Inflation was 5.6% in August — but housing rents rose 8.4% and electricity and gas 10.3%

The statistics office puts annual inflation at 5.6 percent in August 2026, with prices up 0.4 percent on July alone. Core inflation, which strips out food, energy, regulated tariffs and certain transport fares, came in at 3.8 percent, and 3.6 percent once tobacco is also removed. The gap between the headline and the core tells you where the pressure is sitting: not across the whole basket, but concentrated in a handful of groups that happen to matter a great deal to anyone who owns or rents property here.

The housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels group rose 8.5 percent over the year, adding 0.82 percentage points to the overall index. Inside it, electricity, gas and other fuels were up 10.3 percent, maintenance and repair of the dwelling 8.7 percent, and actual rentals for housing 8.4 percent. Transport was the single largest contributor to annual inflation at 15.2 percent, driven by a 20.8 percent rise in the cost of running a private vehicle and 12.8 percent on transport services. Food and non-alcoholic drinks rose 5.0 percent, with fish up 18.1 percent and meat 9.8 percent, while fruit and grapes fell 6.1 percent.

Two practical consequences. First, if your lease fixes the rent in lari for a year and leaves utilities with the landlord, a 10.3 percent rise in energy prices is coming out of your margin, not the tenant's — which is an argument for separating utilities from rent explicitly rather than bundling them. Second, a tour operator or transfer business quoting prices set earlier in the year is absorbing a 20.8 percent increase in vehicle running costs. Neither problem is solved by the headline rate; both are visible in the group detail, which Geostat publishes monthly and free.