EN
The aim of the paper is to characterize the risk of operating local governments by the commercial banks. Firstly, the author presents specific issues of the risk in local governments and its division. Furthermore, it is shown the specificity of the risk for commercial banks, mainly from the perspective of operating local governments. The author presents some finding from the research in this field conducted in 2011 in Poland. As a result, it is indicated that both local governments and granting them credits are characterized by the relatively low risk. However, there are some typical attributes of this risk.