Consumer price inflation, UK: September 2025

• The Consumer Prices Index including owner occupiers' housing costs (CPIH) rose by 4.1% in the 12 months to September 2025, unchanged from August.

• On a monthly basis, CPIH rose by 0.1% in September 2025, the same rate as in September 2024.

• The Consumer Prices Index (CPI) rose by 3.8% in the 12 months to September 2025, unchanged from August.

• On a monthly basis, CPI was unchanged in September 2025, as in September 2024.

• Transport made the largest upward contribution to the monthly change in both CPIH and CPI annual rates; recreation and culture, and food and non-alcoholic beverages made the largest offsetting downward contributions. 

• Core CPIH (CPIH excluding energy, food, alcohol and tobacco) rose by 3.9% in the 12 months to September 2025, down from 4.0% in the 12 months to August; the CPIH goods annual rate rose slightly from 2.8% to 2.9%, while the CPIH services annual rate was unchanged in September, at 4.9%.

• Core CPI (CPI excluding energy, food, alcohol and tobacco) rose by 3.5% in the 12 months to September 2025, down from 3.6% in the 12 months to August; the CPI goods annual rate rose slightly from 2.8% to 2.9%, while the CPI services annual rate was unchanged in September, at 4.7%.

The Consumer Prices Index including owner occupiers' housing costs (CPIH) rose by 4.1% in the 12 months to September 2025, unchanged from August (Figure 1).

On a monthly basis, CPIH rose by 0.1% in September 2025, the same rate as in September 2024.

The Consumer Prices Index (CPI) rose by 3.8% in the 12 months to September 2025, unchanged from August. The September, August and July 2025 figures were the joint-highest recorded since January 2024, when the rate was 4.0%.

On a monthly basis, CPI was unchanged in September 2025, as in September 2024.

The main drivers of the annual inflation rate for CPIH and CPI are the same where they are common to both measures. However, the OOH costs component accounts for approximately 17% of the CPIH and is the main driver for differences between the CPIH and CPI inflation rates. This makes CPIH our most comprehensive measure of inflation. We cover this in more detail in Section 4: Latest movements in CPIH inflation and provide a commentary on CPI in Section 5: Latest movements in CPI inflation. We also cover both CPIH and CPI in Section 3: Notable movements in prices, though the figures reflect CPIH.

Figure 2 shows the contributions from the 12 divisions to the change in the annual Consumer Prices Index including owner occupiers’ housing costs (CPIH) inflation rate between August and September 2025. These sum to the change in the annual rate between the latest two months, which was 0.0 percentage points.

The unchanged rate in September 2025 reflected upward contributions from three divisions, offset by downward contributions from six divisions. The largest upward contribution was from the transport division. The largest offsetting downward contributions came from the recreation and culture, food and non-alcoholic beverages, and housing and household services divisions.

Transport

Prices in the transport division rose overall by 3.8% in the 12 months to September 2025, up from 2.4% in the 12 months to August (Figure 3). On a monthly basis, prices fell by 2.3% in September 2025, compared with a fall of 3.7% a year ago.

The increase in the annual rate reflected upward effects from motor fuels, air fares and, to a lesser extent, vehicle maintenance and repair.

The average price of petrol fell by 0.2 pence per litre between August and September 2025, compared with a fall of 5.5 pence per litre between August and September 2024. The average price stood at 134.0 pence per litre in September 2025, down from 136.8 pence per litre a year earlier.

Similarly, diesel prices fell by 0.4 pence per litre in September 2025, compared with a fall of 6.0 pence per litre in September 2024. The average price stood at 141.8 pence per litre in September 2025, unchanged from a year earlier. These movements resulted in overall motor fuel prices falling by 1.2% in the 12 months to September 2025, compared with a larger fall of 4.9% in the 12 months to August.

Air fares fell by 28.8% between August and September 2025, which was the third-largest September decrease since the collection of airfares changed from quarterly to monthly in 2001. However, air fares fell by 34.8% between August and September 2024, which was the largest September decrease since 2001. As such, the large fall in monthly price in September 2025 still resulted in an upward contribution to the change in the annual rate.

