Rating action

Scope Ratings GmbH (Scope) has today affirmed the European Investment Bank’s AAA long-term issuer and senior unsecured foreign-currency ratings, along with a short-term issuer rating of S-1+ in foreign currency. All Outlooks are Stable.

The AAA/Stable rating of the EIB reflects its i) highly strategic mandate to support member states’ evolving challenges, ii) sustained profit retention underpinned by robust and stable annual earnings, iii) very high asset quality, supported by a broadly diversified and highly protected portfolio, alongside prudent risk management, conservative lending practices and low, well-mitigated climate risks, iv) excellent access to debt capital markets anchored by a stable and diversified funding mix as well as access to ECB facilities, and v) support from highly rated shareholders.

Download the Rating Annex.

Rating rationale

The first driver of the EIB’s AAA rating is its excellent institutional profile.

The EIB’s institutional profile is characterised by a record of excellent governance and an irreplaceable mandate from EU member states. The bank has been critical in supporting the EU response to the Covid-19 pandemic, providing financial assistance to Ukraine, and leveraging the impact of member states’ Next Generation EU funds and the InvestEU programme.

The EIB’s mandate is aligned with the EU’s evolving policy priorities, reflecting its flexibility to support EU member states in tackling new challenges. The Group Operational Plan 2025-2027¹ establishes eight strategic priorities including the green transition, digital and technological innovation, as well as security and defence. In line with this, EU member states have agreed to increase financing up to EUR 100bn in 2025², after targeting EUR 95bn in signed operations under the Plan.

As the EU’s climate bank, the EIB is at the core of the climate agenda to help Europe achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050. The bank plans to allocate more than 50% of its financing to climate action and environmental sustainability until at least 2027 (60% in 2024), notably by implementing the REPowerEU+ initiative, thus supporting EUR 1 trillion in Climate Action & Environmental Sustainability initiatives by 2030. The EIB also plans to support decarbonisation of EU manufacturing under the EU’s Clean Industrial Deal while increasing the share of climate adaptation finance from 11% in 2024 to 15% in 2025.

Furthermore, the EIB is at the core of the EU’s digital transition. Its TechEU programme aims to crowd in private investment by allocating an indicative financing volume of at least EUR 20bn in 2025 (EUR 70bn over 2025-27) through equity, quasi-equity, loans and guarantees. The bank also plans to support innovative firms through the pan-European Tech Champions Initiative, while supporting private sector investment in critical technologies and raw materials that are essential for the green and digital transitions.

Finally, the EIB plans to gradually step up its support to the EU security and defence industry. The bank aims to allocate financing up to EUR 3.5bn in 2025, which is higher than the indicative annual volume of EUR 2.0bn set for this year in the Strategic European Security Initiative. To deliver on its agenda, the EIB streamlined financial support by launching dedicated intermediated financing, particularly to provide liquidity to SMEs (EUR 3bn) through European banks. It has also amended its lending policies to expand eligibilities. Investments within the EU are no longer subject to the dual-use requirement (namely more than 50% of expected revenues from civilian use), although core defence activities (ammunition, weaponry) remain excluded from EIB financing. Signed partnership agreements (NATO Innovation Fund, European Defence Agency) and greater cooperation with national promotional institutions are expected to further support the EIB’s action to strengthen EU security and defence.

Scope expects the EIB to help strengthen Europe’s defence and security architecture given its policy driven mandate while remaining focused on its core business priorities, including the green transition, Ukraine’s resilience and its Global Gateway strategic agenda.

The second driver of the EIB’s AAA rating is its excellent financial profile.

First, the EIB has remained consistently profitable since its inception in 1958³. Stable annual earnings are fully retained supporting the bank’s accumulated reserves and reinforcing its capitalisation and lending capacity, in line with its statute. Scope estimates the adjusted net income at EUR 2.9bn in 2024, higher than its five-year average of EUR 2.3bn, thanks to the increase in net banking income. The return on equity increased to 3.0% over 2022-24 (three-year weighted average), the highest since 2017, further strengthening the EIB’s capital base.

Second, the EIB has an excellent asset quality based on its widely diversified portfolio across geographies, sectors and counterparties. Its mandate is to lend to sovereigns, public institutions, financial institutions and corporates across several sectors and jurisdictions. Asset quality is further supported by only moderate equity-type operations and by conservative risk management and lending policies, including counterparty and sector limits to ensure sufficient portfolio diversification. The top 10 nominal exposures of the EIB Group account for 10.2% of total loans⁴, excluding exposures to sovereigns and those covered by sovereign guarantees.

