New Zealand inflation rate (CPI)
Annual percentage change in the all-groups Consumers Price Index, compiled quarterly by Stats NZ (Tatauranga Aotearoa).
| Current value | 3.1 percent |
|---|---|
| In force from | 2026-03-31 |
| Official source | Stats NZ (Tatauranga Aotearoa), information release 'Consumers price index: March 2026 quarter', published 21 April 2026, 10:45am — Key facts table, CPI all groups annual percentage change |
| Last verified | 2026-07-20 |
| Verification | primary — No verification limitation recorded — read from the official source cited. |
| Provenance | source fingerprint |
What this value means
REFERENCE PERIOD: MARCH 2026 QUARTER — this is the LATEST OFFICIALLY PUBLISHED figure as at 2026-07-20. New Zealand's CPI is QUARTERLY, not monthly; there is no official monthly headline CPI. effective_from is the last day of the reference quarter. All-groups CPI rose 3.1% in the 12 months to the March 2026 quarter and 0.9% in the quarter itself. Tradeables inflation 2.5% annual, non-tradeables 3.5% annual; the core measure excluding food, household energy and vehicle fuels was 2.6% annual. Largest annual contributors: electricity +12.5%, local authority rates and payments +8.8%, meat and poultry +8.6%; largest offsets audio-visual equipment -21.2% and real estate services -4.8%. At 3.1% the figure sits just above the upper bound of the RBNZ's 1-3% target band and above its 2% midpoint. FORWARD-LOOKING CAUTION: the JUNE 2026 QUARTER CPI is scheduled for release by Stats NZ on 21 July 2026 — one day after this record's last_confirmed date — and bank forecasts published in mid-July 2026 clustered around 4.1% annual, driven by a roughly 20% quarterly rise in petrol and 51% in diesel. Those forecasts are NOT included as a value here because they are not primary published statistics; this record should be re-verified on or after 21 July 2026. ACCESS QUIRK: stats.govt.nz information-release pages are JavaScript-rendered — a raw HTTP GET returns HTTP 200 with an empty shell and no numbers. A rendering browser is required, or use the downloadable Excel/CSV assets linked on each release page. Stats NZ also retrospectively annotates past releases (e.g. a 14 May 2026 correction to trimmed-mean series in several prior CSVs, and a 1 May 2025 disclosure that vehicle relicensing fee increases were omitted from the March 2025 quarter).
Earlier values
| From | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 2025-03-31 | 2.5 | Stats NZ, 'Consumers price index: March 2025 quarter', publi |
| 2025-06-30 | 2.7 | Stats NZ, 'Consumers price index: June 2025 quarter', publis |
| 2025-09-30 | 3 | Stats NZ, 'Consumers price index: September 2025 quarter', p |
| 2025-12-31 | 3.1 | Stats NZ, 'Consumers price index: December 2025 quarter', pu |
Get it programmatically
curl https://ausref.dev/v1/nz/cpi
# $0.001 per call — x402 on Base (USDC). No key, no signup.
# History: curl https://ausref.dev/v1/nz/cpi/history?from=2020-01-01
# Provenance: curl https://ausref.dev/provenance/nz/cpiOther New Zealand series: policy interest rate · VAT rate · minimum wage · public holidays · corporate tax rate · income tax rates