Also known as the protection buyer. A party that is entitled to receive one or more payments under a credit default swap (CDS) from its counterparty, the credit protection seller, upon the occurrence of certain events, referred to as credit events, with respect to the reference entity on which the CDS is written (or issued). Under a typical CDS, the protection buyer pays a periodic fee to the protection seller, usually a small percentage of the transaction's notional amount, for the right to this protection.

The protection buyer need not own the underlying reference obligation named in the CDS transaction confirmation in order to avail itself of credit protection payments under the CDS (known as "naked CDS"). Naked CDS are used by investors for speculative purposes.