Inflation Calculator UK, US and Euro: Official CPI Data

Inflation is a general rise in prices over time and a fall in the purchasing power of money. When inflation runs at 3% per year, a $100 purchase today costs $103 in a year's time. Over 30 years at that rate, prices grow by a factor of about 2.43, so the same purchase costs almost two and a half times as much. The US has averaged about 3.2% annual inflation since 1913. In this calculator's own worked example, $1,000 in 1980 prices was worth $3,140.61 by 2020, meaning the same basket of goods cost more than three times as much after 40 years. That long-run average hides real swings from year to year: annual US inflation reached 13.5% in 1980 and climbed to 8.0% in 2022, the highest annual figure since 1981. This is why economists compare a long-run average against a single year's reading before drawing conclusions about the overall trend.

Deflation is the opposite of inflation: a general fall in prices where a fixed amount of money buys more over time. The US experienced mild deflation during the Great Depression of the 1930s, with prices falling roughly 25% between 1929 and 1933. Sustained deflation can be economically damaging because it encourages people to delay spending in anticipation of even lower prices. More recently, Japan lived through persistent mild deflation for much of the 1990s and 2000s, with consumer prices falling or standing flat in several individual years. Deflation is rare in modern economies partly because most central banks now target low positive inflation of around 2% per year specifically to keep enough distance from a deflationary spiral. A prolonged deflationary spiral, like the one Japan struggled to escape for two decades, is far harder for policymakers to reverse than ordinary inflation.

The CPI tracks how the cost of a representative basket of consumer goods and services changes over time. The basket covers categories like food, housing, transport, healthcare, and clothing, weighted by how much households typically spend on each. A CPI value of 200 compared to a base of 100 means average prices have doubled since the base period. Housing alone typically makes up close to a third of the weight in the US CPI basket, so shelter costs have an outsized effect on the headline number. Analysts also track a narrower measure called core CPI, which strips out food and energy prices because those categories are historically the most volatile from month to month. Because the basket weights are updated only periodically, they can lag behind fast-changing spending habits, such as the recent rise of streaming subscriptions and remote-work costs.

All calculations use official annual price-index data. The English page starts on the US CPI for all urban consumers from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS, from 1913); you can also choose the UK Consumer Prices Index from the Office for National Statistics (ONS, from 1988). For the euro area and for Germany, France, the Netherlands and Belgium it uses the Harmonised Index of Consumer Prices (HICP) published by Eurostat from 1996. All are headline all-items indices, the same series that central banks and finance ministries cite in official inflation reports, rather than experimental or narrower sub-indices. One detail matters for recent dates: for the US and UK series the latest year, currently 2026, is the average of the months published so far, so it can still shift as new months arrive. The euro-area series stop at the last full calendar year, 2025. If you need monthly rather than annual detail, the official BLS, ONS and Eurostat websites publish the same series at higher frequency.

Using the US CPI from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, $100,000 in 1980 prices equals $390,669.60 in 2025 prices. The index stood at 82.408 in 1980 and 321.943 in 2025, so prices rose by a factor of about 3.91, a total increase of 290.67%. That is an average of 3.07% a year over 45 years. The first doubling took 19 years: by 1999 the same basket already cost $202,134.50. Put the other way, a household that needed $100,000 a year in 1980 would need almost $391,000 in 2025 to buy the same basket. The result says nothing about what $100,000 would have grown to if it had been invested; it only measures what it takes to keep the same purchasing power. UK data starts in 1988 and euro data in 1996, so for 1980 the US series is the only option here.

If you select a comparison year in which the index is lower than in the start year, the CPI ratio is below 1 and the adjusted value falls. This happens in two situations. The first is a year of real deflation. On the US CPI the annual index slipped 0.36% in 2009, so $1,000 in 2008 prices equals $996.44 in 2009 prices. The second, far more common situation is a backward calculation, where you start from a recent, high-price year and look back in time. $1,000 in 2025 prices corresponds to $534.88 in 2000 prices, which says that the same basket cost about 46.5% less in 2000. The average annual rate in the summary is then negative as well, at -2.47%, because it describes the path from the start year to the comparison year. A falling figure in a backward calculation does not mean money gained value; it is the same price change read in the opposite direction, and swapping the two years gives the forward result.

Dates are mapped to calendar years. In the Past inflation tab the exact month or day you enter only decides the year, and the annual index value for that year is applied. January 1 and December 31 of the same year therefore give identical results: $100 in 2000 prices is $186.96 in 2025 prices either way. Each series has its own range, shown in the tooltip next to the date fields: US CPI from 1913, UK CPI from 1988 and the euro HICP series from 1996. A year outside that range is moved to the nearest available year instead of being filled with a guessed value. When you switch to another series, the selected dates are pulled into the new range in the same way, so a 1950 start date becomes 1988 on UK CPI. The Future inflation tab has no date fields at all: it starts in the current calendar year and counts forward the number of years you enter, from 1 to 100.

It is the geometric average annual rate that links the starting value to the final value over the number of years in the period. For example, on the UK CPI an amount of 1,000 in 1988 prices becomes 2,789.21 in 2025 prices, which over 37 years gives an average annual rate of about 2.81%. This geometric average is more accurate than a simple arithmetic average because it accounts for compounding. Over a shorter 10-year span at a steady 3% annual rate, the same method produces a cumulative increase of about 34%, showing how one annual rate compounds to very different totals depending on the horizon. A plain arithmetic mean of the yearly rates would slightly overstate long-run growth because it ignores this compounding effect. Even small differences in this rate compound significantly: sustained over 40 years, 2% a year more than doubles the price level (a factor of 2.21), while 4% a year raises it nearly fivefold (a factor of 4.80).