The EIB also benefits from high asset protection through substantial credit enhancements provided by the EU and its member states, including for non-EU exposures and exposures related to the InvestEU programme. At the EIB Group level, out of EUR 406.6bn in disbursements as of end-2024, EUR 220.9bn was ultimately lent to or backed by sovereigns or public institutions, or about 54%. Of the remaining EUR 185.7bn, about EUR 128.3bn or 31.5% of the total relates to unsecured private sector exposures. Scope thus estimates that 60%-80% of the EIB’s portfolio is well-protected. This assessment is corroborated by the EIB’s internal grading, according to which 86.8% of its exposures – based on the better of the borrower’s and the guarantor’s internal ratings – are investment grade, while, at EIB Group consolidated level, less than 2.0% are ‘high risk’ (‘b’) or below.

Robust credit enhancement mechanisms mitigate risks related to the EIB’s growing higher-risk activities, projected to rise from EUR 15.9bn in 2024 to EUR 18.0bn in 2025-27, driven by its own activities and the InvestEU programme. Similarly, credit protection from the EU and its member states mitigate risks related to the EIB’s investments outside of the EU, which are set to moderately increase to EUR 9.0bn over 2025-27, from EUR 7.9bn in 2024, mostly under the bank’s own resources.

The EIB also has low exposure to climate-related risks. For physical risks, out of the top 20-country exposures, the bank has a low share of non-financial corporate exposures having ‘high’ physical risks of 2.9%. For transition risks, the sectoral distribution of the portfolio indicates that 3.5% of the non-financial corporate exposures has ‘high and unmitigated’ transition risks, which is consistent with the EIB self-assessment of 4%⁵. Low climate risks are further mitigated by an average loan maturity estimated at six years.

The EIB’s low climate risks are further mitigated by strong management and reporting practices with all financing operations aligned with the Paris Agreement since 2021. The bank mitigates its climate risks through i) an economic price of carbon in its project assessment of EUR 80 per tonne of CO2 emissions, which will be raised to EUR 250 by 2030, ii) a requirement from counterparties to develop and to disclose plans towards decarbonising business activity and/or improving resilience to physical risks, and iii) a monthly screening of treasury portfolios.

As a result of the bank’s conservative risk management, the EIB displays low impaired loans that mostly relate to operations benefiting from guarantees. Overdue payments beyond 90 days amounted to EUR 281.3m in 2024, against EUR 82.4m in 2023, which represents only 0.06% of the EIB’s portfolio, one of the lowest ratios among rating peers. Looking at the wider definition of impaired exposures – i.e. amounts unlikely to be collected in full – the EIB’s record is also exceptional, with around EUR 2.8bn of impaired exposures in 2024, against EUR 1.8bn in 2023, or about 0.6% of the portfolio. Moderate pressure on asset quality resulting mostly from international tensions is manageable thanks to a diversified portfolio, risk transfer mechanisms, adequate provisioning, and the bank’s preferred creditor status – with no impairment in its holding of EU sovereign or EU sovereign-guaranteed exposures.

Third, the EIB benefits from its excellent access to capital markets. The annual funding volume of around EUR 45bn-70bn over the past decade is, cumulatively, by far the largest among peers and set to remain elevated at EUR 60bn in 2025, with a borrowing authorisation of up to EUR 65bn. This, along with its highly diversified funding strategy in terms of non-core currencies (13 YTD as of 17 June 2025) and instruments (including EUR 22bn of green and sustainability bonds), underlines the EIB’s status as a global benchmark issuer. As of 17 June 2025, the EIB had funded EUR 51.9bn or 86% of the announced borrowing target. A stable and diversified mix of instruments and currencies enables the bank to navigate market volatility.

Scope expects the EIB to issue EUR 60bn in 2026-27 in line with its Operational Plan. Reflecting its appeal to global investors, the EIB benefits from a broad and very diversified investor base, including investors in Europe (69% YTD as of 17 June 2025), followed by the Americas (16%), and Asia (13%). Bank treasuries (52% YTD in 2025), fund managers, pension and insurance funds (21%), and central banks and official institutions (27%) account for most of the EIB’s investors.

