South Africa's inflation rate was 10% or more for 173 months in a row, from 1978 to 1992, and came down through the 1990s and 2000s

Stats SA's CPI History gives an official inflation rate for urban South Africa for every month since January 1922: 1 257 months up to September 2026. Prices fell in most months of the 1920s and 1930s. Inflation was 10% or more in every month from July 1978 to November 1992, 173 months in a row, and peaked at 20,7% in January 1986. It came down through the 1990s and 2000s, has not gone above 8,6% since January 2009, and was 4,5% in September 2026.

The inflation rate here is Stats SA's headline consumer price index (CPI) rate: how much more a basket of goods and services bought by urban households cost than in the same month a year earlier. Stats SA reweights the basket every few years. The rates are the official ones in Stats SA's CPI History, Table B2; its note 3 says they are the rates as published in the monthly CPI release. Table B2 gives only annual rates for 1911 to 1921, so the monthly series here starts in January 1922. Up to December 2008 the index covered the main cities and towns ("primary urban areas"); from January 2009 it covers all urban areas, and Stats SA made what it calls substantial changes to how the index is compiled in the same month (CPI History, notes 1 and 2). Stats SA has linked the two into one series, but the rates of the 1980s and those of the 2020s were not measured in the same way, so they are not fully comparable, and small differences between distant years carry less weight than large ones.

Prices fell in most months of the 1920s and 1930s, and inflation peaked at 20,7% a year in January 1986

The line shows the inflation rate in every month since January 1922. Below the zero line, prices were lower than a year earlier.

Source: Stats SA, CPI History, Table B2, headline year-on-year rates, published with P0141 Consumer Price Index September 2026 (released 21 October 2026).

The dashed line marks 10%.

The monthly series starts with prices falling: in January 1922 they were 23,7% lower than a year earlier. Prices fell again in every month from October 1929 to September 1933, the years of the Great Depression, and in many months of the later 1930s. The last month with falling prices was August 1954, at −0,3%. Of the 131 months with falling prices in the whole series, 130 were between 1922 and 1939.

From the early 1970s the rate climbed. It reached 10% in April 1973, for the first time in the monthly series since 1952, and from July 1978 it stayed at 10% or more for 173 months in a row, until November 1992.

Inflation averaged 14,6% in the 1980s and 4,6% so far in the 2020s

Averaging the monthly rates over each decade smooths out single years and shows the long swings.

Source: Stats SA, CPI History, Table B2, published with P0141 Consumer Price Index September 2026 (released 21 October 2026).

Averages calculated by MzansiData.

The 1940s, 1950s and 1960s averaged between 2,4% and 4,4%. The average went from 2,4% in the 1960s to 9,9% in the 1970s, and rose again in the 1980s. It came down in each decade after that: 9,9% in the 1990s, 6,1% in the 2000s and 5,2% in the 2010s. Over the whole series, from January 1922 to September 2026, the monthly rates average 5,4%. These are simple averages of the published rates, not compound growth, so they describe the typical rate in a decade rather than the total rise in prices.

Every month of the 1980s had inflation of 10% or more; none has since November 2008

The chart sorts every month into one of four bands, by decade.

Source: Stats SA, CPI History, Table B2, published with P0141 Consumer Price Index September 2026 (released 21 October 2026).

Bands calculated by MzansiData.

In the 1920s and 1930s, 130 of 216 months had falling prices. From 1940 to 1969 only one month did, and most months were below 5%. In the monthly series, rates of 10% or more first appeared in 1952. They covered 67 of the 120 months of the 1970s and all 120 months of the 1980s. In the 1990s the rate came down through the 10% line, and in the 2000s only 17 months were at 10% or more, from August 2002 to March 2003 and from March to November 2008. The last was November 2008, at 11,8%. Of the 1 257 months in the series, 250 had a rate of 10% or more.

What cost R100 in September 1996 cost about R496 in September 2026

The index measures the price level rather than its yearly change; Stats SA's published index table, Table B1, starts in January 1980. The line shows what an amount of R100 in a given month would have become by September 2026 if it had moved with the CPI. The points mark 30 and 10 years before the latest month.

Source: Stats SA, CPI History, Table B1, headline index (used for January 1980 to December 2008), and the P0141 CPI time series (used from January 2009), both December 2024 = 100, published with P0141 Consumer Price Index September 2026 (released 21 October 2026).

Calculations by MzansiData.

The index was 21,8 in September 1996 and 108,1 in September 2026. What cost R100 in September 2016 cost about R158 in September 2026. Stats SA publishes the index to one decimal place, and the index was below 10 until April 1989, so the early part of the line is rounded more than the later part. The chart uses a log scale, so each doubling of prices takes the same height.

These are average prices for urban households. Single items moved differently, and households that spend more of their income on food or transport face different rates. The index does not measure incomes.

Since 2009 the rate has stayed between 2,1% and 8,6%

Since the method changed in January 2009 the rate has stayed in a narrower range than in any decade from the 1970s to the 2000s.

Source: Stats SA, CPI History, Table B2, published with P0141 Consumer Price Index September 2026 (released 21 October 2026).

The highest rate since the method changed was 8,6% in February 2009. The lowest was 2,1% in May 2020, during the Covid-19 lockdown. The rate rose to 7,8% in July 2022, its highest since May 2009. In September 2026 it was 4,5%, up from 4,4% in August and below the 2010s average of 5,2%.

Stats SA publishes the October 2026 figure on 18 November 2026. The latest rate, the provinces and the 13 spending groups are on the economy topic page, and every monthly rate since 1922 is in the inflation data package.

Source of the basic data: Statistics South Africa (Stats SA). The tables, calculations and charts are MzansiData's own processing of the data.