Record listings keep Luxembourg's bond exchange ahead as euro-area growth weakens

The Luxembourg Stock Exchange (LuxSE) has cemented its place as the world's busiest venue for international debt even as the euro-area economy around it barely grows, passing 50,000 listings and continuing to attract roughly one in every three new international bonds sold worldwide.

The milestone, reported in Luxembourg for Finance's review of the financial centre's 2025 performance, underlines how the exchange's core franchise — listing cross-border bonds and investment-fund securities for issuers from more than 100 countries — has held up while wider economic momentum has faded. Euro-area output rose just 0.3% in the final quarter of 2025 and an estimated 1.5% over the full year, according to Eurostat, while the European Central Bank projects only "modest" growth of 1.4% in 2025, easing to 1.2% in 2026.

A record year for admissions

The exchange's most recently reported full-year results, for 2024, set the benchmark the franchise is now building on. Presenting the figures at its annual general meeting in June 2025, LuxSE said it had admitted 15,111 new securities during 2024 — a 9% rise on the previous year and the highest number in a single year since it opened in 1928. Issuers raised about €1.5 trillion through those new listings, up 19%, leaving the exchange with a 33% share of the global market for listed international bonds and 44,775 securities on its markets at year-end.

• 15,111 new securities admitted in 2024, up 9% — a single-year record
• €1.5 trillion raised through new listings, up 19%
• €45.5 million in operational revenue (+9%) and €8.1 million net profit
• 33% of the global market for listed international bonds

The listing boom translated into solid, if not spectacular, financials. Operational revenue climbed 9% to €45.5 million, while net profit came in at €8.1 million, down from €10.6 million a year earlier — a decline the exchange attributed to one-off, non-operating gains booked in 2023 rather than any weakening of its core business.

"2024 was an excellent year for the Luxembourg Stock Exchange, with exceptional listing numbers and advancements in the field of trading and data," said Julie Becker, the exchange's chief executive.

Alain Kinsch, president of the exchange's board of directors, said LuxSE had "made significant progress on its 4-year strategic plan and continued to play a crucial role as a key pillar of Luxembourg's financial centre".

Sustainable debt remains the differentiator

Much of the exchange's distinctiveness rests on the Luxembourg Green Exchange (LGX), the platform it launched in 2016 as the first dedicated to green and sustainable securities. In 2024 it added 664 green, social, sustainability and sustainability-linked (GSSS) bonds, taking the total to 2,199 and channelling €262 billion into environmental and social projects — about 42% of the world's listed sustainable bond market.

By the end of 2025 those numbers had grown again. More than 2,400 GSSS bonds were listed on LGX, representing roughly 43% of the global market, with over €1.3 trillion raised through the platform's securities, Luxembourg for Finance reported. The figures keep Luxembourg at the centre of a sustainable-finance market that has cooled elsewhere amid higher interest rates and a political backlash against environmental, social and governance investing.

Resilience against a soft backdrop

The contrast between the exchange's order book and the region's flat economy is the heart of the story. Luxembourg's appeal to bond issuers is structural rather than cyclical: a single listing on a recognised European Union exchange gives borrowers a passport to investors across the bloc, backed by decades of expertise in handling complex, multi-currency debt. That has made the Grand Duchy a default destination for sovereigns, supranationals such as the European Investment Bank and the World Bank, and large corporates, regardless of where growth happens to be.

The financial centre as a whole reflected the same resilience in 2025: assets under management in Luxembourg-domiciled investment funds passed €8 trillion for the first time, reaching €8.2 trillion at year-end.

"Luxembourg's continued development reflects the strength of its international model," said Tom Théobald, chief executive of Luxembourg for Finance.

The open question is whether listing volumes can keep setting records if euro-area growth stays subdued and bond issuance normalises after several unusually heavy years. For now, the figures suggest the financial centre's oldest franchise — quietly stamping passports onto the world's debt — is proving among its most durable, even as the economy it is embedded in struggles to find momentum.