Bond credit rating chart: India vs the global scales

Live yields per grade as of Sept 2026, from 264 bonds tracked daily by RightBonds.

Updated 4 Aug 2026

Every listed bond carries a rating - AAA, AA+, BBB- - assigned by a SEBI-registered agency (CRISIL, ICRA, CARE, India Ratings). It grades one thing: how likely the issuer is to pay you back. Lower grade → higher default risk → higher yield offered to compensate. Here is the whole scale, with the live yields each grade pays right now.

How much do high-yield corporate bonds pay in India?

High-yield corporate bonds in India pay yields to maturity of 12% to 15% and above, concentrated in A and BBB rated issuers. That compares with roughly 7.5 to 9% on AAA paper. The extra yield is the market's compensation for higher default risk, so always read the rating alongside the number.

Corporate bonds make up the bulk of listings on RightBonds. Credit ratings span AAA, AA, A and BBB - a higher rating means lower default risk and typically a lower yield. Sort by YTM to find the highest-yielding bonds, then check the rating and tenure to match your risk appetite.

What do bond rating grades mean, and what do they yield today?

A bond rating grades default risk, the chance you do not get paid back. AAA means highest safety and the lowest yield, around 7.5 to 9% right now; AA pays roughly 9 to 11%, A about 10.5 to 13%, and BBB 12% or more. The table below shows live yields per grade from 264 tracked bonds.

Grades with fewer than 3 current listings are omitted. Yields refresh daily with our scrape.

How do Indian bond ratings compare with S&P, Moody's and Fitch?

Indian rating scales map almost one to one onto the global ones. CRISIL, ICRA and CARE use the same letters as S&P and Fitch (AAA down to D), prefixed with the agency name, while Moody's writes the same rungs as Aaa, Aa1 and so on. A CRISIL AAA sits on the same rung as an S&P AAA.

This chart lines up the global agencies (S&P, Fitch and Moody's) against the Indian ones (CRISIL, ICRA, CARE) grade by grade, from the strongest, triple-A, down to D (default).

Indian agencies prefix long-term ratings with the agency name (for example CRISIL AAA, ICRA AA+, CARE A). "SOV" marks sovereign (Government of India) credit, above the AAA scale.

How do you read bond rating letters?

Read the letters as a safety ladder: more As means lower default risk. AAA is highest safety, then AA, A and BBB, with BBB- the last investment-grade rung; BB and below are speculative, and D means default. A plus or minus marks position within a grade, so AA+ is the strongest AA.

• AAA / triple-A / SOV - highest safety; SOV is sovereign (Government of India) credit. A triple-A credit rating means the agency judges default risk to be the lowest on its scale.
• AA family (double-A) - very high safety; a notch of extra yield over AAA.
• A family (single-A) - adequate safety; meaningfully higher yields, real credit work needed.
• BBB family (triple-B) - moderate safety, the lowest investment-grade band. A BBB or triple-B rating still counts as investment grade; below BBB- is speculative ("junk").
• BB and B - speculative / high-yield grades; a B credit rating carries clear default risk and is rare on Indian retail platforms.
• C and D - very high risk to actual default (D). Avoid unless you know exactly what you are buying.
• + / - - position within the grade: AA+ is the strongest AA, AA- the weakest.

What does a BBB (triple-B) bond rating mean in practice?

In practice a BBB (triple-B) rating puts you on the lowest rung of investment grade. The issuer has adequate capacity to pay, but one downgrade below BBB- tips the bond into speculative territory, which can force institutional selling. That is why BBB paper pays the highest yields within investment grade.

That single step, from BBB- to BB+, is the most consequential boundary on the whole scale, and it is worth understanding properly because 83 of the bonds listed here carry a BBB-family rating - about 31% of everything with a yield, paying between 8% and 14.5%, averaging 11.8%.

The agencies define it as adequate safety: the issuer can meet its obligations now, but has less cushion than a higher grade if conditions turn. That last clause is the whole rating. A AAA issuer can absorb a bad year; a BBB issuer is more likely to be forced into refinancing at a worse moment. So the risk is not that BBB issuers default often, it is that their fortunes are more sensitive to things outside their control - funding costs, a regulatory change, one large borrower going bad.

The three sub-grades matter more than most first-time buyers assume:

• BBB+ - two notches of clearance above speculative grade.
• BBB - one notch of clearance.
• BBB- - no clearance. A single downgrade makes this a speculative-grade bond, and some institutional mandates force a sale at that point, which can move the price well before any payment is missed.

Practically, if you are buying BBB paper: read the rating rationale rather than the letter, check whether the grade was recently upgraded to BBB- or recently downgraded to it, and size the position so that one default does not undo a year of the extra yield. The rating pages list every current bond by grade with live yields.

What is the difference between investment grade and non-investment grade bonds?

Investment grade covers ratings from AAA down to BBB-; anything at BB+ or below is non-investment grade, also called speculative, high yield or junk. All four labels describe the same set of bonds. Crossing the line is a big event: a downgrade below BBB- can trigger forced selling.

The distinction exists because it is written into rules rather than because risk jumps discontinuously at that point. Many institutions - insurers, pension funds, some mutual fund mandates - may only hold investment-grade paper, so a downgrade below BBB- forces selling regardless of what the buyer thinks of the credit. That mechanical selling is why the boundary matters more than the one-notch difference in default probability would suggest.

For retail investors in India the practical point is narrower: nearly everything on regulated retail bond platforms is investment grade, so the choice you actually face is where to sit within investment grade, from AAA down to BBB-, and not whether to venture below it. The yields in the table above are the price of each step down.

What do bond ratings not tell you?

Ratings measure default probability and nothing else. They say nothing about liquidity, price swings, or how concentrated your portfolio is; they are paid for by the issuer, and they update with a lag: IL&FS was rated AAA weeks before it defaulted in 2018. Treat a rating as a first filter, not a verdict.

So use the letter to shortlist, then look at the issuer's business, treat the grade as an opinion with a good-but-imperfect track record, and diversify regardless. The yield spread over an FD tells you what the market thinks - our bonds vs FD guide shows how to weigh it, and the buying guide covers execution.

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