Mortgage-Backed Securities

Fannie Mae’s Single-Family and Multifamily businesses acquire mortgage loans and pool them into Mortgage-Backed Securities (MBS). These securities are backed by ownership interests in either individual loans or pools of residential mortgages and are guaranteed by Fannie Mae for timely payment of principal and interest. The certificates and payments of principal and interest are not guaranteed by the U.S. Government and do not constitute a debt or obligation of the United States and are the sole responsibility of Fannie Mae. As such, Fannie Mae applies rigorous underwriting standards to assess loan quality and mitigate risk to investors.

Historically, MBS issued directly by Fannie Mae have not been rated by any major rating agency. However, on January 9, 2026, Moody’s Ratings ("Moody’s") assigned a provisional (P)Aa1 senior secured shelf rating and a Aa1(cr) long-term Counterparty Risk Assessment to Fannie Mae, and also noted that Fannie Mae's outlook remains stable. In its announcement, Moody's noted that the "(P)Aa1 senior secured shelf rating is representative of the creditworthiness of Fannie Mae's mortgage-backed securities (MBS) programs." Standard & Poor's and Fitch have not announced any similar ratings actions at this time. Securities collateralized by Fannie Mae MBS are generally considered high quality, and senior tranches of such securities are often rated AAA, though ratings depend on the specific structure and issuer. In addition, Fannie Mae MBS are assigned a 20% risk-based weighting under Basel accounting rules, which determine capital reserve requirements for banking entities. A 20% risk weighting places Fannie Mae MBS in an asset category generally considered to be of very high credit quality.