Authorised by IFSCA and by nobody else, and its India rating is unsolicited. It is best read as the institutional form of India’s complaint.
Not In The Index FormulaNo US Registration
Morningstar DBRS
BBB
Canada · rating India since 2007
Toronto. The fourth-largest agency, and one of two non-Big-Three houses the European Central Bank accepts for collateral — Scope Ratings was added in November 2023. The most interesting record on this map: DBRS rated India from June 2007, upgraded it to BBB in November 2015, ten years before S&P got there — then withdrew its India ratings entirely in November 2017, at its own discretion, and stayed away until May 2020. It cut a notch in the second Covid wave and restored it in May 2025, opening the current run.
Not In The Index FormulaSEC-Recognised
S&P Global
BBB
US · rating India since 2004
New York. Took India to investment grade in January 2007 and then did not move for eighteen and a half years, through two negative outlooks and a positive one, before upgrading to BBB on 14 August 2025.
In The Index FormulaSEC-Recognised
Fitch
BBB-
US / UK · rating India since 2004
New York and London. Put India at BBB− in August 2006 and has affirmed it ever since — twenty years at one notch, the longest unbroken position of any agency on this map.
In The Index FormulaSEC-Recognised
Moody's
Baa3
US · rating India since 2004
New York. The only Big Three agency to have downgraded India in this period. It raised India to Baa2 in November 2017 and cut it back to Baa3 in June 2020, which returned India to exactly the notch Moody’s had assigned it in January 2004.
In The Index FormulaSEC-Recognised
Three other names come up and are not on the map. Scope Ratings
(Germany) does not cover India. Capital Intelligence, KBRA and
Egan-Jones publish sovereign lists that exclude it. No Chinese agency —
Dagong, CCXI or Lianhe — currently maintains a published India sovereign rating,
though Dagong did include India in a one-off fifty-sovereign report in 2010.
ARC Ratings assigned India BBB+ in December 2014 and affirmed it through 2015 and
2017, but its rating could not be confirmed as current — ARC still operates and is
ESMA-registered, yet publishes no live sovereign list — so it is left off rather
than drawn from a nine-year-old action.
How this was built
Seven alphabets, one ladder
Moody’s writes Baa3 where S&P writes BBB−; Morningstar DBRS
writes BBB (low). They are the same rung. Every rating here is mapped onto the
twenty-one-notch S&P ladder, where 12 is the lowest investment grade, so the
seven can be compared at all. The cells on the map speak that common ladder; the badge
at the right of each row keeps the agency’s own spelling, which is why
Moody’s row ends in Baa3.
Nothing here is interpolated, and the gaps are real
Every cell is coloured by the rating in force at the end of that year,
carried forward from the last announced action. An empty cell means no rating was
in force: JCR’s published release archive opens in August 2008, CareEdge
Global in October 2024. R&I publishes no per-issuer archive at all, so its row
begins at its upgrade of 19 September 2025 — it rated India before that, at
BBB, but we cannot date the start, so we do not draw it.
A struck-through cell is a different thing: the agency had a rating and retracted
it. Morningstar DBRS withdrew its India ratings on 28 November 2017, at its own
discretion, and did not rate India again until May 2020. Carrying its BBB across those
years would put an opinion in DBRS’s mouth that DBRS had explicitly taken back.
Which rating is being shown
The long-term foreign-currency sovereign issuer rating, which is the
one the market quotes. Moody’s carried a local-currency rating two notches
lower until July 2010 and one notch lower until December 2011 — Ba2 against
Baa3 from 2004, lifted to Ba1 on 27 July 2010 and aligned at Baa3 on 20 December 2011. That second series is not drawn. Outlook
changes are recorded and appear on hover, but they do not change a cell’s colour,
because an outlook is a signal about a future rating, not a rating.
Why the index caveat is in the headline and not a footnote
It is the difference between a rating being right and a rating being
binding. Bloomberg’s fixed-income index methodology names Moody’s,
S&P and Fitch and takes the middle of the three, using the more conservative rating
where fewer are available. Index inclusion drives passive flows and most institutional
mandates are written against the same three names. A reader who takes the JCR upgrade as
a cheaper borrowing cost tomorrow has been misled; a reader who takes it as evidence that
the Big Three’s floor is now an outlier has not.
Sources: JCR sovereign release archive; S&P, Moody’s and
Fitch rating actions via PIB releases and contemporaneous reporting; Morningstar DBRS
releases; R&I via the Ministry of Finance; CareEdge Global rating rationales. Regulatory
standing from the US SEC list of NRSROs and the ESMA register of credit rating agencies.
Index practice from the Bloomberg Fixed Income Index Methodology. India’s own case is
set out in the Economic Survey 2020–21, Volume 1, Chapter 3.
Ratings are opinions, not facts, and are reported here as such.
A− is the highest rating on this map. It is not India’s
all-time high
This map starts in 2004, and within it JCR’s A− is the highest
rating any agency has given India. Go back further and that stops being true.
Moody’s rated India A2 in 1988 and held it at investment grade until
June 1998, when it cut two notches to Ba2 after the Pokhran-II tests.
S&P had India at BBB in 1990 and cut it to junk in September 1991
— during the balance-of-payments crisis, not after the nuclear tests, which is a
detail often got wrong. So the honest claim is that India is at its highest rating
since the 1991 crisis, not ever.
