There is no single published list of banks that are Basel III compliant, because Basel III is not a law any bank signs onto directly. It is a set of standards from the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision that individual countries translate into their own rules, and every licensed bank operating in a country that adopted the framework must meet its local version. The closest thing to a named roster is the Financial Stability Board’s annual list of 29 Global Systemically Important Banks, which face the strictest form of the requirements.
The 29 Global Systemically Important Banks
The Financial Stability Board publishes an annual list of Global Systemically Important Banks (G-SIBs), the institutions whose failure could destabilize the international financial system. Each is assigned to a “bucket” that sets how much extra Common Equity Tier 1 (CET1) capital the bank must hold on top of the baseline Basel III minimums.1FSB.org. Global Systemically Important Financial Institutions The 2025 list, based on end-of-2024 data, identifies 29 banks across five buckets, with surcharges taking effect on January 1, 2027.2FSB.org. 2025 List of Global Systemically Important Banks (G-SIBs)
- Bucket 4 (2.50% surcharge): JP Morgan Chase
- Bucket 3 (2.00% surcharge): Bank of America, Citigroup, HSBC, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China
- Bucket 2 (1.50% surcharge): Agricultural Bank of China, Bank of China, Barclays, BNP Paribas, China Construction Bank, Goldman Sachs, Groupe Crédit Agricole, Mitsubishi UFJ FG, UBS
- Bucket 1 (1.00% surcharge): Bank of Communications, Bank of New York Mellon, Deutsche Bank, Groupe BPCE, ING, Mizuho FG, Morgan Stanley, Royal Bank of Canada, Santander, Société Générale, Standard Chartered, State Street, Sumitomo Mitsui FG, Toronto Dominion, Wells Fargo
Bucket 5, which would carry a 3.50% surcharge, is deliberately empty. It functions as a deterrent: any bank that grows large enough to land in it faces a steep capital penalty for doing so.
Every Other Bank in a Basel III Country
The G-SIB list is only the top layer. Individual countries also designate Domestic Systemically Important Banks (D-SIBs), which face enhanced requirements within their home jurisdictions. Below that, thousands of ordinary commercial banks must still meet the core Basel III minimums as adopted by their national regulators.
In practice, this means essentially every licensed bank in a participating country is expected to be Basel III compliant. What varies is the strictness. A U.S. G-SIB carries a full stack of surcharges, buffers, and stress-testing overlays; a community bank in the same country operates under a simplified capital framework built for a straightforward deposit-and-loan business. Compliance is always measured against the local rules that apply to that specific institution, not against the Basel Committee’s text.
A bank operating across borders must comply with the rules of every jurisdiction where it is chartered or supervised. A European subsidiary of an American bank follows EU rules for that entity, while the parent company follows U.S. rules at the consolidated level.
What a Compliant Bank Has to Meet
Compliance rests on three pillars: capital adequacy, liquidity, and a leverage backstop.
Capital Ratios
A bank must hold minimum amounts of high-quality capital relative to its risk-weighted assets (RWA), where each asset is adjusted based on how likely it is to lose value. The three floors are:
- Common Equity Tier 1 (CET1) of at least 4.5% of RWA, made up mainly of common stock and retained earnings
- Tier 1 capital of at least 6.0% of RWA, which adds certain preferred shares
- Total capital of at least 8.0% of RWA, which includes subordinated debt and other Tier 2 instruments
Every bank must also maintain a Capital Conservation Buffer of 2.5% in CET1 on top of these floors, which raises the effective CET1 requirement to 7.0%. Dipping into the buffer triggers automatic restrictions on dividends, share buybacks, and discretionary bonuses. National regulators can activate a Countercyclical Capital Buffer of up to 2.5% more during periods of excessive credit growth, and G-SIBs carry their bucket surcharge on top of everything else.
Liquidity
The Liquidity Coverage Ratio (LCR) requires a bank to hold enough high-quality liquid assets to survive 30 days of severe funding stress, with a minimum of 100%.3Bank for International Settlements. Basel III: The Liquidity Coverage Ratio and Liquidity Risk Monitoring Tools The Net Stable Funding Ratio (NSFR) takes a one-year view, also with a 100% floor, requiring available stable funding to cover what the bank needs to support its assets and commitments.4Bank for International Settlements. Net Stable Funding Ratio Disclosure Standards
Leverage Ratio
The leverage ratio ignores risk weighting entirely. Tier 1 capital divided by total exposures, on and off balance sheet, must be at least 3%.5Bank for International Settlements. Basel III Leverage Ratio Framework and Disclosure Requirements It exists to catch banks that might otherwise game the risk-weighted ratios by assigning artificially low weights to their assets. G-SIBs typically face an enhanced version above the 3% floor.
