Harmonised Index of Consumer Prices (Eurostat) in Poland

Measures the change in the price of a representative basket of goods and services bought by Polish households, compiled under a methodology harmonised across the EU. It allows Polish inflation to be compared with the rest of the bloc.

It is produced by Poland's Central Statistical Office (GUS) from a regular price collection across a broad sample of outlets, following Eurostat's rules. Item weights are used to build an index with a base year, released mainly as year-on-year (YoY) and month-on-month (MoM) rates of change.

Poland is outside the euro, so its inflation is watched directly by the National Bank of Poland (NBP) when setting rates. A hotter-than-expected print bolsters expectations of higher rates and tends to support the zloty; the HICP also eases European comparison versus the national CPI.

It only captures the prices in the defined basket, not the whole economy, and can differ from the national CPI that usually guides the central bank. For the underlying trend, core inflation strips out energy and unprocessed food.