Prices for vehicle maintenance and repair rose this year but fell a year ago, particularly for roadside recovery services, which also resulted in an upward effect.

Recreation and culture

The 12-month inflation rate for recreation and culture was 2.7% in September 2025, down from 3.2% in August. On a monthly basis, prices were little changed in September 2025, compared with a rise of 0.5% a year ago.

The largest downward effect came from live music, where monthly prices fell by 8.6% compared with a rise of 5.8% a year ago.

Food and non-alcoholic beverages

The 12-month inflation rate for food and non-alcoholic beverages was 4.5% in September 2025, down from 5.1% in August. This was the first time since March 2025 that the annual rate has slowed (Figure 4). On a monthly basis, food and non-alcoholic beverages prices fell by 0.2% in September 2025, compared with a rise of 0.4% a year ago. This was the first time since May 2024 that prices have fallen on the month.

There were small downward effects to the change in the rate from 5 of the 11 food and non-alcoholic beverages classes, namely:

• vegetables

• milk, cheese and eggs (particularly cheese)

• bread and cereals

• fish

• mineral waters, soft drinks, and juices

The negative contribution from the food and non-alcoholic beverages division seems likely to have been caused in part by sales and discounting increasing at a greater rate into September 2025 than into September 2024.

Housing and household services

The 12-month inflation rate for housing and household services was 5.9% in September 2025, down from 6.0% in August. On a monthly basis, prices rose by 0.3% in September 2025, compared with a rise of 0.4% a year ago.

The easing in the 12-month rate between August and September 2025 mainly reflected a downward effect from owner occupiers' housing (OOH) costs, which rose by 5.2% in the 12 months to September 2025, compared with a rise of 5.3% in the 12 months to August 2025. The rate has slowed for eight consecutive months and is the lowest recorded since September 2023, when it was 5.0%. OOH costs rose by 0.5% on the month, compared with a 0.6% increase a year earlier.

Figure 5 shows the 12-month inflation rates for the Consumer Prices Index including owner occupiers’ housing costs (CPIH) series for all goods and all services, together with CPIH excluding energy, food, alcohol and tobacco (often referred to as core CPIH). The CPIH inflation rate is added for comparison.

The CPIH all-goods index rose by 2.9% in the 12 months to September 2025, up from 2.8% in the 12 months to August. This is the highest rate since October 2023, when it was also 2.9%. The largest upward contribution to the change in the annual rate came from energy, primarily motor fuels. The largest downward contribution came from processed food and non-alcoholic beverages.

The CPIH all-services index rose by 4.9% in the 12 months to September 2025, the same rate as in the 12 months to August. The rate was last lower in June 2022, at 4.5%. The largest upward contribution to the change in the annual rate came from travel and transport services (specifically air fares and roadside recovery). The largest downward contribution came from other recreational and personal services (specifically live music).

The core CPIH annual inflation rate was 3.9% in September 2025, down from 4.0% in August. Core CPIH was last lower in December 2021, at 3.8%.

Figure 6 shows the extent to which the distinct categories of goods and services have contributed to the overall annual CPIH inflation rate over the last two years. The contribution of each category to the annual rate depends on the price movement in that category and its weight, which is updated annually.

The contributions from all divisions to the annual CPIH inflation rate were positive in September 2025. The largest positive contribution came from housing and household services. This contributed 1.76 percentage points, down from 1.79 percentage points in August. This division has made the largest contribution for the last 15 months, starting from July 2024.

The contribution from transport rose from 0.26 to 0.41 percentage points between August and September 2025. This was the largest contribution from this division since December 2022.

Figure 7 shows the contributions from owner occupiers’ housing (OOH) costs and Council Tax to the annual CPIH inflation rate in the context of wider housing-related costs. The Consumer Prices Index (CPI) differs from the CPIH because it does not include these two components.

The annual contribution from OOH costs continued to slow, and was 0.87 percentage points in September 2025. This contribution was the smallest since January 2024, having decreased for eight consecutive months from a recent high of 1.31 percentage points in January 2025.

The annual contribution from rents also continued to slow, and was 0.28 percentage points in September 2025. This contribution was the smallest since August 2022, having decreased from a recent high of 0.49 percentage points in January 2025.

