What is inflation?
Inflation is the rate at which prices rise, and with them the amount of money you need to buy the same things. When inflation runs at 3% a year, a basket of shopping that cost £100 last year costs £103 this year. Nothing about the shopping changed. The money simply buys less of it.
Statistics offices measure it by pricing a fixed basket of goods and services every month, from food and fuel to rent and haircuts, and tracking what that basket costs over time. The result is a consumer price index, and the change in that index from one date to another is the inflation between them.
What makes it worth paying attention to is that it compounds. A few percent a year sounds unremarkable, but sustained over a working life it quietly reshapes what a wage or a pension is actually worth. That is what the tables below, and the calculators behind them, are for.
Current inflation in the major economies
Each country's own national measure, at its latest published date. Offices publish on different schedules, so the dates differ.
The world's largest economies, ranked by how fast prices are rising right now. The second column is the cumulative rise since 2000, which is where the real differences show: the same quarter-century barely moved prices in some of these countries and multiplied them several times over in others.
| Country | Current inflation | Since 2000 |
|---|---|---|
| 🇷🇺RussiaMay 2026 | 5.3% | 943% |
| 🇿🇦South AfricaJune 2026 | 5.0% | 279% |
| 🇧🇷BrazilJune 2026 | 4.6% | 379% |
| 🇮🇳IndiaJune 2026 | 4.4% | 357% |
| 🇦🇺AustraliaQ2 2026 | 3.9% | 111% |
| 🇺🇸USAJune 2026 | 3.5% | 97% |
| 🇲🇽MexicoJune 2026 | 3.4% | 223% |
| 🇪🇸SpainJune 2026 | 3.2% | 88% |
| 🇪🇺EU AverageJune 2026 | 2.9% | 91% |
| 🇳🇱NetherlandsJune 2026 | 2.9% | 87% |
| 🇮🇩IndonesiaJuly 2026 | 2.9% | 324% |
| 🇨🇦CanadaJune 2026 | 2.8% | 81% |
| 🇮🇹ItalyJuly 2026 | 2.8% | 71% |
| 🇰🇷South KoreaJuly 2026 | 2.8% | 92% |
| 🇬🇧UKJune 2026 | 2.6% | 98% |
| 🇩🇪GermanyJune 2026 | 2.3% | 65% |
| 🇫🇷FranceJuly 2026 | 2.1% | 57% |
| 🇯🇵JapanJune 2026 | 1.7% | 17% |
| 🇨🇳ChinaJune 2026 | 1.0% | 64% |
| 🇨🇭SwitzerlandJuly 2026 | 0.4% | 17% |
Each figure is the measure that country's own statistics office headlines, so it matches what you will find on its page. Baskets and methods differ between countries, so these are not a perfect like-for-like comparison.
Where the figures come from
Every series is the headline consumer price index published by the country's own statistics office, rebased so that 2015 = 100 and any two dates can be compared directly. UK figures come from the ONS, US figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, EU members from Eurostat and the OECD, and the rest from OECD and IMF republications of each national release.
Most countries report monthly. Australia and New Zealand report quarterly, so their dates are given as quarters. Recent months can be revised by the statistics office after first publication, and the figures here change with them.
Common questions about inflation
Which country has the highest inflation right now?
Of the 108 countries tracked here, Iran has the fastest rising prices, at 88.6% in the year to June 2026. The full ranking is on the inflation by country page.
Which country has the lowest inflation right now?
Costa Rica has the slowest, at -0.3% in the year to June 2026. It is the only one where prices are falling rather than rising.
What is a normal rate of inflation?
Most central banks aim at 2%, and the ones that do not usually aim higher rather than lower. A rate near a country's own target is the thing to look for, which is why each country's page states its target beside its rate rather than leaving the number to speak for itself.