India’s retail inflation, measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI) with base year 2024, rose to 4.45% year-on-year in July 2026, according to provisional data released by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation on 12 August 2026. Rural inflation was 4.84%, while urban inflation stood at 3.96%, compared with 4.38% in June 2026.
Food inflation, based on the Consumer Food Price Index (CFPI), was 5.52% in July 2026, up from 5.32% in June. Rural food inflation was 5.79% and urban food inflation was 5.05%. The July 2026 CPI General Index stood at 107.94 on a combined basis, compared with 107.00 in June, while the combined CFPI index was 109.39 against 107.15.
July 2026 CPI Inflation: Key Categories and Items
At the division level, personal care, social protection and miscellaneous goods and services recorded the highest inflation at 14.77%, followed by restaurants and accommodation services at 7.72%, food and beverages at 5.24%, paan, tobacco and intoxicants at 4.79%, and transport at 4.43%. Information and communication had the lowest inflation at 0.63%, followed by health at 1.34%. Housing inflation was 2.22% in July, with rural and urban rates at 2.80% and 2.01%, respectively.
Among key items with low inflation, potato recorded -16.56%, motor car and jeep -6.72%, lady’s finger -5.52%, peas -5.27% and tomato -4.59%. The highest inflation was recorded in silver jewellery at 109.84%, followed by ginger at 83.62%, garlic at 35.36%, gold/diamond/platinum jewellery at 32.98%, and onion at 22.54%.
At the state level, among states with more than 50 lakhs population as per Census 2011, Telangana had the highest CPI inflation at 6.32%, followed by Andhra Pradesh at 5.72%, Tamil Nadu at 5.44%, Madhya Pradesh at 4.91% and Karnataka at 4.89%. Their corresponding CFPI inflation rates were 7.87%, 9.13%, 7.49%, 4.54% and 7.26%, respectively.
The National Statistics Office collected real-time price data from 1407 selected urban markets, including online markets, and 1465 villages covering all States/UTs. The response rate was 100% in both rural and urban markets during July 2026. CPI for August 2026 will be released on 14 September 2026, Monday.
