MC

Română

11 September 2026 · the INS release

Inflation Is Not One Number Once Money Depends on It

On 11 September, Romania's statistics office said two true things about August. Prices were 0.22% higher than in July. They were 6.2% higher than in August 2025. Put either sentence in a contract and 1,000 lei moves.

  1. 0.22% August versus July
  2. 6.2% August versus August 2025
  3. 4.6% August versus December 2025
  4. 9.5% twelve-month average

1,000 lei

One thousand lei, four rules

Same thousand lei, same release, four official sums. Pick a frame.

Index
What to apply

Amount payable

1,061.70 lei

Working rate: 6.17% · Rate in the release headline: 6.2%

1,000.00 lei, August 2025 → August 2026, INS CPI, 6.17% → 1,061.70 lei. Published 11 September 2026.

Previous month

1,002.20 lei

0.22%

July 2026 → August 2026

published rate

Same month last year

1,061.70 lei

6.17%

August 2025 → August 2026

published rate

Versus December

1,046.00 lei

4.60%

December 2025 → August 2026

published rate

Twelve-month average

1,095.00 lei

9.50%

September 2024 – August 2025 → September 2025 – August 2026

published rate

These are official price indices. A pension, a rent or an award follows the index named in the contract, the judgment or the statute.

The contract

Change only the sentence

August stays put. Change the words and the payable sum moves.

The sum of 1,000 lei .

Illustrations

Your basket

What you actually buy

Move the sliders toward your month. The result is yours. The official basket leaves out loan interest, insurance, fines and tax.

The exact August-on-July and August-on-December group figures were not recovered. The annual group rates stay in the calculation.

What the index measures

What is in the basket

CPI tracks the prices of things resident households buy. The basket is updated from time to time. Laspeyres, if you want the method's name.

Loan interest is not in there. Neither is insurance, a fine or tax. That is why you can put CPI in a contract. You know what it measured. Your month can still look different.

What a headline leaves open

"Inflation was X%" is an unfinished sentence

The four frames above are all official. Two people can quote different figures and both be right. One is asking how prices moved since last month. The other, since the same month last year.

Once indexation repeats, the distinction adds up. On 1,000 lei in August 2026, the gap between the smallest and the largest of the four sums is 92.80 lei. That is what an unfinished sentence costs.

In practice

Where the wording costs money

Rent

A clause that says only "with inflation" leaves the frame free. On 1,000 lei, August on August pays 1,061.70 lei. The previous month, applied once, pays 1,002.20 lei.

Public fee

Many public updates start from December. On the same thousand lei you reach 1,046.00 lei, from 1 January to August.

Maintenance

Romania's Civil Code, article 531(2), indexes a fixed maintenance sum every quarter "according to the inflation rate". The statute asks for a rate. It stays silent on the series, the months and the compounding rule.

The public pension

Law 360/2023 indexes the pension point by average annual inflation plus 50% of real average-wage growth. In 2026 the point stayed frozen. "Inflation" in that statute is a different formula from August's monthly CPI.

Elsewhere

The same hole wherever money follows an index

I used Romania because one INS release prints four official frames on the same page. You find the hole anywhere a contract says "inflation" and stops.

Method

What is published and what is calculated

  1. Published fact

    The four INS frames and the three HICP frames for August 2026 come from the 11 September release, as quoted by AGERPRES.

  2. Index calculation

    HICP month pairs use Eurostat monthly levels, 2015=100. The amount payable is the starting sum times I_end / I_start.

  3. Scenario

    Your weights rearrange the groups. The official CPI stays with INS.

  4. Missing

    The Eurostat HICP series stops at December 2025. The exact August-on-July and August-on-December group figures were not recovered. Empty fields stay empty.

Sources

The 11 September INS release holds the August 2026 frames. The other sources open the long series or the law.

RELEASE INS

Consumer price index, August 2026

The four official August 2026 frames: 100.22 versus July; 4.6% versus December 2025; 6.2% versus August 2025; 9.5% twelve-month average. The totals table also prints 4.6% and 6.17%.

published 11 September 2026

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QUOTATION AGERPRES

Quotation of the INS release, 11 September 2026

The communiqué wording and the group rises: food 2.62% year on year, non-food 6.36%, services 11.28%.

11 September 2026

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QUOTATION AGERPRES

Totals table: 0.22%, 4.6%, 6.17%

The totals table from the release quoted by AGERPRES: 0.22%, 4.6%, 6.17%.

11 September 2026

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SERIES Eurostat

Monthly HICP, 2015=100, Romania

Monthly index levels from January 2015 to December 2025, and the 2025 COICOP weights.

prc_hicp_midx · prc_hicp_inw

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METHOD INS

CPI shop for indexation

INS asks for the base period, the current period and the adjustment frequency. The basket excludes loan interest, insurance premiums, fines and taxes.

TEMPO / CPI documentation

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EXAMPLE Legea 360/2023

Pension point indexation

Article 84 names average annual inflation plus 50% of real average-wage growth. In 2026 the point stayed frozen.

legal example

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