Press release No. 421 of 30 October 2023
Consumer price index, October 2023:
+3.8% on the same month a year earlier (provisional)
0.0% on the previous month (provisional)
Harmonised index of consumer prices, October 2023:
+3.0% on the same month a year earlier (provisional)
-0.2% on the previous month (provisional)
WIESBADEN – The inflation rate in Germany is expected to be +3.8% in October 2023. This is the lowest level since August 2021 (also +3.8%). The inflation rate is measured as the change in the consumer price index (CPI) compared with the same month a year earlier. Based on the results available so far, the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) also reports that consumer prices are expected to remain unchanged from September 2023. The inflation rate excluding food and energy, often referred to as core inflation, is expected to be +4.3%.
| Overall index / subindex | Weight | July 2023 | August 2023 | September 2023 | October 20231 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| per thousand | percent | ||||
| 1: Provisional figures. 2: Core inflation. 3: Household energy and motor fuels. | |||||
| Overall index | 1,000 | 6.2 | 6.1 | 4.5 | 3.8 |
| Overall index excluding food and energy2 | 821.41 | 5.5 | 5.5 | 4.6 | 4.3 |
| Services | 503.36 | 5.2 | 5.1 | 4.0 | 3.9 |
| Goods | 496.64 | 7.0 | 7.1 | 5.0 | 3.6 |
| including: | |||||
| Energy3 | 73.90 | 5.7 | 8.3 | 1.0 | -3.2 |
| Food | 104.69 | 11.0 | 9.0 | 7.5 | 6.1 |
The year-on-year drop in energy prices of 3.2% had a particularly dampening effect on the rate of inflation in October 2023. A base effect due to the very high energy price level in the previous year applied here.Prior to this, energy prices last declined year on year in January 2021 (-2.0% compared with January 2020). By contrast, food prices in October 2023 were still significantly higher (+6.1%) than in October 2022. A lower year-on-year increase in food prices was, however, last recorded in February 2022 (+5.4% on February 2021).
Inflation Calculator for personal rate of inflation:
Consumers can use the Personal Inflation Calculator (only in German) of the Federal Statistical Office to adapt their monthly consumption expenditure on individual product groups according to their own consumption patterns and to calculate their personal inflation rate.
Methodological notes:
The consumer price index (CPI) and the harmonised index of consumer prices (HICP) differ in coverage and methodology. In contrast to the HICP, the CPI also includes household expenditure on owner-occupied housing, games of chance and broadcasting fees. In addition, the HICP product weights are updated annually and past data are generally not revised (only in German). As the weight of housing is much smaller in the HICP basket, price increases in other product groups have a larger impact on the HICP than on the CPI.
More information:
The final results for October 2023 will be released on 8 November 2023.
