📊 Tokyo CPI for September 2026 Released (2025 Base)

❓ What Was Released

On October 2, 2026, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC) released the "2025-base Consumer Price Index, Tokyo Ward Area, September 2026 (mid-month advance figures)." The CPI measures how much the prices of the goods and services households buy have moved overall. Prices are indexed with the base-year average set at 100, and changes are read year-on-year (same month a year earlier) or month-on-month. Two points matter in this release. First, it is on the 2025 base. The CPI base is revised roughly every five years, and the index has now shifted from the 2020 base to the 2025 base; because the base year change also refreshes the index level and the basket of surveyed items, figures cannot be lined up directly against old-base numbers. Second, these are Tokyo Ward Area mid-month advance figures. The Tokyo index is published ahead of the national index and is widely used as an early signal of where prices across Japan are heading; as advance figures, they may differ from the final figures released later. The actual numbers — by series such as the all-items index and the index excluding fresh food, and by individual item and time series — are free for anyone to view on the MIC Statistics Bureau page and on e-Stat, the government statistics portal.

👥 Who This Affects

• ●People living in Japan who manage a household budget for rent, food and utilities
• ●People who want price data to back up a pay raise request, a job change, or a contract renewal
• ●People receiving a Japanese public pension, or who expect to receive one
• ●People comparing remittance amounts or living costs in Japan, and tourists or business travelers checking costs before arrival

🌏 Impact on Foreign Residents

For foreign residents, the CPI is a way to check how much living costs have actually risen using official numbers rather than a vague feeling. Because the Tokyo index is broken down by item, you can follow only the categories that dominate your own spending — rent, food, electricity and gas, transport, accommodation. Official figures also give you something concrete to point to when renegotiating a lease, deciding whether to move, revisiting how much you remit home, or asking for a raise at work. Japanese public pension amounts are revised each fiscal year to reflect movements in prices and wages, so this matters to anyone who expects to draw a pension here. Even if Japanese statistical terms are unfamiliar, two of them carry most of the meaning: the year-on-year change (versus the same month one year earlier) and the month-on-month change. Tourists and business travelers can use the same data to check trends in stay-related costs such as accommodation before they come.