The contributions from other classes within the housing and household services division were little changed between August and September 2025.

While the Consumer Prices Index including owner occupiers' housing costs (CPIH) is our lead and most comprehensive measure of consumer price inflation, the Consumer Prices Index (CPI) is based on a harmonised methodology developed by Eurostat. This enables international comparisons to be drawn. More information on the use cases for our consumer price inflation statistics can be found in our Measuring changing prices and costs for consumers and households: December 2023 article.

Figure 8 shows annual CPI inflation for the UK compared with the EU average and selected G7 countries. While the UK CPI is produced on a comparable basis with EU countries, the US Harmonised Index of Consumer Prices (HICP) differs in some respects. More information is available in Note 1 to Figure 8.

The UK’s CPI inflation rate of 3.8% was higher than the inflation rates for Germany (2.4%), France (1.1%) and the EU (2.6%), in September 2025. The last time the UK rate was lower than the EU rate was December 2024.

Figure 9 shows the 12-month inflation rates for the CPI all-goods and all-services series, together with CPI excluding energy, food, alcohol and tobacco (often referred to as core CPI). The headline CPI inflation rate is added for comparison.

The CPI all-goods index rose by 2.9% in the 12 months to September 2025, up from 2.8% in the 12 months to August. This is the highest rate since October 2023, when it was 2.9%.

The CPI all-services index rose by 4.7% in the 12 months to September 2025, the same rate as the 12 months to August.

Core CPI rose by 3.5% in the 12 months to September 2025, down from 3.6% in the 12 months to August.

As with the all-items annual inflation rates, the drivers of CPIH and CPI goods and services inflation are the same (except for owner occupiers’ housing (OOH) costs and Council Tax, which are excluded from CPI). The drivers are discussed in more detail in Section 4: Latest movements in CPIH inflation.

Figure 10 shows how each of the main groups of goods and services contributed to the change in the CPI annual inflation rate between August and September 2025.

The contributions to change between the two months offset each other, with downward contributions from six divisions and upward contributions from three divisions. The largest upward contribution came from transport, principally from motor fuels and air fares. The largest downward contribution came from recreation and culture.

Though the sizes of the contributions differ from CPIH, the main drivers to the change are the same where they are common to both measures.

Figure 11 shows the extent to which the distinct categories of goods and services have contributed to the overall annual CPI inflation rate over the last two years.

The CPIH includes extra housing components not included in the CPI. This can sometimes result in the largest contributions to the annual CPI and CPIH inflation rates coming from different divisions. However, in September 2025, the housing and household services division made the largest contribution to both measures, with a 0.91 percentage point contribution to the CPI rate and a 1.76 percentage point contribution to the CPIH rate. OOH costs made a large upward contribution to housing and household services in the CPIH, but are excluded from the CPI.

Annual inflation rate

The most common approach to measuring inflation is the 12-month or annual inflation rate, which compares prices for the latest month with the same month a year ago. In any given month, the annual rate is determined by the balance between upward and downward price movements across the range of goods and services included in the index.

Consumer price inflation

Consumer price inflation is the rate at which the prices of goods and services bought by households rise or fall. It is estimated by using price indices. For an overview of the range of indices available and their uses, please see our Consumer price indices, a brief guide: 2017 and our Measuring changing prices and costs for consumers and households: December 2023 article.

CPIH

The Consumer Prices Index including owner occupiers' housing costs (CPIH) is the most comprehensive measure of inflation. It extends the Consumer Prices Index (CPI) to include a measure of the costs associated with owning, maintaining and living in one's own home, known as owner occupiers' housing (OOH) costs, along with Council Tax. Both are substantial expenses for many households and are not included in the CPI.

CPI

The CPI is a measure of consumer price inflation produced to international standards, and is based on European regulations for the Harmonised Index of Consumer Prices. The CPI is the inflation measure used in the government's target for inflation.

The CPI is produced at the same level of detail as the CPIH in our accompanying Consumer price inflation dataset and in our accompanying Consumer price inflation data time series.

Owner occupiers' housing costs

OOH costs are the costs of housing services associated with owning, maintaining and living in one's own home.

