The annual consumer price inflation as measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI) was 3.6 per cent in March 2025. This is an indication that the general price level in March 2025 was 3.6 per cent higher than it was in March 2024.
The price increase was primarily driven by rise in prices of items in the Food and Non-Alcoholic Beverages category (6.6%); and Transport category (1.5%) over the one year period.
There was a decline in prices for items in the Housing, Water, Electricity, Gas and other fuels category by 0.8 per cent over the period. These three divisions together account for over 57 per cent of the total weight across the 13 major expenditure categories.
How CPI and inflation rate is measured
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, with data 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.
The overall index increased from 143.12 in February 2025 to 143.69 in March 2025, resulting in a monthly inflation of 0.4 percent.
The Food and Non-Alcoholic Beverages Index increased by 0.7 per cent between February 2025 and March 2025.
Notably, prices of kales-sukuma wiki, potatoes (Irish) and maize grain (loose) rose by 6.2, 4.5 and 3.3 per cent, respectively, between February 2025 and March 2025.
During the same period, prices of sugar and beans dropped by 0.7 per cent and 0.2 per cent, respectively,
The Housing, Water, Electricity, Gas and Other Fuels’ Index rose by 0.2 per cent between February 2025 and March 2025. The increase is attributable to a rise in the price of gas/LPG by 0.2 per cent between February 2025 and March 2025.
Further, prices of 50kWh electricity and 200 kWh electricity went up by 1.0 per cent and 0.9 percent, respectively, over the same period.
Why Kenyan transport index rose in March 2025
The Transport Index rose by 1.5 per cent between February 2025 and March 2025 mainly due to increase in prices local for flights by 3.9 per cent. Prices of petrol and diesel remained the same between February 2025 and March 2025.
The Restaurant and Accommodation Services’ index increased by 0.4 per cent between February 2025 and March 2025, on account of a rise in prices of hotel and restaurant prepared foods.
Meanwhile, the rate of core inflation was 2.2 per cent in March 2025. The core index increased from 128.01 in February 2025 to 128.35 in March 2025. Non-core inflation was 7.4 per cent during the same period.
The concept of core inflation is to remove most or all the products whose prices are volatile or transient from the overall index.
By removing such products from the index, the remaining less volatile index, better demonstrates the fundamental changes in the rate of inflation.
Core inflation contributed 2.3 points while non-core contributed 1.3 points to the overall inflation in March 2025.
Food and non-alcoholic beverages contributed to 1.9 points to the non-core inflation rate.
