Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union

C1: National accounts methodology; Standards and indicators

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The Harmonised Index of Consumer Prices (HICP) gives comparable measures of inflation for the countries and country groups for which it is produced. It is an economic indicator that measures the change over time of the prices of consumer goods and services acquired by households. In other words, it is a set of consumer price indices (CPI) calculated according to a harmonised approach and a set of definitions as laid down in Regulations and Recommendations.

In addition, the HICP provides the official measure of consumer price inflation in the euro area for the purposes of monetary policy and the assessment of inflation convergence as required under the Maastricht criteria for accession to the euro.

The HICP is available for all EU Member States, Iceland, Norway and Switzerland. In addition to the individual country series there are three country groups: the euro area (EA), the European Union (EU), and the European Economic Area (EEA), the latter covering Iceland and Norway, in addition to the EU. Liechtenstein does not produce HICP and is therefore not included in the EEA HICP aggregate.

The official indices for the country-groups reflect the changing country composition of the EA, the EU and the EEA. The HICP for new Member States is chained into the aggregate indices at the time of accession. For analytical purposes Eurostat also computes country-group indices with stable country composition over time.

HICP for Albania, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, Türkiye (candidate countries), as well as Kosovo (^*) are also published. Their data is flagged with 'd' ('definition differs'), given that its conformity with the methodological HICP requirements has not been evaluated by Eurostat.

A proxy-HICP for the all-items index and main headings is also available for the United States.

National HICPs are produced by National Statistical Institutes (NSIs), while country-group indices (EU, EA and EEA) are produced by Eurostat.

The data are released monthly in Eurostat's database and include price indices and rates of change (monthly, annual and 12-month moving average changes). In addition to the headline 'all-items HICP', a number of sub-indices for different goods and services and special aggregates are available.

Every year, with the release of the January data, the relative weights for the indices and the special aggregates (item weights) as well as the individual countries' weight within the country groups (country weights) are published.

Eurostat publishes early estimates, called 'flash estimate', of the euro area overall inflation rate and selected components. These are published monthly, usually on the last working day of the reference month. 

(*) Under United Nations Security Council Resolution 1244/99.

The HICP uses the European Classification of Individual Consumption according to Purpose (ECOICOP).

The HICP components are classified according to the 12 ECOICOP divisions:

00. All-items (total or all-items index)
01. Food and non-alcoholic beverages
02. Alcoholic beverages and tobacco
03. Clothing and footwear
04. Housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels
05. Furnishings, Household equipment and routine maintenance of the house
06. Health
07. Transport
08. Communication
09. Recreation and culture
10. Education
11. Restaurants and hotels
12. Miscellaneous goods and services

Additionally, Eurostat produces special aggregates that are derived from a selection of sub-indices. For example, the special aggregate 'Energy' includes all the energy related sub-indices; most of them from division 04, but also 'Fuels and lubricants for personal transport equipment' from division '07. Education, health and social protection' includes sub-indices from divisions 06, 10 and 12. Currently, Eurostat publishes over 30 special aggregates. The following are the four main special aggregates of the all-items HICP:

• Energy
• Food, alcohol and tobacco
• Non-energy industrial goods
• Services

The HICP is a consumer price index, that is, it covers the consumption expenditure of the household sector.

The published data are as follows:

• Indices (2015=100)
• Annual rates of change (m/m-12)
• Monthly rates of change (m/m-1)

Each published index or rate of change refers to the 'household final monetary consumption expenditure' of the corresponding geographical entity.

The target statistical universe is the ‘household final monetary consumption expenditure’ (HFMCE) within the economic territories of the countries compiling the HICP. The household sector to which the definition refers includes all individuals or groups of individuals, irrespective of the type of area in which they live, their position in the income distribution and their nationality or residence status. These definitions follow the national account concepts in the European System of Accounts (ESA 2010).

The HICP comprises all products and services purchased in monetary transactions by households, both resident and non-resident (i.e ‘domestic concept’), within the territory of a country.

Official country-group aggregates:

• European Union (EU)
• Euro area (EA)

Individual country series:

• EU Member States
• Iceland
• Norway
• Switzerland
• Albania
• Montenegro
• North Macedonia
• Serbia
• Türkiye
• Kosovo (under United Nations Security Council Resolution 1244/99)
• United States (proxy-hicp)

The HICP is published since March 1997 and covers the time period from January 1996 onwards. See point 12.3 on ‘Completeness’ for more information.

According to Commission Regulation 2015/2010, starting with the release of January 2016 data, HICP and HICP-CT data are produced and published using the common index reference period 2015=100.

Index (2015=100)

Month (index and rates).

