The price level is 37.6% above 2010. One year of that is 1.8%.
Malaysia's consumer price index closed September at 137.6, against 135.2 a year earlier and 100 for the 2010 base year. Sixteen years of climbing is 37.6 index points. The year since September 2025 is 2.4 of them, which is 6.4% of the whole climb.
That gap between the level and the rate is the part the headline hides. A rate of 1.8% sounds like the end of a rise. The level says prices are 37.6% higher than they were when the base year was set, and that is the number a household actually lives with.
It also says how little one month can change. From October 2023 to September 2026 the headline rate never left a band between 1.1% and 2.0%.
The index base is the 2010 year, set to 100. January 2010 itself prints 99.4.
| September 2026 | 137.6 |
|---|---|
| September 2025 | 135.2 |
| Base year 2010 | 100 |
| Rise since 2010 | 37.6 points, 37.6% |
| Rise in one year | 2.4 points, 1.8% |
| One year as a share of the climb | 6.4% |
The thirteen divisions do not agree. Transport is heating while housing cools.
Transport prices rose 2.5% in the year to September, up from 2.0% in August. Housing, utilities, gas and other fuels fell to 1.4%, from 2.1%. Information and communication dropped to 1.8%, from 2.6%.
The national rate sits at 1.8%. Above it: personal care and miscellaneous goods at 2.8%, alcoholic beverages and tobacco at 2.8%, transport at 2.5%, restaurants and accommodation at 2.2%, education at 2.1%. Below it: housing at 1.4%, health at 1.4%, insurance and financial services at 1.2%, recreation at 1.2%, furnishings at 0.3% and clothing at 0.2%.
The three biggest moves in a single month were information and communication, down 0.8 points, housing down 0.7, and transport up 0.5. One month moved the composition more than it moved the headline.
A division's rate is not its contribution to the national rate. These datasets do not publish the basket weights, so this page never says how much of the 1.8% came from any one of them.
| Personal Care, Social Protection & Misc. | 2.8% | was 3.2% |
|---|---|---|
| Alcoholic Beverages & Tobacco | 2.8% | was 2.8% |
| Transport | 2.5% | was 2.0% |
| Restaurant & Accommodation Services | 2.2% | was 2.1% |
| Education | 2.1% | was 1.9% |
| Food & Beverages | 1.8% | was 1.9% |
| Information & Communication | 1.8% | was 2.6% |
| Housing, Utilities, Gas & Other Fuels | 1.4% | was 2.1% |
| Health | 1.4% | was 1.3% |
| Insurance & Financial Services | 1.2% | was 1.0% |
| Recreation, Sport & Culture | 1.2% | was 1.1% |
| Household Furnishings, Equipment & Maintenance | 0.3% | was 0.4% |
| Clothing & Footwear | 0.2% | was 0.1% |
| Overall | 1.8% | was 1.9% |
The headline has not moved in three years, because two shocks have been cancelling.
Since October 2023 the national rate has stayed inside a band of nine tenths of a point. It was 1.8% in October 2023 and it is 1.8% in September 2026. In between it touched 1.1% in June 2025 and 2.0% in May 2026.
Underneath, core inflation has been sliding. Core is the same basket with two kinds of price removed: the ones with volatile prices, and the ones the government administers. It was 2.3% in December 2025 and 1.7% in September 2026, a fall of six tenths of a point in nine months, while the headline went from 1.6% to 1.8%.
Both of the excluded kinds moved hard this year. Fuel is volatile and it rose; electricity and water tariffs are administered, and housing fell. Core strips out both, so it glides down to 1.7% while the headline stands still. The 1.8% is the net of two shocks pointing in opposite directions.
The rate is a national average of a fixed basket. The CPI measures the cost of that basket, so the rate a specific household feels can be higher or lower.
| October 2023 | 1.8% | core 2.4% |
|---|---|---|
| June 2025 | 1.1% | |
| December 2025 | 1.6% | core 2.3% |
| May 2026 | 2.0% | |
| September 2026 | 1.8% | core 1.7% |
| Range, 36 months | 1.1% to 2.0% |
The fuel shock is a subsidy wedge, and the wedge is still open.