The US Tiered System for Large Banks
Not every U.S. bank faces the full weight of Basel III. In 2019, the Federal Reserve, OCC, and FDIC established a four-category framework that sorts large banks by size and risk profile, so a $120 billion regional bank does not carry the same regulatory load as a $4 trillion G-SIB.6Federal Register. Changes to Applicability Thresholds for Regulatory Capital and Liquidity Requirements
- Category I covers U.S. G-SIBs and applies every requirement, including full LCR, NSFR, supplementary leverage ratio, countercyclical buffer, G-SIB surcharge, and annual stress testing.
- Category II covers banks with $700 billion or more in total assets, or $75 billion or more in cross-border activity, and applies the full LCR plus most enhanced requirements.
- Category III covers banks with $250 billion or more in total assets, or $75 billion or more in short-term wholesale funding, nonbank assets, or off-balance-sheet exposure, with either the full or a reduced LCR depending on wholesale funding levels.
- Category IV covers banks with $100 billion to $250 billion in total assets that don’t meet the higher category criteria. These banks have no LCR obligation unless wholesale funding exceeds $50 billion.7Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. Applicability Thresholds for Regulatory Capital and Liquidity Requirements: Final Rule
Banks under $100 billion fall outside this tiered framework. They still meet basic risk-based capital and leverage requirements, but are exempt from the LCR, NSFR, and the most complex risk-calculation methodologies.
Large U.S. banks also face a Stress Capital Buffer (SCB), which ties annual supervisory stress test results to each bank’s required capital cushion. The SCB replaces the fixed 2.5% Capital Conservation Buffer for banks subject to stress testing, with a 2.5% floor but often higher based on stress-test performance.8eCFR. 12 CFR 225.8 – Capital Planning and Stress Capital Buffer Requirement
How to Verify a Specific Bank
Basel III itself requires banks to publish their capital and risk data. This is called Pillar 3 disclosure, and it is the most direct way to check any large bank’s compliance.9Bank for International Settlements. Pillar 3 Disclosure Requirements – Regulatory Treatment of Accounting Provisions
Pillar 3 Reports
Most large banks post Pillar 3 reports on their investor relations pages alongside annual and quarterly financials. Each report includes a standardized key metrics template (KM1) showing CET1 ratio, Tier 1 ratio, total capital ratio, leverage ratio, LCR, and NSFR, usually as a time series covering recent quarters. Compare those ratios to the minimums that apply to the bank. A G-SIB in Bucket 3, for example, needs a CET1 ratio above 9.0%: the 4.5% minimum plus the 2.5% Capital Conservation Buffer plus its 2.0% surcharge.
US Regulatory Filings
U.S. bank holding companies file the FR Y-9C report with the Federal Reserve, which includes detailed capital calculations and risk-weighted asset breakdowns.10Federal Reserve Board. FR Y-9C Consolidated Financial Statements for Holding Companies Individual commercial banks file quarterly Call Reports with the FDIC. Both are public.
The FFIEC Central Data Repository is the easiest way to pull Call Report data. It covers most FDIC-insured institutions with data going back to 2001, and you can search by institution name or FDIC certificate number.11FFIEC Central Data Repository. View or Download Data for Individual Institutions
Reading the Numbers
Interpretation is straightforward once you have the ratios. If a bank reports a CET1 ratio of 12.5% and its total requirement (including buffers and any surcharge) is 9.5%, it has a comfortable margin. An LCR of 115% means it holds 15% more liquid assets than needed to cover 30 days of stress outflows. A leverage ratio of 6.2% against a 3% minimum shows the bank is well above the backstop.
Most publicly traded banks report ratios comfortably above their minimums. That is not excessive caution. Falling into the buffer zone triggers restrictions on dividends and bonuses, and dropping below the absolute minimums invites Prompt Corrective Action, which classifies the bank as undercapitalized and imposes hard constraints on growth, brokered deposits, and deposit pricing.12eCFR. 12 CFR Part 6 – Prompt Corrective Action13FDIC.gov. Federal Deposit Insurance Act Section 29 – Brokered Deposits Look at both whether the bank clears its minimum and how wide the margin is, and check whether the trend over recent quarters is stable or declining.