RPI

The Retail Prices Index (RPI) and its subcomponents do not meet the required standard for designation as accredited official statistics. In recognition that the index continues to be widely used in contracts, we continue to publish the RPI, its subcomponents, and RPI excluding mortgage interest payments (RPIX). To view the all-items RPI, please see the data time series section of the Inflation and price indices area of our website. The annual RPI inflation rate was 4.5% in September 2025.

The UK Statistics Authority (The Authority) and HM Treasury launched a consultation in 2020 on The Authority's proposal to address the shortcomings of the RPI. From 2030 (at the earliest), as outlined in The Authority's response to the joint consultation on reforming the methodology of the Retail Prices Index, the CPIH methods and data sources will be introduced into the RPI. Additionally, the supplementary and lower-level indices of the RPI will be discontinued.

Quality improvement

We are undertaking a programme of quality improvement across our consumer price statistics, including identifying new sources, improving methods and developing modern automated systems. Our Transformation of consumer price statistics: August 2024 article contains more information about the project and our ongoing plans. We also published our Consumer prices development plan: updated September 2025 to outline the rationale for our priorities and their potential impact.

The next planned improvement is the introduction of grocery scanner data into our consumer price statistics from February 2026, with the first publication scheduled for March 2026. We outlined this change in our series of research articles, including our Research and developments in the transformation of UK consumer price statistics: April 2025 article.

As usual, we welcome your feedback on our work. To contact us, please email cpi@ons.gov.uk.

Moving from sample items to broader consumption segments

The "All items" Consumer Prices Index (CPI) and Consumer Prices Index including owner occupiers' housing costs (CPIH) series incorporate price information from a wide range of goods and services. From March 2025, the process for aggregating this detailed information has changed, as a necessary step towards incorporating larger and more granular datasets into the consumer price indices.

Goods and services are allocated into "consumption segments" for different categories of expenditure. In some cases, we have defined these consumption segments to correspond to one "item" for which we track prices over time. However, in cases where more comprehensive source data are available, or are expected to be available in the future, a consumption segment typically includes much more than just one item. For simplicity, we continue to refer to "items" in the statistical bulletin and detailed briefing note. More detailed methodological information on the new aggregation process and consumption segments is available in our Introducing alternative data into consumer price statistics: aggregation and weights article.

Please note that the move from sample items to broader consumption segments means there is an impact on the individual price quotes and lower-level indices published from March 2025 in our Consumer price inflation consumption segment indices and price quotes dataset. These outputs have been updated and presented in an improved format to help users transition to the use of consumption segments and other methodological changes.

We have published an updated glossary (XLSX, 25KB), which sets out the changes made from March 2025.

Households and the cost of living

To assist individuals in understanding how the rise in inflation affects their expenditure, we have produced a personal inflation calculator. The calculator allows users to enter the amount they spend across either a reduced or a wide range of categories, to produce an estimate of their personal inflation, based on those spending patterns.

Our Shopping prices comparison tool shows how the average prices of items have changed over time. Please note that the newly introduced consumption segments for food, drinks and tobacco will not have data before 2025 in the tool. However, the historical average prices for food, drinks and tobacco items, that were on the tool before the update in 2025, can be found in our Shopping prices comparison tool data download before the 2025 update.

Please also note that Table 55 in our historical Consumer price inflation tables dataset, which provided time series of prices for petrol and diesel, has not been published since 19 February 2025 and the two series have been discontinued. Historical average prices are still available from the time series explorer function on our website, using the four-character identifiers CZMK for petrol and CZML for diesel.

On 28 August 2025, we published our quarterly Household Costs Indices (HCIs) for UK household groups bulletin. The HCIs reflect how different types of households experience changing prices, and differ from CPIH and CPI. The CPIH and CPI are based on recognised economic principles, and provide an aggregate measure of inflation for household spending in the UK.

The HCIs are official statistics in development and this release included new estimates for April to June 2025. It was not possible for this latest release to update the weights for 2025 in line with the standard methodology for consumer prices. This is because of delays in processing the underlying survey data and the need for further, ongoing quality assurance. Instead, the most recent estimates have been compiled using the weights for February to December 2024. We aim to update the weights as soon as we can.

