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The CFR Global Inflation Tracker allows you to gauge trends in prices across the world over time.
Inflation Data by Country
The map below aids in gauging inflation trends in almost two hundred countries around the world—mainly those that report data to the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The inflation rate is defined as the rate of change in the consumer price level over the prior twelve months. Each country is shaded according to its year-over-year rate of inflation, with darker colors indicating higher inflation. Hover over a particular country to see its latest data, and, to view changes over time, use the slider above the map to adjust the date. Use the drop-down menu to select which item to view. [1]
The map highlights, for example, how inflation reacted to COVID-19 disruptions beginning in early 2020. As businesses shuttered, consumers spent less and saved more. Median global inflation fell from 2.2 percent to 1.9 percent that year. In 2021 and 2022, consumer demand recovered far more rapidly than supply, which was limited by labor shortages, supply-chain interruptions, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Between the third quarters of 2020 and 2022, median global inflation soared from 1.9 percent to 8.7 percent. This contrasts with the experience of the Great Recession, when median global inflation fell from 9.9 percent in the third quarter of 2008 to 1.7 percent in the third quarter of 2009. While still elevated above its pre-COVID-19 level, median global inflation moderated to 3.1 percent in quarter 2 of 2024. Central banks are now one-by-one ending their tightening cycles.
Inflation Data by Quarter
The charts below compile data on inflation trends in almost two hundred economies going back to 1990. Each chart shows the year-over-year inflation rates for fourteen different items.[2]
Use the rightmost drop-down menu above the chart to toggle among those items. The leftmost menu lets you select groups of countries for display. You can create a custom list of countries or filter them by region. Hover over the charts to see a country’s inflation rate within particular years.
Together, the charts reveal significant trends in global inflation. Food prices, for example, are notoriously volatile, owing in particular to shocks caused by extreme weather. Over the last three decades, median food inflation has ranged from 1 percent to more than 14 percent.
Components of Total Inflation
The final large chart below allows you to view, for each country, the historical percentage-point contributions of five categories of inflation (food, energy, housing, services, and other) to total inflation.[3] The sum of the percentage-point contributions of each category equals a given country’s total inflation rate. Use the leftmost drop-down menu to choose which country to view.
The charts highlight how a category’s contribution to total inflation can change considerably over time. In 2021, for example, energy inflation, driven by robust economic recovery from the pandemic, constituted almost a third of the total U.S. inflation rate of 4.7 percent. This contrasts with 2015, when falling energy prices made a substantial negative contribution to the total U.S. inflation rate of 0.1 percent.
Please also visit our Global Monetary Policy Tracker, Global Imbalances Tracker, Global Growth Tracker, Global Trade Tracker, Global Energy Tracker, Sovereign Risk Tracker, and Central Bank Currency Swaps Tracker.
Data Notes
The data displayed in the maps and charts above is calculated using data from the IMF’s consumer price index (CPI), the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the World Bank's Global Database of Inflation, and Eurostat. All rates are expressed as twelve-month percent changes. The inflation data displayed is quarterly for all countries except the following, for which data annual data is displayed: Argentina, Burkina Faso, Central African Republic, China, Comoros, Curaçao, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Eritrea, Ghana, Guatemala, Guinea-Bissau, Guyana, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Jamaica, Kazakhstan, Liechtenstein, Maldives, Malta, Marshall Islands, Myanmar, Nauru, Nepal, Peru, Philippines, Puerto Rico, Romania, São Tomé and Príncipe, Sri Lanka, Tajikistan, Tanzania, Thailand, Turkmenistan, Tuvalu, Uganda, United Arab Emirates, Uruguay, Venezuela, and Yemen. Additionally, energy data for the following countries is displayed as an annual rate, while all other categories are displayed as quarterly rates: Brazil, Mauritius, and Saudi Arabia. The percentage-point contributions of inflation components in the bar charts are annual.
[1] Just over half of countries publish their inflation data with a delay, typically 1-2 quarters. To view a more complete map, please use the slider to scroll back to the previous quarters.
[2] Following the methodology of Jongrim and Ohnsorg (2021), the IMF’s measure of housing, water, electricity, and gas inflation is used in place of energy inflation for the countries that lack energy inflation data.
[3] Eurostat’s HICP data is used for the twenty-seven European Union countries (excluding Sweden) as well as Iceland, Norway, and Switzerland. All other data comes from the OECD. Owing to lack of comparability across countries, the housing component excludes imputed rents. The services component excludes services related to housing (actual rents, imputed rents, and services for maintenance and repairs of the dwelling). If a country lacks data for a certain component, the contribution to total inflation of that component is included in the “Other” category. For example, the percentage-point contribution of Colombia’s housing inflation to Colombia’s total inflation rate is captured within its “Other” category. The same goes for the services inflation components of Chile, Estonia, Greece, South Africa, South Korea, Sweden, and Turkey.