CONSUMER PRICE INDEX (CPI) MA Y 2026 10 June 2026 NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF STATISTICS OF RWANDA RWF ©National Institute of Statistics of Rwanda /CPI May 2026- N° 5 2 NISR © 2026 National Institute of Statistics of Rwanda. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 P.O Box: 6139 Kigali, Rwanda Tel: +250 788 383103 Email: [email protected] Website: www.statistics.gov.rw Recommended citation: National Institute of Statistics of Rwanda (NISR), Consumer Price Index (CPI), 2026
©National Institute of Statistics of Rwanda /CPI May 2026- N° 5 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. SUMMARY .................................................................................................................................................... 4
1.1. Urban Index............................................................................................................................................ 4
1.2. Rural Index............................................................................................................................................. 4
1.3. Overall Rwanda Index............................................................................................................................. 4 2. URBAN CONSUMER PRICE INDEX................................................................................................... 5 3. OTHER SELECTED URBAN INDICES.......................................................................................................... 6
4.1 Main terms used in Rwandan CPI............................................................................................................ 7
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- How to Interpret CPI.............................................................................................................................. 8
METHODOLOGICAL NOTICE............................................................................................................ 7 5. ANNEXES: REFERENCE TABLES......................................................................................................... 9
©National Institute of Statistics of Rwanda /CPI May 2026- N° 5 4 1 Summary This is the monthly publication of the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for the month of May 2026. Urban CPI will be the focus of this publication as it is the headline index for monetary policy purposes. 1.1. Urban Index Urban CPI increased by 12.9 percent on annual basis (May 2026 compared to May 2025) and it increased by 0.5 percent on monthly basis (May 2026 compared to April 2026). The annual average inflation rate between May 2026 and May 2025 was 8.7 percent. 1.2. Rural Index Rural CPI increased by 11.8 percent on annual basis and it increased by 0.7 percent on monthly basis. 1.3. Overall Rwanda Index Rwanda CPI increased by 12.3 percent on annual basis and it increased by 0.6 percent on monthly basis. TABLE 1: Consumer Price Index, Urban and Rural percentage change on the same period 12 months earlier: 2025 2026 May. Jun. Jul. Aug. Sep. Oct. Nov. Dec. Jan. Feb. Mar. Apr. May. Urban CPI Annual change 6.9 7.0 7.3 7.1 7.3 7.1 7.2 8.0 8.9 9.2 9.2 13.0 12.9 Rural CPI Annual change 8.2 9.2 7.0 5.9 5.5 3.8 2.0 3.3 6.5 7.0 6.7 10.6 11.8 Rwanda CPI Annual change 7.7 8.3 7.2 6.4 6.2 5.1 4.1 5.2 7.5 7.9 7.7 11.5 12.3 Urban CPI Monthly change 0.6 -0.2 0.1 0.7 1.4 1.3 0.2 0.0 1.3 0.9 1.3 4.7 0.5 Rural CPI Monthly change -0.4 0.1 -1.1 0.7 1.2 0.8 -0.3 -0.9 0.1 1.4 1.9 6.8 0.7 Rwanda CPI Monthly change 0.0 0.0 -0.6 0.7 1.3 1.0 -0.1 -0.6 0.6 1.2 1.7 5.9 0.6 Source: NISR
©National Institute of Statistics of Rwanda /CPI May 2026- N° 5
5
2 Urban Consumer Price Index
Urban CPI is calculated based on approximately 1,622 products in twelve urban centres of Rwanda.
The table below shows monthly and annual changes in May 2026 for the main categories of urban
index.
