Monthly inflation rose by 0.5% in May, KNBS data shows
The Food and Non-Alcoholic Beverages Index increased by 1.2 per cent between April 2025 and May 2025
Annual consumer price inflation as measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI) was 3.8 per cent in May this year, indicating the general price level was 3.8 per cent higher than it was in May 2024.
The price increase was primarily driven by rise in prices of items in the Food and Non-Alcoholic Beverages (6.3 per cent); Transport (2.3 per cent) and Housing, Water, Electricity, Gas and other fuels (0.8 per cent) over
the one year period.
These three divisions together account for over 57 per cent of the total weight across the 13 major expenditure categories, according to the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS).
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.
KNBS data shows that the overall index increased from 144.09 in April to 144.88 in May, resulting in a monthly inflation of 0.5 per cent.
The Food and Non-Alcoholic Beverages Index increased by 1.2 per cent between April 2025 and May 2025. Notably, prices of potatoes (Irish), oranges and fresh packeted cow milk dropped by 3.7, 1.8 and 0.6 per cent, respectively, between April 2025 and May 2025.
In the same period , prices of sugar, maize flour sifted and kale (sukuma wiki) rose by 4.3, 3.9 and 3.5 per cent, respectively.
he Housing, Water, Electricity, Gas and Other Fuels’ Index had a negligible change between April 2025 and May 2025. During the same period, price of a 50 kWh unit of electricity and a 200 kWh unit of electricity declined by 1.0 per cent and 0.9 per cent.The price of gas/LPG dropped by 0.5 per cent over the same period.
The Transport Index rose by 0.2 per cent between April 2025 and May 2025 mainly attributable to increase in prices of international flights. Prices of petrol and diesel remained the same in the review period.
“Core inflation was 2.8 per cent in May 2025. This was mainly due to increase in price of commodities in the core basket such as fortified maize flour, wheat flour among others. The core index increased from 128.48 in April 2025 to 128.97 in May 2025. Non-core inflation was 6.0 per cent during the same period,” KNBS Director General Mcdonald Obudho said.
Core inflation contributed 2.7 points while non-core contributed 1.1 points to the overall inflation in May 2025. Food and non-alcoholic beverages contributed to 1.9 points to the overall inflation.
