Tunisia: Inflation holds steady at 5.6% in October as food prices continue to rise

Tunisia’s inflation rate stood at 5.6% in October 2026, according to the National Institute of Statistics (INS). This was accompanied by a slight acceleration in the annual increase in food and beverage prices, from 8.4% in September to 8.5% in October 2026.

Meanwhile, price increases slowed in the “restaurants and hotels” category, from 6.5% in September to 6.2% in October 2026, and in the “recreation and culture” category, from 3.9% to 3.6% over the same period.

Consumer prices rise by 0.7% month-on-month

Tunisia’s consumer price index (CPI) increased by 0.7% in October 2026 compared with September of the same year.

This increase was mainly driven by a 6.3% rise in clothing and footwear prices and a 0.2% increase in food and beverage prices.

On a year-on-year basis, food and beverage prices rose by 8.5%, primarily due to higher prices for fresh fruit (+20%), lamb (+14.7%), poultry (+14.5%), beef (+13%), fresh vegetables (+12.9%), and fresh fish (+8.9%).

By contrast, edible oil prices declined by 4.8%.

Prices of manufactured goods increased by 4.8% year-on-year, driven by a 9.1% rise in clothing and footwear prices and a 4.8% increase in household maintenance products.

Service prices also rose by 4.1% compared with October 2025, mainly reflecting a 14.1% increase in accommodation service prices.

Core inflation eases to 4.8%

In October 2026, core inflation, which excludes food and energy prices, declined to 4.8%, compared with 4.9% in the previous month.

Prices of non-regulated goods and services increased by 6.8% year-on-year, while regulated prices rose by 1.2%.

Similarly, prices of non-regulated food products climbed by 9.6%, compared with a modest 0.3% increase for regulated food products.

Manufactured goods and services made the largest contributions to overall inflation, accounting for 1.8 and 1.4 percentage points, respectively.

When broken down by pricing regime, non-regulated non-food products and non-regulated food products recorded the largest contributions to inflation, at 2.9 and 2.5 percentage points, respectively.

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