TABLE 2: Consumer Price Index, Urban summary
Percentage change in May. 2026
Code
Categories
Weights
on Apr. 2026
on May. 2025
GENERAL INDEX
100%
0.5%
12.9%
01
Food and non-alcoholic beverages
27%
0.9%
6.2%
01.1.1
Bread and cereals
5%
0.4%
7.9%
01.1.2
Meat
2%
0.3%
12.9%
01.1.4
Milk cheese and eggs
1%
0.1%
6.7%
01.1.7
Vegetables
9%
2.1%
9.0%
01.2
Non-alcoholic beverages
1%
1.0%
11.0%
02
Alcoholic beverages tobacco and narcotics
5%
0.2%
16.1%
03
Clothing and footwear
5%
0.9%
5.8%
04
Housing water, electricity, gas and other fuels
21%
-0.9%
19.4%
05
Furnishings household equipment and routine
household maintenance
4%
2.2%
9.3%
06
Health
1%
0.2%
71.6%
07
Transport
12%
1.1%
24.5%
08
Communication
3%
0.0%
4.0%
09
Recreation and culture
3%
0.0%
5.5%
10
Education
3%
0.0%
12.9%
11
Restaurants and hotels
9%
0.1%
16.6%
12
Miscellaneous goods and services
6%
1.3%
9.0%
Source: NISR
Urban CPI increased by 12.9 percent in May 2026 compared to the same month of 2025. ‘Food
and non-alcoholic beverages’ increased by 6.2 percent, ‘Alcoholic beverages tobacco and narcotics’
increased by 16.1 percent, ‘Housing water, electricity, gas and other fuels’ increased by 19.4 percent,
Health increased by 71.6 percent, Transport increased by 24.5 percent and ‘Restaurants and Hotels’
increased by 16.6 percent.
The CPI for May 2026 increased by 0.5 percent compared to April 2026. ‘Food and non-alcoholic
beverages’ increased by 0.9 percent’ and Transport increased by 1.1 percent.
The underlying inflation rate (excluding fresh food and energy) increased by 12 percent when
compared to May 2025 and it increased by 0.7 percent when compared to April 2026. (See Table 4).
The annual average inflation rate between May 2026 and May 2025 was 8.7 percent. The annual
average underlying inflation rate was 9.2 percent.
©National Institute of Statistics of Rwanda /CPI May 2026- N° 5 6 TABLE 3: Consumer Price Index (Urban only): Core and General, annual percentage change (evolution over 12 months) percentage change on the same period 12 months earlier: 2025 2026 May. Jun. Jul. Aug. Sep. Oct. Nov. Dec. Jan. Feb. Mar. Apr. May. General index 5.5 5.7 5.9 6.1 6.5 6.7 6.9 7.0 7.2 7.4 7.6 8.2 8.7 Core / Underlying index 5.6 5.6 5.8 6.0 6.3 6.7 7.0 7.2 7.4 7.7 8.0 8.7 9.2 Source: NISR Figure 1: Annual changes in urban CPI (January 2014 – May 2026)
©National Institute of Statistics of Rwanda /CPI May 2026- N° 5 7 3 Other selected urban indices This section highlights five selected urban indices: the local goods index, the imported goods index, the fresh products index, the energy index and the core index. On annual basis, the local goods index increased by 13.7 percent, the imported goods index increased by 10.5 percent, the fresh products index increased by 7.3 percent, the energy index increased by 44.4 percent and the core index or the general index excluding fresh products and energy increased by 12 percent. On monthly basis, the local goods index increased by 0.3 percent, the imported goods index increased by 1.1 percent, the fresh products index increased by 0.3 percent, the energy index decreased by 0.5 percent and the core index increased by 0.7 percent. TABLE 4: Consumer Price Index (Urban only), Core & other Percentage change in May. 2026 Categories Weights on Apr. 2026 on May. 2025 GENERAL INDEX 100% 0.5% 12.9% Local Goods Index 77% 0.3% 13.7% Food and non-alcoholic beverages 21% 1.0% 6.9% Housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels 21% -0.9% 19.3% Transport 6% 0.1% 29.1% Imported Goods Index 23% 1.1% 10.5% Food and non-alcoholic beverages 7% 0.4% 3.7% Furnishing, household equipment 2% 2.1% 7.2% Transport 6% 2.0% 20.9% Fresh Products index1 16% 0.3% 7.3% Energy index 7% -0.5% 44.4% General Index excluding fresh Products and energy2 77% 0.7% 12.0% Source: NISR (1) Fresh products are food products which have seasonal fluctuations (2) Proxy for underlying inflation
©National Institute of Statistics of Rwanda /CPI May 2026- N° 5
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4 Methodological notice
The Consumer Price Index (CPI) is a measure of the average change over time of goods and
services purchased by households. The CPI uses a Modified Laspeyres formula to calculate the
index. The reference population for the CPI consists of all households, both urban and rural in
Rwanda.
The household basket includes 1,622 products sold in many places spread all over the country. A
variety of places of observation are selected: shops, markets, hospitals, schools etc. More than
29,482 prices in urban areas and 10,744 in rural areas are collected every month.
