Ghana’s year-on-year inflation rate increased marginally to 5.5% in October 2026, up from 5.2% in September, driven largely by rising non-food prices, particularly transport, housing and services.
Government Statistician, Dr Alhassan Idrissu, announced this during the release of the October 2026 Consumer Price Index (CPI) and inflation figures.
He said although inflation had declined by 2.5 percentage points from the 8% recorded in October 2025, the latest figures showed three consecutive months of increases since August 2026.
“If you remember only one line today, let that line be that inflation in October 2026 was 5.5% year-on-year, up from 5.2% in September 2026,” he said.
On a month-on-month basis, however, prices fell by 0.1% between September and October, compared with an increase of 1.1% in September.
Dr Idrissu explained that the decline was largely influenced by food prices, which fell by 2% during the month, bringing food inflation down to 2.8% in October from 4% in September.
Non-food inflation, however, increased to 7.9% from 6.2% in September, making it the largest contributor to the national inflation rate.
According to him, non-food items accounted for 75.7% of October’s inflation, while food contributed 24.3%.
“Of every one Ghana cedi price rise in October 2026, about 76 pesewas came from non-food items, and 24 pesewas came from food,” he explained.
A breakdown of the figures showed that transport recorded the highest inflation among the 13 expenditure divisions, rising sharply to 14.1% in October from 5.7% in September.
Housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels recorded inflation of 10.5%, while food and non-alcoholic beverages recorded 2.8%.
Dr Idrissu said housing and energy, food, and transport collectively accounted for about 70% of the national inflation rate, with respective contributions of 24.4%, 24.3% and 22.5%.
The services sector also recorded a significant increase, with inflation rising to 11.5% in October from 8.3% in September, while goods inflation declined to 3.8% from 4.2%.
He noted that services prices increased by 3.4% month-on-month, compared with a 1.2% decline in goods prices.
On locally produced and imported items, inflation for locally produced goods increased to 6.9% from 6.4%, while imported items remained unchanged at 2.4%.
The regional breakdown showed significant variations in the cost of living, with Ashanti recording the highest inflation rate of 9.7%, followed by Eastern at 7.8%, Ahafo at 6.8% and Central at 6.2%.
The Northern Region recorded the lowest rate at negative 0.5%, followed by Western at negative 0.1%, indicating that average prices in the two regions were lower than their levels a year earlier.
Greater Accra recorded inflation of 4.8%, up from 3.4% in September.
Dr Idrissu further disclosed that Ashanti and Greater Accra together accounted for 60.2% of national inflation, with contributions of 35.2% and 25%, respectively.
He explained that the Consumer Price Index, which measures changes in the average prices of goods and services consumed by households, stood at 271.1 in October 2026, compared with 257.0 in October 2025.
The Ghana Statistical Service uses a basket of 307 goods and services, with prices collected from 8,337 outlets in 57 markets across all 16 regions.
Dr Idrissu stressed that inflation measures the rate at which prices change rather than the actual price levels.
“When inflation falls, prices are not falling. They are still rising, only more slowly,” he said, explaining that prices decline only when inflation becomes negative.
