2026/07/08 | Vittorio Peretti, Carolina Monzón, Juan Robayo & Angela Gonzalez
Consumer prices increased by 0.39% MoM in June (+0.47% in April), broadly in line with the Bloomberg market consensus and our call of 0.38%. The main positive contributors in the month were housing and utilities (+0.52% MoM; +16bps), food prices (+0.67%; +13bps) and hotels and restaurants (+0.39%; +5 bps). Consumer prices excluding food rose by 0.32% MoM (+0.15% one year earlier), while inflation excluding food and energy increased by 0.29% MoM (+0.26% in June 2025). On an annual basis, headline inflation increased by 30 bps from May to 6.14%, returning to 3Q24 levels, while core inflation increased by 3bps to 6.52%.
Headline inflation accelerated at the margin. Non-durable goods inflation (mainly food) came in at 5.26% YoY (+80bps from the previous month). Meanwhile, energy inflation returned to positive territory, increasing by 151bps to 1.39% YoY. Although gasoline prices remained unchanged during the month, higher gas (2.2% YoY) and electricity prices (0.9% YoY) contributed to the increase in CPI. Amid favorable FX dynamics, durable goods inflation fell by 26bps to -0.18% YoY. Services inflation remained stable at 7.53% YoY (9.5% peak in September 2023), still reflecting the pass-through from the minimum wage increase. At the margin, we estimate that inflation accumulated in the quarter was 7.1% (SA, annualized; 8.4% in 1Q25). Core inflation stood at 6.6%, down from 9.1% in 1Q26 (SA annualized).
Our take: After current Finance Minister Ávila confirmed that there would be no gasoline price increase in July, our preliminary estimate for July’s inflation ranges between 0.2%-0.3% MoM (August 10 release), implying a CPI close to 6.4%-6.5% YoY. Our baseline forecast puts YE26 inflation at 7.5%, above both the analyst survey expectation (6.5%) and BanRep staff’s forecast (6.4%). Therefore, we expect BanRep to continue its tightening cycle at the July 31 meeting, with the policy rate reaching 13.0% by year-end.