Weights used for the index are from the Household Living Conditions Survey (EICV4) results
conducted in 2013-2014 with a sample of 14,419 households.
Each month, NISR publishes the Urban index, Rural index and Overall Rwanda index. The Urban CPI
is considered as the headline index for monetary policy purposes. In addition, select detailed item
indices are published for items judged to be important or experiencing extreme price movement.
4.1 Main terms used in Rwandan CPI
General index: The highest level of aggregation of a CPI which covers all the items within the scope
of the CPI
Core (underlying) inflation: A type of CPI which shows the underlying trend in inflation by excluding
those movements which arise from transient factors such as seasonality or other short term price
volatility
Index reference period (Feb 2014=100): The period with which all other periods are compared (the
period for which the value of the CPI is set at 100).
Monthly inflation: Compare the current index number compared with the index number of the
previous month
Annual inflation: Compare the index number for a particular month with the index number for the
same month of the previous year
Annual average inflation: Compare the average of all the monthly indices in a particular year with
the corresponding average for the previous year. Any twelve-month average (e.g. from July 2016 to
June 2017) may be compared with the twelve-month average (also from July 2015 to June 2016) in
order to calculate June 2017 inflation rate.
4. 2. How to Interpret CPI
Movements of the indices from one month to another usually are expressed as percentage changes
rather than changes in index points. The level of the index (relative to its base period) affects index
point changes, but it does not affect percent changes. The following example illustrates how to
calculate percentage changes:
©National Institute of Statistics of Rwanda /CPI May 2026- N° 5 9 Index point change CPI
178 Less CPI for previous period
176 Equals index point change
2
Percent change Index point difference
2
Divided by the previous index
176 Equals
0.011
Results multiplied by 100 0.011 x 100 Equals percent change
1.1
©National Institute of Statistics of Rwanda /CPI May 2026- N° 5 10 5 Annexes: Reference Tables Annex 1: Consumer Price Index, Urban Index (Feb 2014=100) Percentage change in May. 2026 Contributions1: Code Categories Weights May-25 Apr-26 May-26 on Apr. 2026 on May. 2025 1 month 12 months 00 GENERAL INDEX 100% 187.1 210.3 211.3 0.5% 12.9% 0.5% 12.9% 01 Food and non-alcoholic beverages 27% 251.8 265.1 267.4 0.9% 6.2% 0.3 2.3 01.1.1 Bread and cereals 5% 195.4 210.0 210.8 0.4% 7.9% 0.0 0.4 01.1.2 Meat 2% 299.0 336.3 337.4 0.3% 12.9% 0.0 0.4 01.1.4 Milk cheese and eggs 1% 212.6 226.6 226.9 0.1% 6.7% 0.0 0.1 01.1.7 Vegetables 9% 287.7 307.2 313.5 2.1% 9.0% 0.3 1.2 01.2 Non-alcoholic beverages 1% 200.5 220.3 222.6 1.0% 11.0% 0.0 0.2 02 Alcoholic beverages tobacco and narcotics 5% 241.1 279.4 279.9 0.2% 16.1% 0.0 1.0 03 Clothing and footwear 5% 166.3 174.4 176.0 0.9% 5.8% 0.0 0.3 04 Housing water, electricity, gas and other fuels 21% 143.9 173.3 171.7 -0.9% 19.4% -0.2 3.1 05 Furnishings household equipment and routine household maintenance 4% 165.8 177.3 181.2 2.2% 9.3% 0.1 0.3 06 Health 1% 113.6 194.7 195.1 0.2% 71.6% 0.0 0.6 07 Transport 12% 195.2 240.5 243.1 1.1% 24.5% 0.2 3.2 08 Communication 3% 113.6 118.1 118.1 0.0% 4.0% 0.0 0.1 09 Recreation and culture 3% 152.1 160.5 160.4 0.0% 5.5% 0.0 0.1 10 Education 3% 155.5 175.6 175.6 0.0% 12.9% 0.0 0.3 11 Restaurants and hotels 9% 165.2 192.5 192.7 0.1% 16.6% 0.0 1.3 12 Miscellaneous goods and services 6% 144.9 155.9 157.9 1.3% 9.0% 0.1 0.4 Source: NISR (1) “Contributions” take into account both the growth rate and the relative weight of each category to explain the percentage change observed.