The Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) has revealed that prices of basic commodities rose higher in December 2025 than in December 2024, impacting the annual inflation rate.

According to the Kenya Consumer Price Index and Inflation Report released by KNBS on Wednesday, December 31, 2025, the annual consumer price inflation was 4.5 per cent in December 2025.

Prices level

Based on the report, this implies that the general price level was 4.5 per cent higher in December 2025 than it was in December 2024. The price increase was primarily driven by a rise in prices of items in the food and non-alcoholic beverages (7.8 per cent); transport (5.2 per cent), and housing, water, electricity, gas, and other fuels (1.6 per cent) over the one year.

”These three divisions together account for over 57 per cent of the total weight across the 13 major expenditure categories,” part of the report said.

Key definitions

The Consumer Price Index (CPI) is defined as a measure of the weighted aggregate change over time in the retail prices paid by consumers for a given basket of goods and services.

The CPI measures the cost of purchasing this fixed basket of goods and services, comparing current prices to those of a base period, which for the current CPI is February 2019.

On the other hand, the inflation rate is defined as the percentage change of the CPI between two periods. Different inflation rates can be computed, such as annual (year-on-year), quarterly (quarter-to-quarter) and monthly (month-on-month) inflation rates.

Data used to derive the inflation rates is collected through a monthly survey of retail prices from a statistically representative sample of outlets in urban areas across 50 data collection zones nationwide. The survey is conducted during the second and third weeks of the month.

The Overall CPI and Inflation Trends, December 2024 – December 2025 increased from 147.08 in November 2025 to 148.02 in December 2025, resulting in a monthly inflation rate of 0.6 per cent. The year-on-year inflation stood at 4.5 per cent in December 2025.