A year earlier, the rate was -0.3%. EU annual inflation was 3.6% in September 2021, up from 3.2% in August. A year earlier, the rate was 0.3%. These figures are published by Eurostat, the EU statistical office. The lowest annual rates were registered in Malta (0.7%), Portugal (1.3%) and Greece (1.9%). The highest annual rates were recorded in Estonia, Lithuania (both 6.4%) and Poland (5.6%). Compared with August, annual inflation fell in one Member State, remained stable in one and rose in twenty-five. In September, the highest contribution to the annual euro area inflation rate came from energy (+1.63 percentage points, pp), followed by services (+0.72 pp), non-energy industrial goods (+0.57 pp) and food, alcohol & tobacco (+0.44 pp).