Spain’s harmonized consumer prices rose 5.0% from September 2025 to September 2026, the fastest pace among four European countries whose wage and housing trends show different pressures on households.
Eurostat recorded annual inflation of 4.2% in Italy, 3.6% in Portugal and 3.4% in France.
The latest increases follow a sharper price shock in 2022. Eurostat's annual figures for 2022 were 8.7% for Italy, 8.3% for Spain, 8.1% for Portugal and 5.9% for France. Eurostat identified energy and food as the main drivers of the European Union’s record inflation in October 2022.
Pay has changed less evenly. Calculations from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) show that inflation-adjusted average wages fell 2.9% in Italy from 2000 to 2025. They rose 8.2% in Spain, 16.4% in Portugal and 20.2% in France. The OECD series expresses wages in 2025 euros and adjusts them to a full-time equivalent; it does not measure take-home pay or a typical worker’s earnings.
Housing presents another divide. The OECD’s house-price-to-income ratio rose about 56% in Spain between 2000 and 2025, compared with 39% in France, 24% in Portugal and 5% in Italy. The measure compares house prices with disposable income per person and excludes mortgage costs.
Portugal’s ratio climbed about 67% from 2015 to 2025 after falling earlier in the series. The OECD identifies weak housing investment and a slow supply response to demand as sources of pressure. Eurostat’s second-quarter 2026 data put Portuguese house prices 14.2% above Portugal’s 2025 annual average. French house prices were 1.4% below France’s own 2025 annual average. Those comparisons measure house prices, not affordability relative to income.
Reuters reported a march in Lisbon over housing and living costs on Oct. 17. Eurostat is scheduled to release its flash estimate of October euro area inflation on Nov. 4.
