Euro area annual inflation was 0.4% in September 2016, up from 0.2% in August. In September 2015 the rate was -0.1%. European Union annual inflation was also 0.4% in September 2016, up from 0.3% in August. A year earlier the rate was -0.1%. These figures come from Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union. In September 2016, negative annual rates were observed in ten Member States.

The lowest annual rates were registered in Bulgaria (-1.1%), Croatia (-0.7%) and Slovakia (-0.5%). The highest annual rates were recorded in Belgium (1.8%), Estonia (1.7%) and Austria (1.1%). Compared with August 2016, annual inflation fell in nine Member States, remained stable in two and rose in sixteen.

The largest upward impacts to euro area annual inflation came from restaurants & cafés (+0.08 percentage points), rents and tobacco (both +0.05 pp), while fuels for transport (-0.12 pp), gas (-0.11 pp) and heating oil (-0.10 pp) had the biggest downward impacts.