Consumer price indices - Basket 2024

As every year, Istat reviews the list of items included in the consumer price index basket and updates as well the survey techniques and the weights of each item to compile inflation.

The changes made in 2024, with reference to both the weights and the basket, reflect the constant evolution of household spending behaviours but also the impact of events which affect purchasing decisions and structure of consumer spending.

The 2024 basket for the Italian consumer price indices for the whole nation (NIC) and for blue and white-collar households (FOI) is made up of 1,915 elementary products (1,885 in 2023), which are grouped into 1,045 products and 425 product aggregates.

The 2024 basket for the Italian harmonized index of consumer prices (HICP) is made up of 1,936 elementary products (they were 1,906 also in 2023), grouped into 1,064 products and 429 product aggregates.

The review of the basket of products takes into account the changes in the household spending patterns (also due to legal provisions) and enriches, in some cases, the range of products representing consolidated consumption.

In 2024, the main products added to the basket to represent the changes in the household spending patterns or to improve the coverage of expenditure aggregates already represented in the basket, are: Dehumidification and air purification appliance, Smart Bulb, All You Can Eat Meal, Laminate flooring, Kanzi apples, Vittoria grape, Aqua fitness course, Football and five-a-side football course, Tennis and padel course, Artistic-cultural training course, Hair straightener, Electric shaver, Electric under blanket.

On the other hand, E-book reader, Health and fitness tracker, Electric hair clipper and Electric beard trimmer have been removed from the basket.

In total over 33 million price quotations are used each month to estimate Italian inflation. They come from different sources: 385,000 of them are collected locally by the Municipal Offices of Statistics (MOS) and concern 50.2% of the basket in terms of weight; about 235,000 are collected directly by Istat (25.7% of the basket) and about 33 million come from scanner data (13.6% of the basket). Then, more than 157,000 quotes are collected from automotive fuels prices database of the Ministry of Economic Development (6.1% of the basket). In addition, tobacco prices are collected from Customs and Monopolies Agency for the detection of tobacco (2.0% of the basket) and one million and half house rent prices are provided by the Real Estate Market Observatory of the Tax Office (2.4% of the basket).

Data coming from 79 municipalities are processed to estimate monthly inflation; the coverage of territorial survey, with reference to provincial population, is equal to 83.5%.

An additional group of 12 municipalities participate in the territorial survey with regard to a subset of products (local tariffs and some services) and for this subset, the territorial coverage is up to 90.5%.

In the municipalities, prices are collected for more than 44,000 statistical units (including outlets, enterprises and institutions) and rents are collected for more than 2,700 dwellings for social housing.

Price quotes collected through scanner data come from a sample of about 4,300 outlets including hypermarkets, supermarkets, discounts, small sales areas and specialist drugs, which are representative of the whole Italian national territory and of 19 large retail chains. The weight of scanner data on the NIC basket is 13.6%.

The consumer prices of automotive/motor fuels (petrol, gas oil, LPG and methane) for the whole national territory are collected through the data base of t Ministry of Economic Development. Istat uses information provided by more than 15.300 petrol stations (68.7% of those in the data base).

Note. On 22 February 2023 at 5:12 pm the full text of this press release has been replaced as a result of the update of the weights, as well as the related tables and comments.