Cost of Living
01
Prices are up 1.9% on a year ago.
The Consumer Price Index for August 2026 and the fuel price sheet of 8 October 2026, both read live from Malaysia's official open-data API. What it costs to live here, and how fast that is changing.
Inflation · August 2026
+1.9%
consumer prices against the same month a year earlier
Food & beverages · August 2026
+1.9%
the food & beverages division of the same index, 0.0 points below the headline
RON95 · 8 October 2026
RM4.67
per litre on the weekly sheet — a subsidised BUDI95 row sits alongside at RM1.99
Average since 1981
2.7%
the mean of every annual inflation rate in the series
Official latestOfficial monthly and weekly releases, not live readings — the CPI describes August 2026, and the pump prices are the sheet posted for 8 October 2026. Every figure carries its period.
DOSM — cpi_headline (monthly Consumer Price Index by division), via the OpenDOSM / data.gov.my open API · retrieved 2026-10-12 23:07 UTC
Official DOSM index, monthly from 1980-01; overall plus 13 division indices. Inflation figures on this page are year-on-year changes computed from the index, data as of 2026-08. A monthly statistical release, not a live reading.
MOF — fuelprice (weekly retail fuel prices), via the data.gov.my open API · retrieved 2026-10-12 23:07 UTC
Weekly posted prices from 2017-03-30, level series only; RON95, RON97 and Peninsular diesel charted, first sheet of each month. Data as of 2026-10-08 00:01. Prices are set weekly, not continuously.
The long view
02
Inflation has averaged 2.7% a year since 1981.
Every year of the index, averaged from its monthly year-on-year rates. The worst year in the series is 1981, at 9.7%; the lowest is 2020, at -1.1% — the one year in the series when prices fell outright.
The 2026 point averages the 8 monthly readings published so far, not a full year.
Food vs everything
03
Food is running 0.0 points cooler than everything else.
In August 2026, food & beverages inflation stood at +1.9% against a headline rate of +1.9% — 0.0 percentage points below it. Two years of both rates, month by month.
Headline (all items)
Food & beverages
Both lines are year-on-year changes in the same index — the blue line is the whole basket, the red line its food & beverages division. The widest gap of the window came in Mar 25, when food ran 1.1 points above the headline rate.
Fuel
04
Two prices for the same litre.
The sheet of 8 October 2026 posts RON95 at RM4.67 a litre. A second, subsidised RON95 series — BUDI95 — appears in the data from 30 September 2025, and reads RM1.99 on the latest sheet. Every posted price since 2017, charted below.
RON95
Diesel (Peninsular)
RON95 · BUDI95 (subsidised)
RM per litre. Prices are posted weekly; the chart keeps the first sheet of each month, 115 points from 482 weekly sheets.
RON95
RM4.67
per litre, the sheet's headline petrol price
RON97
RM5.15
per litre, the unsubsidised higher grade
Diesel · Peninsular
RM5.27
per litre; the dataset carries East Malaysia diesel separately
RON95 · BUDI95
RM1.99
the subsidised series the sheet has listed since 30 September 2025
All prices from the weekly sheet of 8 October 2026. Where a column is blank on the sheet, it is blank here too.
MOF — fuelprice (weekly retail fuel prices), via the data.gov.my open API · retrieved 2026-10-12 23:07 UTC
Weekly posted prices from 2017-03-30, level series only; RON95, RON97 and Peninsular diesel charted, first sheet of each month. Data as of 2026-10-08 00:01. Prices are set weekly, not continuously.
Did you know
RM100 in 1980 is about RM342 today.
Between January 1980 and August 2026, the overall index multiplied 3.4 times. What RM100 bought at the start of the series takes roughly RM342 now — and RM100 today does the work RM29 did then.
Computed from the DOSM CPI series (cpi_headline) via data.gov.my
The RON95 price held still for 241 straight weekly sheets.
From 27 February 2021 to 25 September 2025, every weekly sheet posted RON95 at RM2.05 — the longest unchanged run in the 482-week series. The subsidised BUDI95 column first appears on 30 September 2025.
Computed from the MOF fuel price series (fuelprice) via data.gov.my
The widest food-vs-headline gap of the window: 1.1 points.
In Mar 25, food inflation ran 1.1 points above the headline rate. By August 2026 the gap was 0.0 points below it — the two rates have swapped sides inside two years.
Computed from the DOSM CPI series (cpi_headline) via data.gov.my
Deep data
04.3
What the CPI actually measures.
No one re-prices the whole country in real time. DOSM prices a fixed national basket of goods and services every month and publishes the result as an index — in this series the overall index averages 100 across 2010, its reference year, so the August 2026 reading of 137.5 means prices sit 38% above that year's average. Inflation, as quoted here, is the year-on-year change in that index.
CPI series
1980–2026
560 monthly readings of the overall index, data as of 2026-08
Divisions
13
plus the overall index; food & beverages is division 01 in the dataset's dictionary
Fuel series
482 weeks
price sheets since 30 March 2017, data as of 2026-10-08
Update cadence
Monthly · weekly
the page refetches CPI daily and fuel prices every six hours, and shows its retrieval time
Thirteen divisions, one headline
The dataset splits the basket into 13 divisions, labelled in its own dictionary — from food & beverages (01) through housing, utilities, gas & other fuels (04) and transport (07) to personal care, social protection & miscellaneous goods and services (13). This page charts division 01 against the overall index.
A basket, not your basket
The national CPI weights an average of all households, so it will not match any single household's mix of rent, food, school fees and fuel. A later pass will read item-level shelf prices from the PriceCatcher dataset to get closer to what a specific trolley costs.
One sheet, several fuel prices
The fuel dataset carries separate columns for Peninsular and East Malaysia diesel, and for the subsidised BUDI95 and SKPS petrol rows where they apply. This page charts the headline RON95 and Peninsular diesel columns, with BUDI95 shown from the week it first carries a value.
DOSM — cpi_headline (monthly Consumer Price Index by division), via the OpenDOSM / data.gov.my open API · retrieved 2026-10-12 23:07 UTC
Official DOSM index, monthly from 1980-01; overall plus 13 division indices. Inflation figures on this page are year-on-year changes computed from the index, data as of 2026-08. A monthly statistical release, not a live reading.
MOF — fuelprice (weekly retail fuel prices), via the data.gov.my open API · retrieved 2026-10-12 23:07 UTC
Weekly posted prices from 2017-03-30, level series only; RON95, RON97 and Peninsular diesel charted, first sheet of each month. Data as of 2026-10-08 00:01. Prices are set weekly, not continuously.
Prices are one half of every household ledger; the other half is what comes in and where people live. Next shelves: Employment and Housing.