The EIB is the largest issuer of green and sustainability bonds among its peers with dedicated use-of-proceeds, reflecting its inauguration of this segment in 2007 and its ability to advance EU policy objectives via capital market activities. As of 17 June 2025, the bank has raised more than EUR 124.9bn in green and sustainability bonds across 23 currencies for an outstanding amount of EUR 80bn. In 2024, the EIB issued EUR 18.3bn in Climate Awareness Bonds (CAB) and Sustainability Awareness Bonds (SAB), or 29% of the total issuance. CAB and SAB issuances are expected to continue playing an important role. Both frameworks will also be gradually aligned with the EU Taxonomy and European Green Bond Standard. The EIB issued the first CAB (EUR 3bn) aligned with the European Green Bond Standard in April 2025. In addition, the EIB leads the emergence of the EU’s digital capital market to adopt blockchain technology for the issuance of financial securities.

The EIB’s bonds are designated as high-quality liquid assets under the Basel framework and are included in the ECB’s asset purchase programmes, supporting the bank’s market access. Finally, Scope notes positively that the EIB is the world’s only supranational with access to the liquidity facilities of a central bank issuing a reserve currency, namely, the ECB. Scope acknowledges this unique funding capacity with a one-notch positive adjustment to its liquidity assessment.

The third driver of the EIB’s AAA rating is its excellent shareholder support.

In line with its governance, the six largest EU economies – Germany (AAA/Stable), France (AA-/Stable), Italy (BBB+/Stable), Spain (A/Stable), the Netherlands (AAA/Stable) and Belgium (AA-/Negative) – together account for around 78% of the EIB’s capital. Their weighted average rating of AA- drives Scope’s excellent assessment of shareholder support. This is further supported by the strong legal basis for significant and timely shareholder support if ever needed, a consistent track record of capital increases and the absence of any capital call to date, although the EIB’s high-quality callable capital of EUR 135.5bn, covering about 30% of its outstanding mandated assets, is moderate relative to peers.

Despite these credit strengths, the EIB faces the following credit challenges:

First, the EIB’s capitalisation relative to its outstanding assets is one of the lowest among supranationals. The EIB’s adjusted equity and reserves stood at around EUR 83.6bn as of end-2024, and EUR 98.0bn when including 10% of the callable capital of highly rated shareholders (AA- or above) within the EIB’s capital and 25% of the callable funds that have also been authorised and appropriated by EU members.

In line with the G20 recommendations, in March 2025, the ECOFIN⁶ approved the removal of the numeric limit for the gearing ratio from the EIB Statute and confirmed a decision to increase this nominal constraint from 250% to 290% of its subscribed capital, accumulated reserves and profit – i.e., allowing for potential mandated assets of around EUR 900bn. As of December 2024, Scope estimates the capitalisation ratio (i.e., maximum mandated assets to total capital) around 13%, below that of peers. However, Scope estimates that the EIB operates at a higher actual capitalisation (i.e., actual mandated assets to total capital) of around 21%, providing important headroom for the bank’s activities. This ample capital headroom is expected to enable the EIB to increase signatures on its core business within the flexibility offered by its Operational Plan and risk appetite framework. Moreover, counter-balancing the bank’s elevated leverage, the self-reported CET1 ratio has consistently been above 30% since 2018 and stood at 31.7% at end-2024.

Second, the EIB’s liquidity ratio is lower than that of peers. Liquid assets within 12 months are estimated at EUR 57.0bn as of end-2024, down from EUR 66.2bn in 2023. This moderate decline is driven by the increase of debt securities with longer maturities. The bank’s conservative liquidity management practices with high-quality and diversified Treasury assets as well as its robust liquidity position significantly above its minimum requirements provide important protection.

Conversely, liabilities coming due within 12 months are estimated at EUR 150.0bn, including estimated disbursements of EUR 57.4bn in 2025. Scope estimates the liquid assets ratio around 55% over 2022-24 (three-year weighted average), implying that all outstanding liabilities and committed disbursements due within a year can be financed with available liquid assets for about six months without accessing debt capital markets, which is lower than other multilateral development banks. Looking ahead, liquidity is expected to remain above internal targets and limits based on conservative lending policies, a stable funding programme, and a favourable redemption profile.

Finally, Scope notes that the EIB’s equity type financing, excluding its shares in the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (AAA/Stable), has grown steadily since 2010 from EUR 2.0bn to EUR 11.7bn, or 12.0% of its adjusted equity and reserves. Similarly, the EIB’s contingent liabilities and guarantees have grown to EUR 23.5bn in 2025, or about 34% of estimated liquid assets. Still, potential risks from these exposures are curtailed by the overall strong credit quality of the positions, their high diversification and the lack of substantial guarantee calls to date.

Rating-change drivers

The Stable Outlook represents Scope’s view that risks to the ratings over the next 12 to 18 months are balanced.

