Press release No. 078 of 29 February 2024
Consumer price index, February 2024:
+2.5% on the same month a year earlier (provisional)
+0.4% on the previous month (provisional)
Harmonised index of consumer prices, February 2024:
+2.7% on the same month a year earlier (provisional)
+0.6% on the previous month (provisional)
WIESBADEN – The inflation rate in Germany is expected to be 2.5% in February 2024. This is the lowest level since June 2021 (+2.4%). 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 increase by 0.4% on January 2024. The inflation rate excluding food and energy, often referred to as core inflation, is expected to be 3.4%.
| Overall index / subindex | Weight | November 2023 | December 2023 | January 2024 | February 20241 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| per thousand | percent | ||||
| 1: Provisional figures. 2: Core inflation. 3: Household energy and motor fuels. | |||||
| Overall index | 1,000 | 3.2 | 3.7 | 2.9 | 2.5 |
| Overall index excluding food and energy2 | 821.41 | 3.8 | 3.5 | 3.4 | 3.4 |
| Services | 503.36 | 3.4 | 3.2 | 3.4 | 3.4 |
| Goods | 496.64 | 3.0 | 4.1 | 2.3 | 1.8 |
| including: | |||||
| Energy3 | 73.90 | -4.5 | 4.1 | -2.8 | -2.4 |
| Food | 104.69 | 5.5 | 4.6 | 3.8 | 0.9 |
Energy prices in February 2024 were 2.4% lower than in the same month a year earlier despite the discontinuation of the brake on energy prices as of January 2024 and the introduction of a higher carbon price also from January 2024, which affects the price of fossil fuels such as motor fuels, heating oil and natural gas. The increase in food prices (+0.9%) again slowed markedly compared with February 2023 and was lower than the overall inflation rate for the first time since November 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 February 2024 will be released on 12 March 2024.
