Updated August 10, 2026. Quick answer. The Medalist Rating is Morningstar’s forward-looking rating (Gold, Silver, Bronze, Neutral, or Negative) for whether a fund is likely to outperform its category over a full market cycle — distinct from the backward-looking star rating, which is purely a math calculation on past risk-adjusted returns. Morningstar overhauled the Medalist methodology in an update that went live globally in April 2026, built around three pillars (People, Process, Parent) plus a new Price Score.
The three pillars
Per Morningstar’s own December 2025 announcement (distributed via Business Wire), the rating is built from three fundamental pillars, assessed by an analyst where one is assigned to a fund, or by an algorithm when one isn’t:
- People — the managers and analysts making the fund’s investment decisions.
- Process — the effectiveness and repeatability of the fund’s investment strategy.
- Parent — the firm managing the fund.
The Price Score: what’s actually new
The 2025 update added a Medalist Rating Price Score, ranging from −2.5 to 2.5, that explicitly states whether a fund’s fee is a liability (subtracting from the rating) or a competitive advantage (adding to it) — making cost an explicit, visible input to the rating rather than a separate number investors had to weigh themselves. That’s the same principle behind our own expense ratios vs. star ratings page, now built directly into Morningstar’s own forward-looking rating.
What else changed, and why
Funds are now evaluated against their Morningstar Category average rather than a fixed benchmark, and rating thresholds were fixed rather than forced into a distribution — a change Morningstar’s own materials describe as eliminating cases where a fund’s rating shifted because of updates to other funds in its category, not anything the fund itself did. Laura Lutton, Morningstar’s global head of manager research, described the goal in the company’s own announcement: “We’re simplifying key elements of our forward-looking Medalist Ratings to increase usability and give investors a clearer view into how ratings are determined.”
The five-tier scale itself didn’t change
Gold, Silver, Bronze, Neutral, and Negative remain the five tiers — the update changed how a fund lands in one of them, not the labels themselves.
How this differs from the star rating
The star rating (one to five stars) is a backward-looking, purely quantitative calculation of risk-adjusted past returns within a category — no analyst judgment involved. The Medalist Rating is explicitly forward-looking and judgment-inclusive (analyst-driven where covered). See our companion page, do star ratings predict performance, for what the evidence says about the star rating specifically.
Sources
“Morningstar Announces Clearer, Simplified Medalist Rating to Empower Investor Success,” Business Wire, December 4, 2025 (Morningstar’s own official announcement of the methodology update, global launch April 2026), as mirrored and quoted by Barchart and FinancialContent. Morningstar.com was not directly fetchable for this page; every fact above is attributed to the official press release or its independent mirrors.
Ratings and methodology are set solely by Morningstar and can change; this page describes the announced methodology and is not itself a rating of any specific fund.
See a fund’s current Medalist Rating and Price Score
Morningstar Investor shows a fund’s Medalist Rating, including the Price Score behind it, alongside its category and cost.
What Morningstar Investor actually is. A paid subscription research platform — not a matching service and not an advisor.
We earn a commission if you subscribe through this link. This is not the only research platform available and does not replace professional advice on your specific tax or estate situation.
Opens on Morningstar’s site in a new tab. Affiliate Disclosure.