Prices & Cost of Living
What households actually pay — the basket, the 14 essential lines under standing watch, and the mechanism that turns a border cost into a shelf price.
Headline CPI is 3.1% with the food basket at 4.2% — housing, water and energy carry the largest single contribution at 32.1% of the basket. Nothing on the 14-line essential watchlist sits above the 8% critical threshold. The weighted duty rate across that basket is 5.4%, and a 10% rise in landed cost still reaches shelves as roughly 6.4% five to seven weeks later.
What is driving the index
Each component's contribution to headline CPI is its basket weight multiplied by its own year-on-year rate. Ordered by contribution, not by weight.
| Component | Weight | Year on year | Contribution to headline |
|---|---|---|---|
| Housing, water, electricity, gas | 32.1% | 3.4% | 1.09 pp |
| Food & non-alcoholic beverages | 14.8% | 4.2% | 0.62 pp |
| Transport | 13.6% | 2.6% | 0.35 pp |
| Restaurants & hotels | 8.2% | 3.9% | 0.32 pp |
| Health | 5.1% | 2.8% | 0.14 pp |
| Household goods | 6.4% | 2.1% | 0.13 pp |
| Alcohol & tobacco | 2.4% | 5.1% | 0.12 pp |
| Recreation & culture | 4.9% | 1.9% | 0.09 pp |
| Education | 3.2% | 2.0% | 0.06 pp |
| Clothing & footwear | 3.7% | 1.2% | 0.04 pp |
| Miscellaneous | 1.3% | 2.2% | 0.03 pp |
| Communication | 4.3% | 0.4% | 0.02 pp |
Department of Statistics · Consumer Price Index 4 Aug 2026 · 09:00 Component year-on-year rates weighted by the 2024 basket; contributions in percentage points sum to the headline rate.