Press release No. 343 of 30 August 2023
Consumer price index, August 2023:
+6.1% on the same month a year earlier (provisional)
+0.3% on the previous month (provisional)
Harmonised index of consumer prices, August 2023:
+6.4% on the same month a year earlier (provisional)
+0.4% on the previous month (provisional)
WIESBADEN – The inflation rate in Germany is expected to be +6.1% in August 2023. It is measured as the change in the consumer price index (CPI) compared with the same month a year earlier. In July 2023, the inflation rate was +6.2%. Based on the results available so far, the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) also reports that consumer prices are expected to increase by 0.3% on July 2023. The inflation rate excluding food and energy, often referred to as core inflation, is expected to be +5.5% (July 2023: +5.5%).
| Overall index / subindex | Weight | May 2023 | June 2023 | July 2023 | August 20231 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| per thousand | percent | ||||
| 1: Provisional figures. 2: Core inflation. 3: Household energy and motor fuels. | |||||
| Overall index | 1,000 | 6.1 | 6.4 | 6.2 | 6.1 |
| Overall index excluding food and energy2 | 821.41 | 5.4 | 5.8 | 5.5 | 5.5 |
| Services | 503.36 | 4.5 | 5.3 | 5.2 | 5.1 |
| Goods | 496.64 | 7.7 | 7.3 | 7.0 | 7.1 |
| including: | |||||
| Energy3 | 73.90 | 2.6 | 3.0 | 5.7 | 8.3 |
| Food | 104.69 | 14.9 | 13.7 | 11.0 | 9.0 |
In August 2023, food prices continued to show above-average growth (+9.0%) compared with the same month of the previous year. At +8.3%, the year-on-year increase in energy prices in August 2023 was higher than the change rate of the overall index. One of the causes is a base effect as a consequence of the low index level of August 2022, which was influenced by the measures of the Federal Government’s third relief packages. The base effect due to the availability of the 9-euro ticket from June through August 2022 still has an impact on service prices, which were up 5.1% on the same month a year earlier.
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 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 August 2023 will be released on 8 September 2023.
