Inflation up 2.7% in March over fuel price hikes

The inflation rate accelerated to 2.7% in March, 0.6 percentage points higher than in February, mainly reflecting the increase in fuel prices, the National Statistics Institute (INE) announced today.

“The acceleration of the CPI [Consumer Price Index] is almost entirely explained by the increase in fuel prices,” the statistical institute emphasises, confirming today the preliminary estimate released at the end of last month.

In March, the first full month after the US-Israeli attack on Iran, the variation in the index relating to energy products increased to 5.7% (-2.2% in the previous month), while the index relating to unprocessed food products registered a variation of 6.4% (6.7% in the previous month).

The underlying inflation indicator, which excludes more volatile products such as unprocessed food and energy, accelerated to 2.0%, 0.1 percentage points higher than in February.

In monthly terms, compared to February, the CPI registered a variation rate of 2.0%, which compares with 0.1% in February and 1.4% in March 2025.

As for the average variation over the last 12 months, it was 2.3%, the same value as the previous month.

In March, the Portuguese Harmonised Index of Consumer Prices (HICP) showed a year-on-year variation of 2.7% (2.1% in the previous month), a rate 0.2 percentage points higher than the value estimated by Eurostat for the euro area (in February, this difference was identical).

Source: INE; Credits: Tara Clark, Unsplash