Euro area and EU September inflation confirmed up at 3.8 per cent

Brussels – Inflation is not falling. Eurostat, the European Union’s statistical office, confirmed the figures of its flash estimates and put the annual inflation rate in September at 3.8 per cent, up from 3.2 per cent in August 2026. In September 2025, the figure stood at 2.2 per cent. Across the EU as a whole, the annual rate was 3.8 per cent, up from 3.2 per cent the previous month. In the same month of 2025, the rate stood at 2.6 per cent. 

The lowest annual rates were recorded in Sweden (1.0 per cent), Hungary and Denmark (both at 2.1 per cent). It was the highest in Romania (6.5 per cent), Lithuania (6.1 per cent) and Bulgaria (5.6 per cent). Compared with August 2026, annual inflation fell in only one EU Member State (Slovakia). In three – Lithuania, Cyprus, and Portugal – it remained stable, while rising in the remaining twenty-three EU countries. Over the course of one month, from August to September 2026, Italy’s rate rose from 3.2 per cent to 4.2 per cent, while over the course of a year, it more than doubled – in September 2025, the figure stood at 1.7 per cent. 

In September 2026, energy (+1.71 percentage points), services (+1.52 percentage points), industrial goods – excluding energy –  (+0.29 percentage points), as well as food, alcohol and tobacco (+0.25 percentage points), all contributed to the rise in the annual inflation rate in the eurozone.