The agency S&P Global Ratings has awarded the Community of Madrid an A+ rating, the highest that an autonomous community can receive. The upgrade is based on fiscal consolidation and good access to capital markets.
The credit rating agency S&P Global Ratings has raised the rating of the Community of Madrid to A+, the highest score that an autonomous region can achieve in Spain as it cannot exceed that of the Public Treasury. The decision, announced this Wednesday, positions the Madrid region as the only one under the general regime to obtain the highest rating from the five agencies authorized by the European Central Bank.
According to sources from the regional government, the upgrade is due to the fiscal consolidation driven by the government of Isabel Díaz Ayuso, which has combined good revenue performance with spending restraint. S&P expects that debt backed by tax revenues will decrease from 135% of the operating revenues recorded in 2025 to around 119% in 2028.
The latest data from the Bank of Spain places Madrid's debt at 12% of the regional GDP, more than eight points below the average of the autonomous communities. The agency also highlights the Community of Madrid's access to capital markets and bank financing, allowing it to meet its needs without resorting to the State's liquidity mechanisms. The region is the largest issuer of bonds in the Spanish autonomous market and has demonstrated its ability to attract resources even during periods of tension.
The report underscores the strength of the Madrid economy, which contributes nearly 20% of Spain's GDP and has the highest GDP per capita in the country, equivalent to 137% of the national average. Additionally, it has an unemployment rate of 7.9% at the end of the first quarter of 2026, almost three points below the 10.8% for the whole of the State.
With this upgrade, the Community of Madrid becomes the only Spanish region to receive the highest score from all five rating agencies authorized by the ECB. In recent reports, the regional administration has achieved successive upward revisions from all rating agencies, bringing it to the same level as the State in all of them.
Sources from the regional government have indicated that any further improvement from now on would be contingent on Spain raising its own sovereign rating first. The rating update comes in a context where the region accounted for more than 51% of foreign investment in Spain in the first quarter, with €3.367 billion, more than double that of Catalonia.
The Madrid economy grew by 3% year-on-year in the first quarter of 2026, three-tenths above the national average, and by 0.8% compared to the previous quarter, exceeding the growth of the Spanish economy by two-tenths.
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