Press release No. 127 of 30 March 2023
Consumer price index, March 2023:
+7.4% on the same month a year earlier (provisional)
+0.8% on the previous month (provisional)
Harmonised index of consumer prices, March 2023:
+7.8% on the same month a year earlier (provisional)
+1.1% on the previous month (provisional)
WIESBADEN – The inflation rate in Germany is expected to be +7.4% in March 2023. It is measured as the change in the consumer price index (CPI) compared with the same month a year earlier. After standing at +8.7% in both January and February 2023, the inflation rate is now substantially lower. Based on the results available so far, the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) also reports that consumer prices are expected to increase by 0.8% on February 2023.
| Overall index / subindex | Weight | December 2022 | January 2023 | February 2023 | March 2023 1 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| per thousand | percent | ||||
| 1: Provisional figure. 2: Household energy and motor fuels. 3: Actual housing rent. | |||||
| Overall index | 1,000 | 8.1 | 8.7 | 8.7 | 7.4 |
| Goods | 496.64 | 12.3 | 12.7 | 12.4 | 9.8 |
| including: | |||||
| Energy 2 | 73.90 | 20.3 | 23.1 | 19.1 | 3.5 |
| Food | 104.69 | 20.4 | 20.2 | 21.8 | 22.3 |
| Services | 503.36 | 3.9 | 4.5 | 4.7 | 4.8 |
| including: | |||||
| Rents 3 | 75.56 | 1.9 | 2.0 | 2.0 | 2.0 |
Energy and food prices, in particular, have increased considerably since the war started in Ukraine and have had a substantial impact on the inflation rate. In March 2023, food prices continued to show above-average growth (+22.3%) compared with the same month of the previous year. In contrast, the increase in energy prices slowed considerably (+3.5%) after energy prices had soared in March 2022 when Russia attacked Ukraine (February 2023: +19.1% on February 2022). Apart from this base effect, which is due to the high index level of March 2022, the measures of the Federal Government’s third relief package reflected in the consumer price index have contributed to the development.
Inflation Calculator informs about 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:
With effect from reference month January 2023, the consumer price index has been rebased from 2015 to base year 2020. A detailed background document (only in german) providing information on the revision is available on the website of the Federal Statistical Office.
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 includes also household expenditure on owner-occupied housing, games of chance and broadcasting fees. In addition, the HICP product weights are updated annually. 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 March 2023 will be released on 13 April 2023.
