This paper analyzes if the so called home country bias exists in sovereign ratings: Home country bias could be due to the fact that a rating agency applies higher ratings to a country with which the country where the rating agency is located has stronger relations. For the analysis of a potential home country preference we use a novel approach to the existing financial literature on rating bias: in particular, we use variables proxying the interconnection between the country in which the rating agency is headquartered and the rated country. The results of the analysis of home country bias are ambiguous. The interconnection of the US with the rated country proxied by the trade channel does not imply any home country bias; nevertheless, when a different proxy – based on the interconnection between US financial institutions and the respective countries – is used, at first glance the results indicate a bias with respect to the ratings from Moody's only. However, this finding could not be verified by the robustness check. Thus, the ambiguous results show the need for further research on this issue.