Which EU country had the worst inflation peak?

Outside the euro, the Baltic states crossed 20% in 2022. Inside the euro, the Netherlands and Germany topped 11% in late 2022, while Spain peaked earlier at ~10% in July 2022 before falling fastest.

Why is my country's national CPI different from the HICP shown here?

HICP is the EU-harmonised series used by the ECB and is designed for cross-country comparison. National statistical offices may use slightly different baskets, weightings, or treatments of owner-occupied housing, which can produce a different national CPI. Both are correct for their purpose.

Does this data update automatically?

Yes. We pull Eurostat HICP weekly. Eurostat itself releases a flash estimate around the end of each month and a final figure ~10 days later, so the most recent month may revise slightly within 60–90 days.

How do I use these numbers to plan my own finances?

The 5-year cumulative number is the most useful for personal planning: it tells you the real haircut on cash holdings and the real cost-of-living gap your wages had to close. For projection, use our EU Inflation Comparator calculator to apply a chosen rate to your own savings or income.

EU Inflation History by Country (2014–2026)

Why inflation looks different in every EU country

Inflation is rarely a single number. The headline "eurozone inflation peaked at 10.6% in October 2022" hides enormous variation: Spain crossed 10% half a year earlier, France barely touched 7%, the Baltic states ran above 20%. A household's lived inflation depends on which prices moved in their country — and how their wages caught up.

The chart below plots year-on-year HICP — the harmonised European inflation measure — for the euro area aggregate and seven of its larger members, refreshed weekly from Eurostat.

Country	Year-on-year (latest)	5-year cumulative	10-year cumulative
Euro area (20 countries) (EA20)	3%	24%	32%
Germany (DE)	3%	25%	36%
France (FR)	2%	19%	27%
Spain (ES)	4%	23%	31%
Italy (IT)	3%	22%	28%
Netherlands (NL)	2%	29%	40%
Poland (PL)	3%	40%	59%
Portugal (PT)	3%	24%	28%

How to read the chart

Each line is the percentage change in a country's HICP (Harmonised Index of Consumer Prices, base 2015 = 100) versus the same month one year prior. So a value of 5 means goods and services that cost €100 a year ago typically cost €105 now in that country.

The summary table beneath the chart shows three numbers per country:

Year-on-year (latest) — how much prices rose over the most recent twelve months. This is the figure central banks and headlines focus on.
5-year cumulative — how much prices rose since five years ago. This is the figure that matters for a saver: it tells you the real haircut on cash holdings.
10-year cumulative — the long arc. Useful for thinking about long-term financial goals like a mortgage payoff or retirement target.

What changed in 2021–2023

Three forces converged. Post-pandemic demand surged while supply chains were still snarled. Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 sent energy and food prices through the roof. And the ECB's policy rate sat near zero for most of the period, with limited tools to act fast.

The countries hit hardest were those most exposed to energy imports (Germany, the Netherlands) and those with large food-import shares (southern Europe). France's nuclear fleet softened its energy shock; Spain's regulated electricity market softened its early shock, then re-passed costs through later. Poland — outside the euro — let the złoty depreciate, which imported additional inflation.

What's happening in 2024–2026

Headline rates have come down sharply, but two facts deserve attention. First, the 5-year cumulative number does not reset when year-on-year falls. A 20% cumulative price rise stays in the price level; only the rate of increase is back to normal. Second, services inflation remains sticky in most members — wages adjusted slowly, and that adjustment is still feeding through.

For a household with cash savings, the cumulative number is the one to target with returns. Earning 3% in a savings account when prices rose 20% over five years means the real value of those savings fell ~17%.

What it means for your money

A few household implications, none of them advice:

Cash needs a job. Long stretches of high inflation make the opportunity cost of an idle current-account balance painfully visible. Building or topping up a high-yield emergency fund is the simplest defensive move.
Variable-rate debt got more expensive, then less. Mortgages tied to Euribor saw rates jump, then plateau. If you have a fixed-rate loan locked in 2020–2021, you are sitting on a quietly valuable asset.
Wage indexation matters more than people think. Public-sector contracts in Belgium and Luxembourg adjust automatically; private ones rarely do. If your salary did not move with inflation, your spending power has fallen even when nothing else changed.

Where this data comes from

Eurostat publishes HICP monthly under data set prc_hicp_midx. We fetch the COICOP CP00 ("all items") monthly index in level form, rebase nothing, and compute year-on-year and cumulative changes from the index series itself. The same data feeds our EU Inflation Comparator calculator — which you can use to project these rates against your own numbers.

Notes and caveats

HICP is harmonised across EU members, which makes cross-country comparison meaningful — but it does not match every national CPI exactly. National statistical offices may publish slightly different headline numbers using domestic weightings. We use HICP because that is the reference series the ECB uses for its 2% target.

Monthly index values for the very latest month are sometimes provisional and revise within 60–90 days; the cumulative numbers in the table are stable.

EU Inflation History by Country: 2014–2026

Why inflation looks different in every EU country

EU inflation by country — live data