The year-on-year headline inflation measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI) was 3.3 per cent in January 2025. This indicates that the general price level in January 2025 was 3.3 per cent higher than in January 2024.
The price increase was primarily driven by rising prices in the Food and Non-Alcoholic Beverages category (6.1%); and Transport category (0.7%) over the same period.
In contrast, prices in Housing, Water, Electricity, Gas and other fuels declined by 1.6 per cent. These three divisions account for over 57 per cent of the total weight across the 13 major expenditure categories.
The CPI measures the cost of purchasing a fixed basket of goods and services, comparing current prices to those of a base period (February 2019). The inflation rate is derived from data collected through a monthly survey of retail prices that targets a representative basket of household goods and services.
Data is gathered during the second and third weeks of the month from a statistically representative sample of outlets in urban areas across 50 data collection zones nationwide.
What was Kenya’s inflation rate in January 2025?
The overall index increased from 141.66 in December 2024 to 142.68 in January 2025, resulting in an inflation of 0.7 per cent over that period.
The Food and Non-Alcoholic Beverages Index increased by 1.6 per cent between December 2024 and January 2025.
Notably, prices of tomatoes, onions (leeks and bulbs) and cabbages rose by 17.9, 6.8 and 5.0 per cent, respectively, between December 2024 and January 2025.
During the same period, prices of mangoes and cooking oil (Salad) dropped by 3.9 per cent and 0.4 per cent, respectively, as presented in Table 3, which provides national average prices of selected items.
The Housing, Water, Electricity, Gas and Other Fuels’ Index increased by 0.1 per cent between December 2024 and January 2025. The increase was attributable to a rise in the price of kerosene/paraffin by 2.0 per cent during the period.
Prices of both electricity (50 kWh) and gas/LPG, however, declined by 0.7 per cent between December 2024 and January 2025.
The Transport Index declined by 0.4 per cent between December 2024 and January 2025, mainly due to a decrease in prices by up to 25.0 per cent for country bus/matatu in some routes. This was in spite of an increase in prices of diesel and petrol by 1.2 per cent and 0.2 per cent, respectively, between December 2024 and January 2025.
However, the Education index increased by 1.6 per cent mainly as a result of a rise in prices of private tuition- primary by 2.8 per cent.
In January 2025, the rate of core inflation was 2.0 per cent. The core index increased from 127.50 in December 2024 to 127.77 in January 2025.
On the other hand, non-core inflation stood at 7.1 per cent during the same period.
Core inflation is derived by excluding items whose prices are highly volatile from the basket.
Core inflation contributed 2.0 points to the overall inflation while non-core contributed 1.3 points to the same in January 2025 while food and non-alcoholic beverages contributed 1.6 points to the non-core inflation rate.
