2025 TIBOR Explained: Tokyo Interbank Offered Rate & How It's Calculated

Charlene Rhinehart, CPA and CFE, chairs an Illinois CPA Society committee and holds degrees in accounting and finance from DePaul University.

What is TIBOR?

TIBOR stands for Tokyo Interbank Offered Rate, the benchmark interest rate that indicates the cost banks charge one another for short-term loans in Japan's interbank market. This rate is published daily, serving as a critical indicator of Japan’s financial market health.

Key Highlights

• TIBOR is released by the Japanese Bankers Association every business day at 11:00 a.m. Japan Standard Time (JST).
• It reflects the interest rates banks use when lending funds to each other within Japan’s interbank market.
• There are two main TIBOR rates: the European TIBOR and the Japanese Yen TIBOR.
• The JBA TIBOR is calculated using quotes from six maturities: one week, one month, two months, three months, six months, and 12 months.

Understanding TIBOR in Depth

The Japanese Bankers Association (JBA) publishes TIBOR daily by 11:00 a.m. JST, with final updates no later than 12:35 p.m. JST. The two types of TIBOR rates serve different segments of the market:

European TIBOR is based on offshore market rates, reflecting Euroyen lending—Yen funds traded outside Japan established since 1986 to globalize Japan’s financial markets.

Japanese Yen TIBOR is derived from unsecured call market rates, where financial institutions borrow and lend short-term funds to manage liquidity surpluses or deficits.

Since November 1995, the Japanese Yen TIBOR has been publicly published, while Euroyen TIBOR rates have been available since March 1998. This transparency supports the growth and efficiency of Japan’s short-term finance markets.

Japan’s Ministry of Finance uses TIBOR data extensively for economic analysis, overseeing functions similar to those of the U.S. Treasury, IRS, Federal Reserve, Commerce Department, and SEC combined.

How is TIBOR Calculated?

On April 1, 2014, the Ippan Shadan Hojin established the JBA TIBOR Administration (JBATA), which manages the daily calculation and publication of TIBOR. JBATA collects rate quotes from reference banks for six maturities—ranging from one week to 12 months—each submitted by 11:00 a.m. JST.

To ensure accuracy, JBATA excludes the two highest and two lowest quotes for each maturity, then averages the remaining rates. These averages form the official TIBOR rates for both Japanese yen and Euroyen.

Authorized providers such as Thomson Reuters Markets KK, QUICK Corp., Jiji Press Ltd., Bloomberg Finance L.P., and Nomura Research Institute Ltd. distribute these rates. Rates published outside these channels are considered unofficial and for informational use only.

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