Romania reported the highest annual inflation rate in the European Union in December 2025

Romania reported an annual inflation rate of 8.6% in December 2025, by far the largest in the European Union, new data from Eurostat has revealed.

Other countries to report a notable annual inflation rate for the month included Slovakia (4.1%), Estonia (4.0%), Croatia (3.8%) and Austria (3.8%).

At the other end of the scale, the lowest annual inflation rates in the EU were recorded in Cyprus (0.1%), France (0.7%) and Italy (1.2%).

Inflation rate in the EU

At EU level, the annual inflation rate stood at 2.3% in December, down from 2.4% the previous month and from 2.7% for the same month a year ago.

Compared to November 2025, the annual inflation rate was lower in 18 EU member states, remained stable in three and increased in six.

The euro area inflation rate stood at 1.9% in December, with the largest contributions to the euro area inflation rate coming from services (+1.54 percentage points), food, alcohol & tobacco (+0.49 percentage points), and non-energy industrial goods (+0.09 percentage points). Energy prices were 0.18 percentage points lower, meanwhile.

On a month-on-month basis, i.e. December 2025 compared to November 2025, the inflation rate rose 0.1% at an EU level.

Ireland (+0.6%) and Austria (+0.5%) reported the biggest month-on-month increase in inflation, Eurostat‘s data showed. Read more here.

Month-on-Month Inflation by EU Member State, December 2025 (%)