Passenger transport by air

We previously published a monthly index for passenger transport by air. We also began publishing Domestic, European and long-haul airfares consumer prices sub-indices and weights on an annual basis from 26 March 2025. These are being released in the user requested data section of our website.

Classification of Individual Consumption According to Purpose (COICOP)

The Classification of Individual Consumption According to Purpose (COICOP) is the classification that underpins some of the main statistics produced by the Office for National Statistics (ONS). The classification has seen a substantial update (PDF, 1,286KB) in recent years, to reflect changes in household expenditure patterns since its inception in the late 1990s. The UK currently uses the version of COICOP introduced in 1999.

We will ensure that the new classification is implemented in a comprehensive and reliable manner that considers other priorities around the production of our main statistics.

For further information, please email cpi@ons.gov.uk.

Weights for 2025 consumer price inflation statistics

In line with usual practice at the start of each year, the expenditure weights used in compiling the CPIH and CPI were calculated using updated spending information. The first update of weights was implemented with the January indices. The second update was introduced, along with the usual basket update, with the February indices released in March. We published our Consumer price inflation, updating weights: 2025 article and our Consumer price inflation basket of goods and services: 2025 article on 18 March 2025.

The 2025 weights for CPIH and CPI were calculated using national accounts household final consumption expenditure (HHFCE) data for 2023. This is in line with our standard methodology of using data lagged by two years. It differs from the approach used in 2021, 2022 and 2023, when there were large changes seen in spending patterns because of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Over those years, we adjusted the spending data so that, for example, the resulting weights for 2023 better reflected spending in 2022. More information is available in our Consumer price inflation, updating weights articles.

The weights for the RPI were also updated for 2025, in line with the practice followed both before and during the coronavirus pandemic period.

In line with the improvements introduced last year, we now use unrounded weights in compiling CPIH and CPI. The weights before 2024 for the CPI and CPIH were rounded to integers as parts per thousand of the all-items indices at the class level (four-digit COICOP). The RPI continues to be based on integer weights.

Consumer price inflation historical estimates, UK, 1950 to 1988

On 18 May 2022, we published our Consumer price inflation, historical estimates, UK, 1950 to 1988 methodology and our Consumer price inflation, historical estimates and recent trends, UK: 1950 to 2022 article. These include new estimates of CPIH and improved estimates of CPI for 1950 to 1988. These estimates (published in response to user need for a longer series) are indicative and are for analytical purposes only. They are not intended for official use and do not constitute part of the accredited official statistics series.

Previously, in December 2018, we published our Consumer Prices Index including owner occupiers' housing costs (CPIH) historical series: 1988 to 2004 article. These series are also not classed as accredited official statistics, reflecting the historical uncertainty around the backcasts.

Methodology information

The consumer price indices are normally based on prices collected from outlets around the country, supplemented by information collected centrally over the internet and by phone. The figures in this release use data collected on or around 16 September 2025.

An overview of consumer price statistics is given in our Consumer price indices, a brief guide: 2017. The concepts and methodologies underpinning the indices in more detail are covered in our Consumer Prices Indices Technical Manual, 2019.

A comprehensive source of information on the CPIH, focusing on the approach to measuring owner occupiers' housing costs, is provided in our CPIH Compendium.

Information on the users and uses of these statistics, and the characteristics of the different measures of inflation related to potential use, is included in our Users and uses of consumer price inflation statistics: July 2018 update methodology.

Strengths and limitations

In our Measuring changing prices and costs for consumers and households article, we illustrated our approach to the process using three "use cases", and described how they relate to the measures published and under development.

The three cases refer firstly to the CPIH as our lead measure of inflation, based on economic principles. They also refer to the HCIs as a set of measures that reflect the change in costs and prices experienced by different households, and the RPI as a legacy measure that is required to meet existing user needs. The issues with the RPI are described in our Shortcomings of the Retail Prices Index as a measure of inflation article.

Accredited official statistics

These accredited official statistics were independently reviewed by the Office for Statistics Regulation in July 2017. They comply with the standards of trustworthiness, quality and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics and should be labelled "accredited official statistics".