Regulation (EU) 2016/792 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 May 2016 on harmonised indices of consumer prices and the house price index repeals Council Regulation (EC) No 2494/95 of 23 October 1995 and resets the legal basis for establishing a harmonised methodology for the compilation of the HICP, the euro area and the EU inflation figures.

Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2020/1148 lays down the methodological and technical specifications for the HICP and HICP-CT and consolidates and modernises (and repeals) all previous implementing legislation.

Recommendations on healthcare, telecommunications, the treatment of rents and the treatment of internet purchases have also been agreed with Member States.

All legislation is applicable to Iceland and Norway (European Economic Area countries), as well as to Switzerland.

Legislation and recommendations can be found in the HICP section on Eurostat's website.

None.

Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 on European statistics (recital 24 and Article 20(4)) of 11 March 2009 (OJ L 87, p. 164), stipulates the need to establish common principles and guidelines ensuring the confidentiality of data used for the production of European statistics and the access to those confidential data with due account for technical developments and the requirements of users in a democratic society.

The confidential data transmitted are used exclusively for statistical purposes and only accessible to staff working in statistical activities within their specific domain of work, according to Article 22(5) of the Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council, of 11 March 2009, on the transmission of data subject to statistical confidentiality to the Statistical Office of the European Communities. See also point 8.3 on rules governing user access.

The release schedule is publically available and published each year around mid-November for the full following year. 

The release dates are disseminated on Euro indicators release calendar.

In line with the Community legal framework and the European Statistics Code of Practice, Eurostat disseminates European statistics on Eurostat’s website (see principle 10 – ‘Accessibility and Clarity’), respecting professional independence and in an objective, professional and transparent manner in which all users are treated equitably. The detailed arrangements are governed by Eurostat’s protocol on impartial access to Eurostat data for users.

The data are disseminated monthly, around the middle of the month that follows the reference month.

The flash estimate for the euro area and selected components are  usually disseminated on the last working day of the reference month or shortly thereafter.

In principle, no intermediate data updates are done outside the pre-agreed calendar update dates (see release schedule under point 8.2).

News releases, available online.

Statistics explained articles (Inflation in the euro area), Euro indicator news releases, manual and guidelines on the dedicated HICP section on Eurostat’s website.

In the monthly article Eurostatistics - data for short-term economic analysis on Eurostat’s website Statistics Explained.

In the Euro indicators dashboard.

Data are available in Eurostat’s database as either selected datasets and detailed datasets.

• ‘Selected datasets’ offer a selection of the most important data in a user-friendly way. All data are presented in simple two or three dimensional tables.
• ‘Detailed datasets’ contains the full range of data publically available. They are presented in multi-dimensional tables with various selection features and export formats.

Not applicable.

See also The HICP dedicated section on Eurostat’s website.

More information is available on the HICP dedicated section on Eurostat’s website:

• Statistics Explained articles relating to the HICP
• compliance monitoring reports
• legislation
• HICP Methodological manual
• HICP-CT reference methodology
• COVID-19 information

Compliance monitoring

Information notes are available in the Eurostat's HICP site, under Quality - Harmonised Indices of Consumer Prices (HICP).

See also information under point 11.1 'Quality assurance'.

Compilation of the HICP during the COVID-19

Information notes are available in Eurostat's website, under Methodology - Harmonised Indices of Consumer Prices (HICP) - Eurostat (#COVID-19 and HICP).

Eurostat must ensure that the statistical practices used to compile the national HICP are compliant with the HICP methodological requirements and that good practices in the field of consumer price indices are being followed. To that end, Eurostat undertakes compliance monitoring visits to Member States during which it reviews HICP methodological issues.

Given the importance of the accuracy, reliability and comparability of the HICP, Eurostat systematically monitors the compliance of Member States with the legal requirements. The compliance monitoring is based on detailed documentation, analysis of data and methods as well as visits to NSIs. Eurostat publishes the findings in reports available on Eurostat's web page: Quality - Harmonised Indices of Consumer Prices (HICP). 

There is continuous work to improve the HICP quality and comparability across countries developed through several Task Forces and the Price Statistics Working Group.

Not assessed.

Information on the compilation of the HICP during the COVID-19 period is available on the web page: Methodology - Harmonised Indices of Consumer Prices (HICP) - Eurostat (europa.eu) (#COVID-19 and HICP).

In addition to being a general measure of inflation, the HICP is also used in the areas of:

• wages, social benefit and contract indexation;
• economic forecasting and analysis;
• measuring specific price trends;
• accounting purposes and deflating other series;
• inflation targeting by central banks;
• cross-country economic comparisons.