Other tools may use a different index, such as a housing sub-index, core CPI (excluding food and energy), or the CPI-W for wage earners instead of the all-items CPI for all urban consumers. Many also work with monthly data, so a calculation from January 2000 to January 2025 can differ from the annual averages used here. This calculator divides two annual average index levels, so on the US CPI $100 in 2015 prices becomes $135.83 in 2025 prices, an increase of 35.83%. A tool that uses the single month you pick will land somewhat above or below that, because individual months move around the yearly average. The choice of country matters even more: over the same 2015 to 2025 span, an amount of 1,000 grows to 1,383.56 on UK CPI but only to 1,287.50 on euro-area HICP. Picking the wrong series moves the result far more than any method detail, so small differences are normal, while large ones point to a different series.

No. The calculator only adjusts a fixed amount for price changes. It does not model salary growth, savings interest, stock returns, or any other source of income. The Future inflation tab works the same way: the amount itself does not grow, the tab only shows what the same purchases will cost and what the amount still buys at your assumed rate. That gap is exactly what a return has to close. For example, $1,000 earning 4% a year for 10 years grows to $1,480.24, but with 3% inflation that is worth only $1,101.44 in today's money, a real return of about 0.97% a year. To run that kind of comparison with your own figures, use the Real Rate of Return Calculator. To test whether a savings plan keeps up with prices, use the Savings Calculator, and to see whether a pay rise beats inflation, use the Salary Increase Calculator. Each of them adds the growth side that this tool deliberately leaves out.

In the Past inflation tab, no. It never extrapolates beyond the latest year of the selected series, because there is no official index to back the result: US and UK CPI currently run to 2026 (a partial year) and the euro HICP series to 2025. A later date is moved back to that last year. To look ahead, switch to the Future inflation tab. There you enter an amount, an assumed yearly inflation rate and a number of years between 1 and 100, and the calculator applies that one rate every year from the current calendar year. With the default 2% over 10 years, $100 of today's purchases costs $121.90, and $100 then buys what $82.03 buys today. The outcome is only as good as the rate you choose. It is a what-if scenario rather than a prediction, so it helps to run a low and a high rate side by side and treat the gap between them as the realistic range for planning.

That depends on the inflation rate you assume, which is why the Future inflation tab asks for one. At 2.5% a year, prices rise by a factor of 1.6386 over 20 years, so $1 then buys what about $0.61 buys today. At 3% a year the factor is 1.8061 and $1 keeps only about $0.55 of today's purchasing power. Even the 2% that central banks such as the Fed aim for leaves $0.67 after two decades, with prices up 48.59%. Read the other way, something that costs $1 today would cost about $1.64 at 2.5% and $1.81 at 3%. The difference between those two rates looks small per year, yet it changes the 20-year price level by about 17 cents per dollar. Enter your own amount, for example $1,000 or a yearly budget, and the summary shows both the future cost of the same purchases and the purchasing power in today's money, with the year-by-year path in the table and chart.

The table lists each calendar year in the selected range, the annual inflation rate for that year, the change on your amount caused by that year's price movement, and the cumulative adjusted value. Take $1,000 from 2020 to 2025 on the US CPI: 2021 adds $46.98 (4.70%), 2022 adds $83.79 (8.00%), 2023 adds $46.55 (4.12%), 2024 adds $34.72 (2.95%) and 2025 adds $31.89 (2.63%), ending at $1,243.93. One high-inflation year can account for a third of the total change over a short period, as 2022 does here. Years with near-zero or negative inflation show a small or negative change. In a backward calculation the table runs from the later year down to the earlier one. In the Future inflation tab the rate is the same in every row, so the yearly change grows only because it compounds on a rising value, starting from the current calendar year. The chart plots the same values and rates, so the table is the place to read the exact numbers.

The arithmetic is exact, but the index it runs on is an approximation of what prices did. Over short spans of 5 to 10 years the result is accurate enough for most purposes, such as checking a rent, a budget or a salary against prices. Over very long spans the method changes behind the index matter more. On the US CPI, $100 in 1960 prices is $1,088.56 in 2025 prices, an average of 3.74% a year, yet the 1960 basket contained no smartphones or streaming services and households spent a much larger share on food. A result like that is best read as an order of magnitude rather than a precise figure. Two further sources of imprecision are built in: annual averages smooth out price movements within a year, and the latest US and UK year is provisional until all its months are published. In the Future inflation tab, exact math says nothing about the outcome, because the rate is your own assumption.

No. This inflation calculator is for educational and illustrative purposes only and does not constitute financial, tax, legal, or investment advice. It is meant to make price changes visible: to see what an old amount means in today's prices, to compare price levels between two years, or to explore what a chosen inflation rate would do to a budget. The historical figures come from official statistics published by the BLS, the ONS and Eurostat, but the calculator does not know your personal spending, and your own inflation can differ from the headline index. The future figures rest entirely on the rate you enter. Contracts that are indexed to inflation, such as some rents, pensions or wage agreements, often use a specific index, reference month or formula, so check the exact clause rather than relying on this tool. Always consult qualified professionals before making financial decisions based on inflation figures.