by John Bagley, MSRB Chief Market Structure Officer
August 2025
As MSRB celebrates 50 years of serving its congressional mandate to protect investors, issuers and the public interest, we wanted to shine a light on the vital and expanding role of municipal securities in helping America’s communities thrive.
States, cities, counties and other municipalities rely on municipal bonds to build critical infrastructure, like roads, transit systems, schools, hospitals, and much more. But how vast and vital is this market?
Tens of thousands of public entities issue bonds in the $4 trillion municipal securities market. There are approximately 1 million municipal bonds outstanding, and the total amount of bonds issued every year has grown steadily, reaching a record of $513 billion in 2024. By comparison, the corporate bond market amounts to about $11 trillion, with approximately 6,600 different issuers and 60,000 unique bonds outstanding.1
Investor interest in municipal bonds has also grown, especially since 2022, when interest rates started to rise from historic lows. With tax-exempt yields ranging from 2.5% for 1-year maturities to 4.5% for 30-year maturities as of the end of June 2025, investor trading in these securities has grown significantly. The year 2024 was the third consecutive year for record trade volume, and this record-breaking pace has continued into 2025.
Individuals are by far the largest group of investors in this market. Millions of them own municipal bonds either directly, through separately managed accounts, or through mutual funds and exchange traded funds (ETFs). Together they hold nearly 66% of outstanding securities, 45% directly and approximately 21% through mutual funds and ETFs.
Along with writing the rules of the road for the municipal securities market, MSRB operates the Electronic Municipal Market Access (EMMA®) website, the central repository for municipal securities data and disclosure documents, providing data and information for free to investors and all market participants. Here are some highlights:
- Visit the EMMA website to view trade data on individual securities and issuer disclosures.
- Visit EMMA’s Market Statistics page for aggregate information on trades, issuance and continuing disclosures.
- Visit EMMA’s Yield Curves and Indices page for daily and historical yield curves and indices from third-party providers.
MSRB staff analyze the data collected to identify trends that inform regulatory decision making and publish research, data reports and education content that allow policymakers, market participants and the public to better understand the municipal securities market. These data and research reports are available for free on MSRB.org. We encourage you to explore and learn more about this impactful market by visiting both EMMA and MSRB’s Data and Research Publications page.
1 Sources: Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, LSEG and Bloomberg Financial L.P.
