The Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose to 3.6% in the Balearics in March on a year-on-year basis, 1.4 percentage points above the year-on-year rate of the previous month, according to final data published on Tuesday by the National Statistics Institute (INE). On a monthly basis, inflation in the Balearics rose by 1.4%, whilst prices have risen by 1.3% so far this year.
The areas where prices rose most in the Balearics compared with the same month last year were restaurants and accommodation services, up 7% on March 2025; clothing and footwear, up 4.8%; alcoholic beverages and tobacco, up 4.7%; and transport, insurance and financial services, up 4%.
Nationally, the Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose by 1.1 percentage points year-on-year in March, reaching 3.4% – its highest level since June 2024 and one-tenth of a percentage point higher than forecast at the end of last month – due to the rise in fuel prices resulting from the conflict in the Middle East.
This 1.1-point increase in the year-on-year CPI rate is the largest since June 2022, when inflation rose from 8.7% to 10.2%. The statistics agency explained that the rise in inflation in March was influenced by higher prices for fuel and lubricants for private vehicles and, to a lesser extent, by the fall in electricity prices, which was smaller than last year’s, as well as by increases in the prices of heating oil and clothing and footwear due to the new spring-summer season.
Specifically, the transport group saw its annual rate surge by more than five percentage points in March to 5.3%, due to the rise in fuel and lubricant prices for private vehicles, compared with the fall in March of the previous year, whilst the housing group recorded an annual rate of 3.7%, almost two points higher than last month, due to the behaviour of electricity prices, which fell less than in March 2025, and liquid fuels, which rose whereas they had fallen the previous year.
Similarly, the clothing and footwear group recorded an annual rate of 2.6%, more than 3.5 percentage points higher than the previous month, as prices rose more than in March 2025 due to the start of the spring-summer season. The CPI released on Tuesday by Statistics Spain takes into account the fuel tax cut included in the Government’s anti-crisis package, but its effect was only felt in the final week of the month.
The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Enterprise highlighted on Tuesday that the government’s response plan, approved by Parliament at the end of last month, “is designed to ensure that the external shock of the war does not permanently affect either inflation or purchasing power”.
“The effects of the fiscal measures on fuel are already being felt at the pumps across the country, although international prices continue to exert upward pressure,” said the Ministry of Economy, noting that the measures implemented since 20 March to cushion the impact of the war on energy costs “will have a moderating effect on inflation over the coming months”.
The First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy, Carlos Cuerpo, estimates that these measures will curb inflation in the coming months by between 0.8 and 1 percentage point. The Ministry of Economy has also highlighted that electricity ‘is acting as a buffer against the energy shock’. ‘Spain’s commitment to renewables – which set the price of electricity for 84% of the time, compared to 25% in 2019 – is a shield against the impact of the war,’ the Ministry maintains.
As regards food, the Ministry of Economy noted that year-on-year inflation for this category fell by five tenths of a percentage point to 2.7%, driven by fresh fruit and eggs, reaching ‘a six-month low’. The INE has also revised upwards the preliminary figure for core inflation (excluding unprocessed food and energy products). In March, this rose by 2.7%, two tenths higher than previously estimated and two tenths higher than in February.