Consumer price indices - Year 2025

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 2025, 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 2025 basket for the Italian consumer price indices for the whole nation (NIC) and for blue and white-collar households (FOI) is made up of 1,923 elementary products (1,915 in 2024), which are grouped into 1,046 products and 424 product aggregates.

The 2025 basket for the Italian harmonized index of consumer prices (HICP) is made up of 1,944 elementary products (they were 1,936 in 2024), grouped into 1,065 products and 428 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 2025, the main products added to the basket to improve the coverage of expenditure aggregates already represented in the basket, are: Speck, Women’s shorts, Ceiling lamp, Mattress topper, Bicycle inner tube, Windshield Wiper Blades, Dog waste bags, Pet bowls, Ice cream cone.

On the other hand, COVID-19 antibody serological test and COVID-19 molecular swab test have been removed from the basket.

In total over 35 million price quotations are used each month to estimate Italian inflation. They come from different sources: more than 388,000 of them are collected locally by the Municipal Offices of Statistics (MOS) and concern 49.4% of the basket in terms of weight; around 237,000 are collected directly by Istat (25.8% of the basket) and about 33 million come from scanner data (13.4% of the basket). Then, around 214,000 quotes are collected from automotive fuels prices database of the Ministry of Enterprises and Made in Italy (6.6% of the basket). In addition, tobacco prices are collected from Customs and Monopolies Agency for the detection of tobacco (2.1% of the basket) and one million and half house rent prices are provided by the Real Estate Market Observatory of the Tax Office (2.7% of the basket).

Data coming from 80 municipalities are processed to estimate monthly inflation; the coverage of territorial survey, with reference to provincial population, is equal to 84.0%. An additional group of 10 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 89.1%.

In the municipalities, prices are collected for more than 45,000 statistical units (including outlets, enterprises and institutions) and rents are collected for more than 2,900 dwellings for social housing.

Price quotes collected through scanner data come from a sample of about 4,250 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 13.4%.

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 around 20,700 petrol stations (92.7% of those in the data base).

With regard to expenditure divisions in the updated 2025 NIC basket, the weights for Housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels and Transport increases, while at the opposite the weight for Recreation and culture and Communication decreases. The expenditure division Food and non-alcoholicbeverages continues to be the most representative in terms of weight (17.13%), followed by Transport (15.23%), Restaurants and hotels (11.95%) and Housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels (11.89%).