The market price of RON95 averaged RM4.18 a litre in September 2026, up from RM2.62 in December 2025. That is a rise of 59.7% in nine months. Over the same period the subsidised price did not move at all: RM2.05, with RM1.99 for BUDI 95 vehicles.
The gap between them is RM2.13 a litre. That is the difference between what the fuel costs and what the subsidised price is, and it is the part of the fuel shock that never reached the pump price most people pay.
Diesel tells the same story with a wider spread. At the market it was RM5.07 on 22 October 2026. The BUDI price was RM2.10, the SKDS price RM2.15, and in East Malaysia diesel was RM2.15.
The market price of RON95 only exists from 30 September 2025; before that RON95 was fixed at RM2.05. Every "how much it has risen" figure here starts from December 2025. These are prices, not volumes, so the data cannot say how much fuel is bought at the market price.
| Market price, monthly average | RM4.18 |
|---|---|
| Market price, December 2025 average | RM2.62 |
| Subsidised price | RM2.05 |
| BUDI 95 price | RM1.99 |
| Gap | RM2.13 |
| Rise in nine months | 59.7% |
The national number hides a spread of nearly five to one.
In September, inflation ran at 0.5% in Sarawak and 2.4% in Negeri Sembilan and in Labuan. Eight states were above the national 1.8%, eight were below it, and Kuala Lumpur sat exactly on it.
The full range, in order: Sarawak 0.5%, Perlis 0.6%, Kelantan 0.7%, Perak 1.1%, Terengganu 1.2%, Melaka 1.5%, Pulau Pinang 1.5%, Kuala Lumpur 1.8%, Sabah 1.9%, Selangor 1.9%, Pahang 2.1%, Johor 2.2%, Kedah 2.2%, Putrajaya 2.2%, Negeri Sembilan 2.4%, Labuan 2.4%.
It is the same national basket, priced in seventeen places. What the spread measures is how differently that basket costs from one state to the next.
A state rate is not a household rate. It is the national basket priced locally, so it moves with the prices that differ across a state, not with the mix of what people buy.
| Sarawak | 0.5% |
|---|---|
| Perlis | 0.6% |
| Kelantan | 0.7% |
| Perak | 1.1% |
| Terengganu | 1.2% |
| Melaka | 1.5% |
| Pulau Pinang | 1.5% |
| W.P. Kuala Lumpur | 1.8% |
| Sabah | 1.9% |
| Selangor | 1.9% |
| Pahang | 2.1% |
| Johor | 2.2% |
| Kedah | 2.2% |
| W.P. Putrajaya | 2.2% |
| Negeri Sembilan | 2.4% |
| W.P. Labuan | 2.4% |
| Overall | 1.8% |
The same fuel shock does not land evenly. Cities carried twice the transport inflation.
Urban transport prices rose 2.75% in the year to September. Rural transport prices rose 1.35%. The same fuel price, two very different transport lines.
Yet the overall rates are only 0.22 points apart: urban 1.76%, rural 1.54%. A 1.40 point gap inside transport and a 0.22 point gap overall means transport carries a smaller weight in the rural basket than in the urban one. That is as far as the published data goes.
Food tells a smaller version of the same story, 1.85% in the cities against 1.59% in the countryside. And the low-income basket as a whole rose 1.48%, below the national 1.78%.
The urban, rural and low-income series publish an index and not a rate, so every rate in this paragraph is computed from the published index rows for September 2026 and September 2025. That includes the national 1.78% it is compared against, which is the index-derived twin of the published 1.8% headline. Every other number on this page is published as it stands.
| Transport, urban | 2.75% |
|---|---|
| Transport, rural | 1.35% |
| All prices, urban | 1.76% |
| All prices, rural | 1.54% |
| Food, urban | 1.85% |
| Food, rural | 1.59% |
| All prices, low-income households | 1.48% |