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Data series, Inflation and prices

Headline inflation

4.5%Sep 2026. Up from 4.4% in Aug 2026.

Series id cpi-headline. This page and its downloads keep the same address when new figures are added.

Headline inflation rose from 2.8% in May 2025 to 4.5% in Sep 2026, after peaking at 5.0% in Jun 2026

South Africa's headline CPI was 4.5% year-on-year in September 2026, up from 4.4% in August and 4.3% in July; the index rose 0.4% between August and September. Inflation peaked at 5.0% in June, the highest since June 2024. Transport (10.8%, contributing 1.5 percentage points), housing and utilities (5.2%, 1.3 points) and insurance and financial services (5.4%, 0.6 points) were the main contributors. The SARB's inflation target is 3% with a tolerance band of ±1 percentage point.

Source: Statistics South Africa, Consumer Price Index September 2026. Source released . Checked on SA Data Hub . Original data: Stats SA. Any calculation shown is SA Data Hub's own processing.

Show the numbers as a table
PeriodValue
May 20252.8%
Jun 20253.0%
Jul 20253.5%
Aug 20253.3%
Sep 20253.4%
Oct 20253.6%
Nov 20253.5%
Dec 20253.6%
Jan 20263.5%
Feb 20263.0%
Mar 20263.1%
Apr 20264.0%
May 20264.5%
Jun 20265.0%
Jul 20264.3%
Aug 20264.4%
Sep 20264.5%

Every value

Headline inflation, every value on SA Data Hub, %
PeriodValue
Sep 20264.5%
Aug 20264.4%
Jul 20264.3%
Jun 20265.0%
May 20264.5%
Apr 20264.0%
Mar 20263.1%
Feb 20263.0%
Jan 20263.5%
Dec 20253.6%
Nov 20253.5%
Oct 20253.6%
Sep 20253.4%
Aug 20253.3%
Jul 20253.5%
Jun 20253.0%
May 20252.8%

Changes to this series

No revisions by the publisher have been recorded for this series. SA Data Hub started recording them on 7 November 2026; earlier revisions are not listed.

SA Data Hub's update log for this dataset

  • , correction

    Eight values corrected to the official rates in the Stats SA CPI history file (Table B2). Headline CPI: June 2025 3.2% to 3.0%, July 3.3% to 3.5%, August 3.4% to 3.3%, September 3.5% to 3.4%, October 3.3% to 3.6%, November 3.0% to 3.5%, December 3.2% to 3.6%. Annual average CPI for 2018: 4.6% to 4.7%.

  • , data update

    CPI updated to September 2026 (headline 4.5%, food 1.2%; published 2026-10-21). Repo rate corrected from 6.75% to 7.25% (SARB MPC 2026-09-23). Correction: July 2026 MPC was a hold, not a hike. The hike was on 28 May 2026. Pre-April 2026 monthly CPI points not re-verified.

  • , data update

    Inflation dataset metadata validated for monthly CPI release tracking.

Every update and correction

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You may reuse this series under CC BY 4.0. Credit Statistics South Africa as the original source and SA Data Hub as the place you got it.

Cite this series

Statistics South Africa (2026). Consumer Price Index September 2026. Series "Headline inflation" via SA Data Hub, https://sadatahub.tech/series/cpi-headline (checked 2026-10-26).

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