Downside scenarios for the ratings and Outlooks are (individually or collectively):

1. the EIB recorded losses over a sustained period;
    
2. the EIB liquidity buffers significantly reduced.

Factoring of environment, social and governance (ESG)

Scope considers ESG sustainability issues during the rating process as reflected in its supranational methodology. ESG factors are explicitly captured in Scope’s assessment of the institutional profile, which Scope assesses as ‘excellent’ for the EIB.

Supranational scorecard

Scope’s supranational scorecard, which is based on clearly defined quantitative parameters, provides an indicative AAA rating for the EIB. Additional considerations allow Scope to incorporate idiosyncratic characteristics that cannot be assessed in a consistent and comprehensive manner across all supranationals, but which may still affect an issuer’s creditworthiness.

For the EIB, no additional considerations have been identified.
 
Given the bank’s conservative liquidity management and excellent access to capital markets, Scope overwrites the temporary signal from its scorecard (lower ‘liquid assets ratio’), which would have otherwise reflected a more cautious view of the bank’s ‘liquidity and funding’ assessment.

A rating committee has discussed and confirmed these results.

For further details, please see the Rating Annex.

Rating Committee
The main points discussed by the rating committee were: i) institutional profile; ii) financial profile, including asset quality, liquidity and funding; iii) member states’ support; iv) additional considerations; and v) consideration of peers.

Rating driver references
1. Group Operational Plan 2025-2027 
2. EIB, press release, June 2025 
3. Financial Report 2024 
4. Investor Relations Presentation, June 2025 
5. TCFD Report 2023 
6. European Parliament, March 2025 

Methodology
The methodology used for these Credit Ratings and/or Outlooks, (Supranational Rating Methodology, 23 May 2025), is available on https://scoperatings.com/governance-and-policies/rating-governance/methodologies.
Information on the meaning of each Credit Rating category, including definitions of default, recoveries, Outlooks and Under Review, can be viewed in ‘Rating Definitions – Credit Ratings, Ancillary and Other Services’, published on https://www.scoperatings.com/governance-and-policies/rating-governance/definitions-and-scales. Historical default rates of the entities rated by Scope Ratings can be viewed in the Credit Rating performance report at https://scoperatings.com/governance-and-policies/regulatory/eu-regulation. Also refer to the central platform (CEREP) of the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA): http://cerep.esma.europa.eu/cerep-web/statistics/defaults.xhtml. A comprehensive clarification of Scope Ratings’ definitions of default and Credit Rating notations can be found at https://www.scoperatings.com/governance-and-policies/rating-governance/definitions-and-scales. Guidance and information on how environmental, social or governance factors (ESG factors) are incorporated into the Credit Rating can be found in the respective sections of the methodologies or guidance documents provided on https://scoperatings.com/governance-and-policies/rating-governance/methodologies.

Solicitation, key sources and quality of information
The Rated Entity and/or its Related Third Parties participated in the Credit Rating process.
The following substantially material sources of information were used to prepare the Credit Ratings: public domain and the Rated Entity.
Scope Ratings considers the quality of information available to Scope Ratings on the Rated Entity or instrument to be satisfactory. The information and data supporting these Credit Ratings originate from sources Scope Ratings considers to be reliable and accurate. Scope Ratings does not, however, independently verify the reliability and accuracy of the information and data.
Prior to the issuance of the Credit Rating action, the Rated Entity was given the opportunity to review the Credit Ratings and/or Outlooks and the principal grounds on which the Credit Ratings and/or Outlooks are based. Following that review, the Credit Ratings and/or Outlooks were not amended before being issued.

Regulatory disclosures
These Credit Ratings and/or Outlooks are issued by Scope Ratings GmbH, Lennéstraße 5, D-10785 Berlin, Tel +49 30 27891-0. The Credit Ratings and/or Outlooks are UK-endorsed.
Lead analyst: Thomas Gillet, Director
Person responsible for approval of the Credit Ratings: Giacomo Barisone, Group Managing Director
The Credit Ratings/Outlooks were first released by Scope Ratings on 15 November 2019. The Credit Ratings/Outlooks were last updated on 28 June 2024.

Potential conflicts
See www.scoperatings.com under Governance & Policies/Regulatory for a list of potential conflicts of interest disclosures related to the issuance of Credit Ratings, as well as a list of Ancillary Services and certain non-Credit Rating Agency services provided to Rated Entities and/or Related Third Parties.

Conditions of use / exclusion of liability
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