The euro area (evolving composition) index is used by the European Central Bank (ECB) as the main indicator for monetary policy management. The ECB and the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Economic and Financial Affairs (DG ECFIN) use the HICP for assessing price stability and price convergence required for entry into European Monetary Union.

Other users include: National Central Banks, financial institutions, economic analysts, the media and the public at large.

No information.

HICP indices and weights are available since January 1996.

Specific data availability list of ECOICOPs not starting in January 1996:

• Bulgaria: since December 1996
• Czechia: 3 and 4-digit ECOICOPs: since December 1999. (All-items and 2-digit ECOICOPs since January 1996)
• Croatia: All-items and 2-digit ECOICOPs since January 1998. (3 and 4-digit ECOICOPs: since December 2004)
• Hungary: since December 2000. (All-items and 2-digit ECOICOPs since January 1996)
• Romania: since December 2000. (All-items and 2-digit ECOICOPs since January 1996)
• Slovenia: since December 1999. (All-items and 2-digit ECOICOPs since January 1996)
• Switzerland: since December 2004
• Albania: since December 2015
• Montenegro: since December 2014
• North Macedonia: since December 2004
• Serbia: since December 2005
• Kosovo: since December 2015
• United States (proxy-HICP): since 2001 for the all-items and 2-digit ECOICOP (main headings)

The accuracy of the source data is monitored by assessing the methodological soundness of price and weight sources and the adherence to the methodological recommendations.

There are a variety of data sources both for weights (National Accounts data, Household Budget Survey data, etc.) and prices (visits to local retailers and service providers and central collection via mail, telephone, e-mail and the internet are used).

The type of survey and the price collection methods ensure sufficient coverage and timeliness. The outlets from which prices are collected are chosen to represent the existing trade and services networks and they are usually based  on three main criteria:

• Popularity with consumers;
• Significant turnover from consumer sales; and
• Availability of goods and services included in the HICP basket.

All private households in the economic territory of the country are covered, both resident and non-resident, irrespective of their income.

During the COVID-19 confinement period, the information on imputations is available in the HICP methodology page, under ‘COVID-19 and HICP’.

The HICP is a statistical estimate that is subject to sampling errors because it is based on a sample of consumer prices and household expenditures, not on the complete universe of all prices/expenditures in an economy.

The NSIs responsible for the compilation of national indices generally do not produce numerical estimates of HICP sampling errors, which are difficult to quantify due to the complexity of price index structures and the common use of non-probability sampling. Consequently, no estimate for a global HICP sampling error is available.

The NSIs try to reduce the sampling errors by using a sample of consumer prices that is as large as possible, under their resource constraints. In order to minimise the variance of the all-items index, the NSIs often use models that optimise the allocation of resources by indicating the number of prices that should be observed in each geographical area and each item category.

Several countries have in recent years replaced sampling procedures by the use of transaction data that provide data for the universe of transactions taking place within an outlet or chain of outlets. This reduces sampling error.

The HICP non-sampling errors are not quantified. Eurostat and the NSIs try to reduce non-sampling errors through continuous methodological improvements and survey process improvements, such as computer assisted price collection that can help avoid coding and typing errors.

The full set of HICPs is published each month according to a pre-announced schedule, usually between 15 and 18 days after the end of the reference month. Each year, the January news release is published at the end of February to allow for the annual update of the weights of individual product groups and the relative country weights of Members States in the country-group aggregates.

The euro area flash estimate is published on the last working day of the reference month or shortly after that.

The HICP for the euro area and the EU have always been published on the scheduled release dates.

The release schedule is agreed with NSIs around mid-September each year, for the following year.

Definitions and classifications have been harmonised in a series of legal acts. The HICP is produced based on minimum standards that may be applied with some flexibility as long as the effect on the value of the indicator remains below 0.1 percentage point on average over one year against the previous year (Article 4 of Regulation 2016/792 of the European Parliament and the Council).

The continuous work carried out for the harmonisation of methodologies across the EU Member States is expected to further improve the comparability of the HICP across countries.

HICP data are considered to be comparable over time. However, due to several methodological improvements since the start of the HICP, some breaks in the time series emerge.  In such cases, if the needed data are available, back calculations are performed and historical series are revised.

There is only one set of HICPs available. Identical data are shown in several data collections. The methods and results may differ compared to national CPIs.

The HICPs are internally coherent. Higher level aggregations are derived from detailed indices according to well-defined procedures.

No information.

The HICP series, including back data, is revisable at any point in time under the terms set in Commission Regulation (EC) No 1921/2001 of 28 September 2001. 

The HICP data are released monthly, and they may include some provisional data for the latest month. These are usually confirmed or the final figures are revised the following month.

