Australia’s first complete Monthly CPI out tomorrow
The first complete Monthly Consumer Price Index (CPI) publication, for the October 2025 reference month, will be released tomorrow by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).
Dr David Gruen AO, Australian Statistician, said: ‘This is a major milestone for Australia and important enhancement to key economic data as we mark the transition from the quarterly CPI to the complete Monthly CPI as Australia’s primary measure of headline inflation.
‘The complete Monthly CPI will enable earlier detection of shifts in inflation and provide better information for policy decisions that affect all Australians.’
The ABS worked closely with key stakeholders across Government, the private sector and academia to ensure the complete Monthly CPI is of high quality and meets Australia’s economic data needs.
‘I would like to thank everyone, including Australian businesses that have provided data more frequently, who have supported the introduction of this new complete Monthly CPI product.’
The complete Monthly CPI release will include monthly seasonally adjusted and Trimmed mean indexes alongside comprehensive breakdowns of inflation data including for capital cities.
The ABS will continue to publish a quarterly CPI series for those who need this data. The quarterly CPI will be an average of the three relevant Monthly CPIs and be included in every third Monthly CPI publication. The December 2025 Monthly CPI, to be released on 28 January 2026, will include quarterly indexes for the December quarter.
The Government’s investment in the ABS enabled us to take the next key steps of a 10-year plan to modernise our statistical systems and data collection activities, strengthen our data security and deliver more timely and reliable economic insights.
‘The incorporation of high-quality data sources, such as supermarket scanner data and the new childcare dataset, alongside innovations in how data is collected and analysed, ensures that we are continuing to deliver trusted information that underpins important decisions affecting all Australians,’ Dr Gruen said.
‘The complete Monthly CPI supports better understanding of economic conditions and brings Australia in line with all other G20 countries who produce their inflation data on a monthly basis. This allows for improved international comparability.’
Monthly data will be more variable than quarterly data. It will take some time to fully understand the new data and trends. Last week the ABS released an information paper to support users in understanding the transition from the quarterly CPI to the complete Monthly CPI, including Monthly CPI data for April 2024 to June 2025. A link to that paper can be found here: Introducing the Consumer Price Indexes' new monthly time series. To further support users, tomorrow, we will publish a paper that extends this analysis to October 2025, and also to cover the new monthly Trimmed mean index and how it compares with the quarterly Trimmed mean series.
Further information on the complete Monthly CPI is available on the ABS website.
Media Notes
- The complete Monthly CPI publication will continue to be titled Consumer Price Index, Australia.
- The monthly Consumer Price Index Indicator, ceased with the release on Wednesday, 29 October 2025.
- Updated FAQs on the Monthly CPI are available here on our website.
- For media enquiries, contact the ABS Media Team via media@abs.gov.au (9am-5pm Mon-Fri).
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