Major revisions are normally released with explanatory notes in the press release. Any substantial changes in methodology are commented with the first release of data affected by such changes.

In the monthly HICP update, new data are added and the existing data are overwritten with any revised data. Changes compared to the previous update are generally only flagged until the next update. 

Product selection, sampling and data collection are carried out by the NSIs.

The main data source for the Household Final Monetary Consumption Expenditure (HFMCE) used for the compilation of the weights are National Accounts data (from y-2 or y-1) further complemented with data from the Household Budget Survey and other sources. The HFMCE is adjusted to exclude narcotics, imputed rentals for housing, games of chance, prostitution, life insurance, health insurance, FISIM, net purchases abroad and pensions and are price updated to December of the previous year (y-1).

Price data is collected by visits to local retailers and service providers and central collection via mail, telephone, email, internet, automatic transmission of transaction data, web scraping, from private and administrative data sources.

HICPs are based on the continuous measurement of prices for a sample of specified goods and services, in selected locations and outlets. The HICP samples are sufficiently large and representative of consumption behaviours to yield reliable and comparable results, taking into account the national diversity of products. The HICP samples are kept updated to remain representative of the target universe. Every year the HICP incorporates new products that achieved a share of over one part per thousand of total consumer expenditure and is kept relevant throughout the year with the inclusion of new representative products and exclusion of obsolete ones.

As products or outlets disappear from the market, they are replaced with representative and comparable ones. Given that the HICP aims at measuring 'pure' price changes, it should be unaffected by changes in the quality of goods and services. Therefore, when a product needs to be replaced, prices need to be adjusted for such quality changes. Differences among quality adjustment procedures in Member States and other countries using HICP could give rise to incomparability in results. For example, the features of a car model released in the current year with that of the same car model but released five years before are substantially different. Thus, to make a price comparison the ‘value’ of new features is used to adjust the prices.

Price collection takes place across at least one working week. When products are known to be volitile, i.e. to show sharp and irregular price changes within the same month, prices are collected over a period of more than one working week week as defined in Article 8 of Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2020/1148.

HICP data, both indices and weights, are provided by the NSIs.

Recommendations for data collection and for estimation of missing price observations during the COVID-19 period can be found in the HICP guidance notes, available in under Methodology - Harmonised Indices of Consumer Prices (HICP) - Eurostat (#COVID-19 and HICP).

A methodological note on the measurement of prices in the light of national energy compensation measures was issued in December 2022.

Data validation is done by the NSIs; additional quality and consistency checks are also carried out by Eurostat.

The HICP country-group indices for the euro area, EU and EEA, as well as special aggregates are calculated by Eurostat using the HICP provided by the countries. The computation consists of three main steps:

1. Price changes since December of the previous year are derived from the HICP index values;
2. The weighted average of these price changes is computed using the weights of the countries and sub-indices concerned. The weight of a country is its share of the HFMCE in the total of the country group;
3. The price change of the country group since December of the previous year is chain-linked to the index of December of the previous year in order to provide a series with a common reference period.

The euro area index is compiled as a weighted average of the Member States whose currency is euro. The country weights are derived from National Accounts data for the HFMCE expressed in euros. The index is computed as an annual chain index allowing for country weights to change each year and for adding new Member States as they join the euro area. For the EU and EEA HICP aggregates, the euro area is treated as a single entity to which data for the other countries is then added (the weights are derived from National Accounts data, converted into purchasing power standards). Note that for any mid-year EU enlargement, chain-linking was also added to the entry month to maintain the correct country coverage for both the EU and EEA aggregates.

Data are not seasonally adjusted.

Country-specific information

Links to the detailed country-specific information can be found in the methodological part in the HICP dedicated section, under Metadata and national practices.

Methodological information

2018

•  Contributions

See more information on this new dataset in the document: ‘New dataset - contributions to euro area annual inflation’ (January 2018)

2019

•  Information on most recent revisions

As fully described in point 17.2 ‘Data revision - practice’, in 2019, a methodological change for the package holidays data for Germany resulted in revisions on previously published data.

2019/2020

• Publishing statistics after the United Kingdom leaves the EU

General information and Note to users on the dissemination of European Statistics after the Brexit.

2020

• COVID-19

Information on the compilation of the HICP during the COVID-19 period is available under Methodology - Harmonised Indices of Consumer Prices (HICP) - Eurostat (#COVID-19 and HICP).

Eurostat has also set up the web page Support for statisticians - COVID-19, with notes and guidelines regarding the handling of the COVID-19 period.

2022 (December)

Methodological note on the treatment of energy prices compensation measures